WhatsApp may soon let you command the Ray-Ban Stories glasses to send a message

Meta appears to be working on a new way for WhatsApp users to send messages to friends and family without even touching their phones.

File photo: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wearing Ray-Ban Stories glasses

Designed to allow users to send messages through the Facebook Assistant

WhatsApp is rumored to be working on a feature that allows users to dictate messages through a pair of smart glasses. The feature is likely to be exclusive to Meta's pair of smart glasses which is the Ray-Ban Stories.

Ray-Ban Stories combines Ray-Ban's looks with a few smart and innovative additions. Each wing of the glasses hides a camera, which combines to shoot five megapixel still images and video of up to 30 seconds with a long or short tap of the device's only button. 

This pair of smart glasses is also equipped with an open-ear speaker to listen, and a "three-microphone audio array to deliver rich voice and sound transmission for calls and videos"

They have open-ear audio with Bluetooth phone calls and music playback, hands-free picture and video taking, and a wide range of frame shape, size, and color options.

According to an APK teardown by XDA Developers, the most recent beta version of WhatsApp (v2.22.9.13) contains evidence suggesting that the messaging app may soon allow you to send messages with this feature.

Smart glass users will be able to link their smart glass with WhatsApp on their phones, and then say commands like "Hey Facebook, message Anna on WhatsApp" to proceed to send messages without needing to take their phones out of their pocket.

Allegedly, the strings found in the teardown imply that it will enable users to dictate a message to a digital assistant, particularly the Facebook Assistant. This means that the voice assistant support may not be compatible with Google Assistant.

Aside from strings, the APK also contains the following two graphic assets and some other smaller icons. The first graphic somehow confirms that Ray-Ban Stories will have a feature for WhatsApp users. 

Meanwhile, the second graphic appears to highlight the End-to-End encryption that will presumably remain in effect when using voice-based commands through Facebook Assistant.

However, there's still no guarantee that Meta will release it to the public. According to the source, smart glasses are still limited in availability at the moment. Hence, the feature will not be useful or beneficial to the majority of WhatsApp users.

On the other hand, Meta rolled out an update late last year for hands-free Messenger support for the smart glasses. For owners of Ray-Ban Stories, they can send and read messages to their contacts through voice commands.

Let's wait for the official announcement from Meta to confirm the arrival of the feature on WhatsApp.

What do you think?

Source: XDA