Be My Eyes Announces New Accessibility Features for Meta Smart Glasses
Last week, San Francisco-based Be My Eyes (BME) announced it’s working alongside Meta to develop new accessibility features for Meta’s ever-popular Ray-Bans and Oakley smart glasses. Be My Eyes said wearers now are able to “connect hands-free to trusted friends and family groups and corporate service centers through voice.”
“The announcement builds on BME’s integration of its ‘Call a Volunteer’ capability on AI glasses at Meta Connect in September 2024,” the company wrote of the news in its press release published last Wednesday. “Since then the two companies have continued to evolve the wearable experience. Now for the first time, blind and low-vision consumers will be able to connect hands-free to trained service representatives who can see and describe what is in front of the customer and guide them step by step—whether configuring broadband equipment, navigating a hotel room, troubleshooting a device, or locating products in-store.”
The features will make tapping “trusted groups” more accessible, Be My Eyes said.
“Be My Eyes users have long been able to create private ‘Groups’—curated lists of trusted individuals such as friends, family members, or colleagues. When initiating a group call, the connection is made to the first available member rather than to an anonymous volunteer. This feature is particularly valuable for sensitive conversations, ongoing personal support, or situations requiring specialized expertise.”
In practice, Be My Eyes explained users are able to use their voice to convey a command such as “Hey Meta, Be My Eyes with [name of group or company].” The prompt then triggers the software to “recognize the request, search the user’s private groups or the public Service Directory, and initiate the appropriate connection—delivering seamless, hands-free access to human support when it’s needed most.”
As you’d expect, executives at both companies are excited by the new capabilities.
“Our collaboration with Meta goes from strength to strength, and we are proud to work alongside a partner that shares our vision of a more accessible world,” said Mike Buckley, Be My Eyes’ chief executive. “By bringing expanded group and enterprise capabilities to Meta AI glasses, we are delivering even greater independence and confidence to our community, and importantly, new strategic opportunities for global brands wanting to connect with their blind and low-vision customers”
For Meta’s part, vice president of accessibility Maxine Williams said in a statement included in the announcement “inclusive innovation guides how we build and design our products” while adding that Meta is working hand-in-hand with Buckley and his team “reflects our commitment to ensuring that emerging technologies are accessible and representative of the diversity of our more than three billion global users.”
In a similar vein, Be My Eyes also recently announced a similar project with Amtrak.
Relatedly, my friend Scott Stein wrote this week for CNET about being “still worried” about Meta’s privacy stance as it pertains to the aforementioned smart glasses. He reached out to Meta PR for more information, writing in his story the company commented in part by saying, specific to using AI, “unless users choose to share media they’ve captured with Meta or others, that media stays on the user’s device.”
“I still like the camera and audio features of smart glasses and am intrigued by the AI features coming. But I’m also very concerned by the uncertainty about where the line is drawn between what gets annotated by a third party, potentially, and what stays private. Meta’s using those third parties to help train AI, or to possibly moderate content. It’s a reminder of how cloud-based and out of our control so many AI services are,” Stein wrote this past Monday. “I get even more worried thinking about reports of Meta wanting to add facial recognition and more to its smart glasses.”
