Bug turns one of the biggest fears about Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses into reality

Some Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses were caught recording people’s conversations even when the wearer had not said the wake phrase. Meta says the problem came from a bug and says it has now been fixed. That still leaves a nasty little thought hanging over the product: if a pair of glasses can listen when nobody asked it to, trust gets expensive fast.

The reports surfaced this week, when users began posting that their glasses were recording without their consent. One Reddit user, posting as Kindly-Audience-137, said it happened across three Meta Ray-Bans. They also said the “Respond without Hey Meta” setting was turned off, which makes the behavior sound even less like user error and more like the sort of glitch that ruins a whole category of device.

That same user said the Meta AI app saved audio recordings and text transcripts of the conversations in their conversation history. That is the part that turns an abstract bug into something more concrete and more uncomfortable. It is one thing for a smart assistant to misfire. It is another for it to keep a written and audio record of private talk when people thought it was off duty.

Meta’s answer is that the bug has been fixed. Fine. But smart glasses already ask for a lot of trust, and this is exactly the kind of failure that makes people check whether the tiny computer on their face is listening when it should be minding its own business.