Meta Glasses with Google & Outlook: Does It ACTUALLY Work?

Vision Forward's Tech Connect

Hello Tech Connectors! Your favorite Assistive Technology Specialists, Cory and Luke, are back at it bringing you the latest and greatest in AT news and reviews!   Today we are breaking out the Meta Glasses once again, this time to test out their newly announced integration with Google and Outlook.   These improvements should allow us to now use our Meta Glasses to review recent emails, as well as draft and send new messages via dictation. But that is not all, we ought to have access to our own files on Google Drive and our calendar events too. This integration claims to allow us to check our appointments, as well as create new ones, all though speaking with our Meta Glasses.   Cory and Luke are excited to showcase their Meta skills today by demonstrating how well these features work in practice! Keep your fingers crossed! And post any questions your have about the Meta Glasses down in the comments!  0:00 Start 1:15 Email Integration, How to get set up and connect accounts 1:55 Gmail, Summary of Inbox, Fails to Open and Read a specific email, 4:10 Outlook, Drafting an email, Fails to send an email 6:25 Managing your Google Calendar, Checking Appointments, Making New Events 9:30 Check the cloud for your Google Drive Files 10:55 Wrap Up Review, Meta's Broken Promises 13:00 ACVREP Credits, Upcoming Livestreams and Topics 14:30 Ending Goof  Call us: 414-615-0103 Email us: techconnect@vision-forward.org Visit us online: https://www.vision-forward.org Online Store: https://www.vision-forward.org/store

Transcript

00:00Hey Corey, can you do the intro to this video for me? I'm sorry, I can't do that

00:04but I can make a draft intro. What?

00:18Hey y'all, welcome back to another TechConnect and we're doing a video today

00:22on some newer features of the Metaglasses. We've done a number of videos

00:27that you can check out on the channel on the Metaglasses covering a number of

00:31different things and obviously Luke, very useful for people who are blind or

00:35visually impaired. Well yes, very useful Corey, also a lot of problems that people

00:40have so you know it's not the be-all and end-all, it's not gonna it's not the

00:43panacea, it's not gonna solve every problem in your life but can be useful

00:47when put into the right hands. So we are gonna look at some new features today

00:52connecting your Gmail, calendar, email, your Outlook email and calendar and we're

00:58going to see do these features work and give you more flexibility and more

01:04productivity or are they gonna add more headaches to your life?

01:08Corey, I think they're all gonna work absolutely great.

01:11As usual, so stick with us and let's check them out.

01:17Okay, so the first new feature we're gonna check out is gonna be the

01:21connection with Gmail and Outlook. This should allow us to read emails and send

01:26emails but how well does it work? Well let's go ahead and find out. Now just

01:31before I do that I will say you do want to install the latest version of the Meta

01:35AI app and update your glasses if you haven't already so that you can get

01:39access to these features. Once you've done that you can connect your Outlook

01:42and or Gmail accounts and we have already done that so we are very prepared here so

01:47let's go ahead and ask if we can read, I don't know, let's see Gmail emails.

01:52Here we go. Hey Meta, what emails do I have in Gmail?

02:00Checking your Gmail inbox now. You've got quite a few in there. The newest ones I see

02:07are a message from Corey Ballard with the subject best video ever plus a bunch of

02:12security alerts from Google about new sign-ins and account access. There's also

02:16updates from YouTube about perks and copyright claims and some promos from

02:20Amazon Alexa and X. Want me to dig into any of those in more detail or read out

02:25the full text from one? Hey Meta, can you read the latest email from Corey in Gmail?

02:34Let me pull up Corey's latest email. Ah, looks like I wasn't able to pull up the

02:40full text from that email. Gmail couldn't find the message details on my end. If you

02:45open it in your Gmail app and paste the content here, I can read it back to you or

02:49help you reply. Sorry about that hiccup. Okay, so this pretty much summarizes our

02:55experience with connecting Meta to the Gmail and the Outlook services. It started off good.

03:02It was telling us what we had in there and it was like, hey, if you want to hear an

03:06email, why don't you just ask me? So I asked her and she said, hey, you know what?

03:10Actually, I don't want to do that after all. I don't understand that it said, why it said

03:15that it could read you the email. And when you asked it, it would then respond saying,

03:19I'm unable to read the full text of the email. Yeah, definitely not what you would want. It's

03:25basically useless other than giving you a vague idea of what emails you've received.

03:30But other than that, pretty much useless, I would say.

03:33I mean, yeah, I guess knowing you got an email from somebody and what the subject is. Imagine

03:39if it said like, from Luke, and the subject is most serious thing ever. And then you have

03:45no idea and you can't find out what it is. So I don't understand it. Put it down in the

03:49comments. If you're having a different response, if you're getting it to read your email back

03:56to you, let us know. Maybe we're doing something wrong. I don't know what though.

03:59You never know. But yeah, definitely put it in the comments. And Corey, let's see whether it

04:04does a better job with sending an email. Sounds good.

