Episode
OOrion on Meta Glasses: Hands-Free Object Finding and What Meta Connect Means for Blind Users
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In this episode
Meta’s Wearables Device Access Toolkit is out of beta, and Meta chose accessibility apps to show it off. Stéphanie Robieux, co-founder and CEO of OOrion, joins from Meta Connect to explain what this means for blind and low vision people using Ray-Ban Meta glasses.
OOrion finds objects and guides you to them with spatial audio. It now runs on Meta’s glasses, so you can look around and ask where your keys are, which gate you’re at, or what’s in a tin, without holding up a phone. Stéphanie talks about Meta’s new discovery platform, the coming “Hey Meta, open OOrion” command, and the Connect panel where she told Meta’s Chris Barbour that accessibility is the most important thing these glasses can do.
Steven Scott and Stéphanie also get into the business side. OOrion stays free for users, and venues like museums, hotels and train stations pay to have the AI trained on their spaces. A big deal with the French supermarket chain Intermarché may be close.
The conversation also covers Europe’s stricter rules, why running mostly on the device made the move to glasses easier, how feedback from OOrion users led Meta to cut latency and add Wi-Fi streaming, and what’s next, including Find Anything and giving users context inside complex places like hospitals.
Chapters
0:00 – Intro: Meta’s toolkit comes out of beta
1:27 – Inside Meta Connect at Menlo Park
3:37 – Discovery platform and “Hey Meta, open OOrion”
7:50 – Why accessibility matters most on smart glasses
11:02 – Museums, remote controls and design for everyone
13:29 – Free for users: the venue business model and Intermarché
16:28 – Listening to the community
18:53 – Working with Meta, European rules and latency
23:24 – Running locally versus cloud AI
25:09 – What’s next: Find Anything and smarter places
Relevant Links
OOrion: https://www.oorion.fr/en
Meta Wearables Developer Center: https://wearables.developer.meta.com/
Ray-Ban Meta and Meta AI glasses: https://www.meta.com/ai-glasses/
