Meta sets monthly caps on smart glasses audio feature
Meta says Conversation Focus will be capped at three free hours a month, with higher use tied to a $19.99 Meta One Premium plan.
By Maya Lindqvist · Senior Technology Correspondent
3 min read
Meta is placing monthly usage limits on Conversation Focus, an audio feature for its AI glasses, according to a Meta help page reported by The Verge. For owners, the change means a feature on purchased hardware will have a free monthly cap, with more access tied to a paid subscription.
According to The Verge, Meta says AI glasses owners will get three hours of Conversation Focus use each month at no added cost. Meta’s help page says subscribers to Meta One Premium, a $19.99 monthly plan, will get 15 hours of use per month for the feature, The Verge reported.
Meta describes the policy as a usage limit for some AI features rather than a requirement to pay to use the glasses, according to The Verge. The company says all AI glasses owners receive free monthly access for certain features, The Verge reported.
Conversation Focus is designed to make another person’s voice easier to hear in noisy settings, according to The Verge. Meta has described the feature as using the glasses’ open-ear speakers, beamforming and real-time spatial processing to raise the volume of the person a user is speaking with, The Verge reported.
The Verge said the feature appears to work without Meta’s servers. Sean Hollister of The Verge reported that Conversation Focus continued working after he disabled internet access on his phone, including Wi-Fi and cellular service, and used Airplane Mode.
That detail is central to the criticism of the new cap. The Verge reported that Conversation Focus runs on the device using hardware inside the glasses, rather than requiring a cloud connection for each use.
Meta has not publicly explained why an offline-capable feature would need a monthly limit, according to The Verge. The outlet said it asked Meta whether the company could explain the policy and whether other on-device features could be placed behind a subscription, but Meta did not immediately respond.
The subscription change comes as Meta continues to spend heavily on AI, according to The Verge. The outlet reported that Meta recently laid off about 10 percent of its workforce, roughly 8,000 people, in part to help offset AI investment costs.
The Verge also reported that Meta recently lowered the price of three AI glasses models by $80 after removing the Ray-Ban branding. The publication raised the possibility that subscriptions could become another way for Meta to support the economics of its smart glasses line, though Meta has not said that is the reason for the new cap.
The glasses have also drawn privacy scrutiny, according to The Verge. The publication cited earlier reporting that code related to a facial recognition upgrade had been found in Meta’s smart glasses app, and said the Electronic Frontier Foundation later reported that Meta removed the code after public criticism.
For now, the confirmed change is narrower: Meta is capping monthly Conversation Focus use and offering a higher limit through Meta One Premium, according to the company’s help page as reported by The Verge. Meta has not yet provided a public explanation for applying that limit to the feature.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.