Meta Smart Glasses May Soon Auto-Generate Video Highlights Using Facial Recognition

The Meta Smart Glasses are currently quite popular for all the wrong reasons. Despite mounting privacy concerns and growing venue restrictions on wearable cameras, Meta is working to add video editing and facial identification tools to change how users capture and review memories.

AI-Curated Highlights are Coming to Meta Smart Glasses

According to a patent documentation first spotted by 404Media and reported by PCMag, Meta is working on a facial recognition system for its smart glasses that can analyse recorded video to identify specific individuals in a frame and determine their relationship to the wearer.

Meta Smart Glasses personalised face detection — Image Credit: 404Media

The software automatically generates short highlight reels from events like family dinners or parties, tagging the people involved and asking the user to review the footage. Meta says that the utility will be assertive and personalised, aiding users across various camera-based tasks.

For those unaware, the Meta smart glasses boast video recording in up to 3K resolution, capped at a time range of 3 to 5 minutes depending on the SKU. By allowing them to recognise faces, the smart glasses are expected to become slightly more feature-rich, leading to a more personalised experience.

Meta Ray Ban smartglasses closeup of cameras — Image Credit: Beebom Gadgets

It's not all roses for Meta, though. The Meta smart glasses, especially the Meta Ray-Bans, have received severe criticism when it comes to privacy. Since the smart glasses blend incredibly well with users and their environment, they are being used to record without consent. And while the recording LED exists, users have found a way around it by covering it.

Well, that was until recently, as Meta has deployed a firmware update designed to permanently brick smart glasses if any physical tampering with the recording LED is detected. Besides, there seems to be active participation by common users in building smart glasses detection tools, helping build vigilance.

With growing concerns around privacy, Meta seems to be stepping in the wrong direction. As Samsung and Apple prepare to launch their own smart glasses, one of the core challenges they will face is balancing personal convenience with public privacy expectations.

In fact, rumours about upcoming Apple glasses point towards Apple potentially exploring having no cameras but using environmental sensors to feed real-world visual data to the on-device AI for object and local recognition. These alternatives should hopefully be much more privacy-aligned, but will also have their own drawbacks. More information should be revealed as we transition into 2027.