Non-Meta Smartglasses and my Pet Issues

Some time ago, I saved a link to a November 12, 2025 report in Wired titled Hate Meta? Even Realities Is Making the Smart Glasses You Want. This is a flawed headline. It presupposes that the main reason someone may not want smart glasses is because the most prominent options are developed by Meta. Now, to be sure, I would not consider Meta’s involvement to be a feature (I say this as someone who does not have any Meta accounts or devices). Also to be sure, these Even Realities “smart glasses” sound less bad that Meta’s offerings even without taking into account one’s views of Meta: > As Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses continue to turn your face into a computer, with a camera and speaker, Even Realities is doubling down on a design that eschews those components. Instead, it’s focusing on extending your smartphone through the display of its smart glasses while figuring out new mechanisms for controlling the experience. But the headline betrays a questionable premise. Why would I want smart glasses? Because Meta makes smart glasses and some tech people wear them? Every time I take a walk in Brooklyn, I cannot help but notice how many of my fellow pedestrians walk with their faces buried in their phones. They scroll, swipe, text, engage in phone calls and video chats(!?), and sometimes stare at their own faces when they go too long without looking at themselves in a window. I have even documented parents giving phones to stroller-bound toddlers. What you never see these people do is take a monent to look around or spend a second with their own thoughts. The headline reminded me of my Fediverse Clone Wars and Decentralized Social Media and short post on TikTok alternatives. Many “alternative” social media platforms start from the premise that the main problems with the big tech players are centralization, ads, and algorithims. While those are all problems, they tend to neglect the structure and formats of those platforms. I dare say this Meta smart glasses has an even worse case of the problem. I conclude by noting that perhaps some people have genuine use-cases for these Evev Realties smart glasses. But your average person walking around Brooklyn would stand to benefit from using his or her phone less. Just because Meta, Google, or some other big tech player pushes a product does not mean that we need a non-big tech alternative. In looking for good tech ideas, we should consider whether ideas are good in and of themselves instead of with reference to a bad tech product. You can reply to this article from your own site by sending a Webmention.