Meta will charge users of its smart glasses $20 per month through a new Meta One Premium subscription, and one of the first existing features to get limited access is Conversation Focus.
Meta One Premium represents a new package that the company announced in May as part of a broader rollout of subscriptions to its social networks, AI services and devices. The company presents it as a way for users to get more features and more advanced support, but the new model also limits the capabilities that were previously part of the product itself.
According to the updated support page, Meta One Premium also applies to owners of Meta smart glasses, regardless of whether their model has a display. Subscription extends access to the Conversation Focus feature and brings premium support for AI glasses.
Without a subscription, Conversation Focus can only be used for three hours per month. Paying for the Meta One Premium package of $20 per month increases the limit to 15 hours, but even then the feature is not available without a time limit.
The available time is renewed every month, similar to the limits applied to modern AI subscriptions.
Conversation Focus uses directional microphones to pick up and amplify the voice of the person the user is talking to. In this way, speech becomes clearer in noisy restaurants, on the street or in other environments with a large amount of background noise.
The function can also be useful for people who have hearing difficulties, as it makes it easier to follow conversations in demanding sound conditions.
A particularly controversial part of the decision is that, according to available information, sound processing is performed directly on the glasses’ hardware. Conversation Focus does not depend on a constant connection to servers or cloud processing, but uses built-in microphones and the device’s local processor.
Therefore, it is not clear why Meta limits the number of hours of use of a function that is executed on the device itself that the user has already paid for. Unlike generative AI services, this system does not require constant server resources that could justify an additional monthly fee.
Meta One includes additional features for the company’s various products and services, including Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Meta AI and smart glasses. Various packages with special prices and benefits are available.
The company has not yet commented in detail on the new limitations of the Conversation Focus function.
The decision shows that Meta’s premium subscription will not be limited to new AI capabilities, but could also include existing device features. In this case, the user does not pay for a new option, but for additional time to use the option that already exists on smart glasses, reports 9to5Google.