When I reviewed Meta’s display-enabled glasses last year, I was really curious to see if they would be useful while cooking. I spend a lot of time trying new recipes, and being able to see the steps right in front of my eyes sounded so much more convenient than having to repeatedly unlock and scroll through my phone with dirty hands.
Unfortunately, the glasses didn’t quite hold up as a cooking aid. At the time, the only way to get recipe content was via Meta AI. And even when I tried the recipes it suggested, the steps wouldn’t appear in the display long enough to complete them.
But Meta has now revived my hope that smart glasses could save me some frustration while cooking dinner. The company showed off a new integration with the New York Times Cooking app that will bring its recipes to its display glasses and to its wider lineup of non-display AI glasses. It’s not available yet, but we got a brief preview of how it will work during Meta’s developer state of the union at Connect.
The New York Times Cooking app is getting a new “hands-free mode” that will allow users to pair their glasses to the app in order to receive audio cues for the dish they’re cooking. But the feature won’t just read out the same steps listed in the app. “With cooking’s editorial guidance, we developed a system to restructure lengthy steps into brief audio instructions, preserving the author’s expertise while supplying ingredients and measurements in line,” The New York Times’ AJ Chavar explained. The version for Meta’s Ray-Ban Display glasses will also keep recipe steps brief, with each displayed on a card users can swipe through as they go.
Chavar didn’t say exactly when the app would be available on Meta’s glasses, but said hands-free mode would be rolling out “later this fall.”
