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Introduced last year, Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses have been well received by consumers—Meta sold more pairs of the new glasses in just a few months than the older 2021 Ray-Ban (then called “Stories”) sold in two years.
The success of the glasses may be due in part to the fact that the company accepted criticism from its competitors and then discontinued it.
The person who introduced the new Ray-Ban Metas at Meta Connect in October 2023 is their Vice President of Product Li-Chen Miller, who took the position at Meta in 2022 after working for a Meta competitor.
Li-Chen Miller. Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images
According to a Bloomberg report on Monday, in late 2021, Miller wrote a detailed email to Alex Himel, then head of wearables at Meta, describing her experience with the Ray-Ban Stories. She had purchased them and had thoughts and ideas on how to improve them.
“She wrote me an email outlining what she liked about the device and what was promising, and then a longer list of things she would improve,” Himel told Bloomberg.
Related: Mark Zuckerberg says upcoming meta product left testers ‘dizzy’
At the time, Miller was corporate vice president of Microsoft Search, Experiences, and Devices at Microsoft, and had worked there as a program manager for nearly two decades. She even shared the stage with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at a 2017 keynote event to demonstrate new workplace features.
Himel had not asked for the list, but agreed with most of Miller's points.
The following year, Miller landed a job at Meta as head of its wearables division. The email she sent Himel played a key role in her landing her current position at Meta, according to Bloomberg.
Miller could be on stage at Meta's annual Connect event on Wednesday, where the company is expected to announce updates to its smart glasses.
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Meta has already hinted that wearables are its future focus. According to a press release earlier this month, Meta aims to “make wearable history” by extending its Ray-Ban deal beyond 2030.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also spoke positively about the Ray-Ban Metas at the last earnings call in July, saying that sales of the glasses were promising.
“Ray-Ban Meta glasses are a big success faster than expected – thanks in part to AI,” Zuckerberg said. “Demand still exceeds our ability to manufacture them, but I'm confident we'll be able to meet that demand soon.”
Related: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang calls Mark Zuckerberg's vision for the future of AI a “home run idea”
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