Data glasses, such as those offered by Meta Ray-Ban, are not particularly suitable for conversations in public places. A significant part of the problem is that the microphone and speaker setup isn’t up to the same standard as a pair of dedicated earbuds like the AirPods. Luckily, a software-driven trick solves the challenge of speaking in chaotic places for meta-smart glasses users.
What can it do?
The solution is called Conversation Focus and is not rolling out to all users who have registered for the Early Access program to test experimental features. The new feature essentially focuses on a target audio signal and filters out the rest of the surrounding noise.
“Conversation Focus amplifies the voices of the people you are in front of, ensuring better communication in noisy places,” the company explains on a support page. All you have to do is say a voice command, e.g. E.g. “Hey Meta, start conversation focus” and the function will be activated.
Broadly speaking, Meta claims that once the feature is activated, you will hear the voice of the person in front of you amplified. The company notes that the system works best when the distance between two people is less than 1.8 meters.
Temper your expectations
Conversational focus works on two levels – standard and reinforced. In amplified mode, speech amplification is sharper and is suitable for particularly noisy rooms. Users can adjust voice gain by moving their fingers across the touchpad integrated into the side arms.
But the function has its own limitations. Meta says it’s not designed for “extremely noisy environments.” Additionally, if you trigger another function that requires access to the microphone, such as speaking to the on-board assistant, the conversation focus is paused.
It’s available for the Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta HSTN smart glasses in the US and Canada and, as mentioned above, is limited to early access users. The launch of the feature was first spotted by UploadVR. If the idea of conversation focus sounds familiar, that’s because AirPods also offer a similar convenience called conversation awareness.