04:10Okay, well, we weren't able to open and listen to the contents of an email. But how about if we

04:15try and send an email? This time we'll use Outlook. Last time we were using Gmail. But they

04:20do work the same here. So I'm going to ask Outlook to send an email. Hey Meta, send an email

04:27to

04:27Corey using Outlook. I hear you, but I can't actually send emails through Outlook. I can

04:35only read emails you already have in there. I can help you write the whole message for

04:38Corey though, just like I did a moment ago. Want me to adjust that draft or add anything

04:43else to it? Please make the subject, hello, Corey. And the message should read, hello, Corey,

04:49comma, this is Luke period. Doesn't this work great? Question mark. Perfect. Here's your updated draft

04:57for Outlook. Hello, Corey. Message. Hello, Corey. This is Luke. Doesn't this work great? Just copy

05:04and paste that into Outlook and hit send. Need anything else added? No, thank you, Meta.

05:10Anytime, Luke. Glad I could help with the draft. Have a good one.

05:14Well, Corey, we tried to send an email and it very helpfully created a draft for us that now we

05:21have to

05:22open Gmail on a different device to actually send. Yeah, I don't understand. When you add the

05:26integration, the app integration through the Meta AI app, it clearly says in there, read and send and

05:34organize email. Read, no. Send, no. I don't understand why creating the draft, saving that draft,

05:44then you have to pull out your phone, copy it, go into the Outlook. I don't understand. I mean,

05:49I guess if you were out on the go and you wanted to get an email out and not forget

05:56what you were

05:56doing, you could get your thoughts out and then it's waiting there, but then you're going to forget

06:01to send it, right? I mean, you still have to remember something, but to me, again, I don't see

06:07how it's useful. Absolutely hopeless. I don't understand it. I don't recommend using it. However,

06:14Corey, let's not give up just yet because we can also supposedly manage our calendar using the

06:20Meta Glasses. So should we give it a try? Let's give it a whirl. All right.

06:26All right. Emails didn't go as expected, but let's see if calendar is any better. I would expect that we

06:32should be able to find out what's on our calendar and then also create an appointment. Again, it works

06:38on both your Google calendar or Outlook calendar and the process is going to be the same. First,

06:43let's find out if we have anything going on tomorrow. Hey Meta, do I have any appointments tomorrow?

06:52Checking your schedule. Yeah, you've got a few tomorrow. There's one from 9 to 10 a.m.

06:58called Appointment. Another 9 to 10 a.m. with Corey called Go and Seed Corey. And one at noon until

07:061 p.m.

07:07also labeled Appointment. And one at noon until 1 p.m. also labeled Appointment. Hey Meta, stop.

07:16All right. So we were able to get information on what was on our calendar for some odd reason. I

07:22have

07:22an appointment to go and see myself. Sometimes I do that just to check in and see how I'm doing.

07:27But let's see if we can add an appointment now. We're going to add it for tomorrow. Actually,

07:32we're going to add it for Sunday at 11 a.m. Hey Meta, schedule an appointment for Sunday

07:39at 11 a.m. for a, I don't know, baseball game. Just a moment. You're off. Hey Meta, stop.

07:55All right. It said you're off and then stopped. So I'm not sure if that worked or not. It kind

08:00of cut

08:01out. Let's find out though. Hey Meta, do I have anything scheduled on Sunday?

08:10Yep. You've got a baseball game on Sunday at 11 a.m.

08:14All right. So it worked, cut off, but it did work. Well, Corey, calendar, it did work, kind of,

08:20sort of. Now, we're not sure with the glasses cutting off, whether it's an issue with our

08:23glasses or an issue with Meta AI in general. Hard to say. Yeah. I mean, so when you notice,

08:30when I asked it if I had any appointments, there was actually three of them. Two of them were ones

08:36that were, I guess, added, even though it cut off and I wasn't aware that it added them. So yeah,

08:42we have been having a little issues with it, but it did ultimately work. It did. Now, my question is,

08:48Corey, since you can already do this with your phone, whether you have an Android or an iPhone,

08:52using your phone's digital assistant, and that seems to work better. Is there any point to this?

08:58Again, I do think it's hands-free. If you're wearing your glasses, you're out doing something,

09:03your whatever, you want that hands-free, that's where I think it probably is worth it. Otherwise,

09:09you'd have to pull your phone out or yell, hey, Siri, really loud into your pocket or something.

09:14So if you want that hands-free, then I do think it, you know, there's some benefit there.

09:18Okay. So definitely works better than emails, but let's do one final test. We should be able to

09:23connect our Meta glasses to Google Drive and then have it tell us all about the files in there. So

09:28let's go ahead and give it a shot.

09:33Okay. So our final test, we do have now supposed integration with Google Drive,

09:38which is obviously your cloud storage for Google. And we should be able to check the files that we

09:43have in our Google Drive and have Meta tell us something about those files. So let's begin by

09:48asking Meta to tell us what files we have. Hey, Meta. What files do I have in my Google Drive?

09:58Looking in Google Drive. I can't directly pull up your Google Drive files from here,

10:04but you can check them pretty easily. Go to drive.google.com on your browser,

10:10log into your Google account, and you'll see everything under My Drive. You can double-click

10:14any file to open it or use the search bar at the top to find something specific. If you're on

10:19your phone,

10:20just open the Google Drive app and scroll through your files there. Want me to walk you through searching

10:24for a specific file? No. Got it. No problem. Hey, Meta, stop.

10:33So apparently the integration that we now have with Google Drive is Meta telling us that she can't

10:40look in Google Drive and instead we should go on our computer to look in there. Not the best. I

10:48would

10:48say there's a bit of work to be done here. But anyway, there's Google Drive. Let's wrap this up.

10:57All right. So three for three on email, calendar, and Google Drive. That's what I saw.

11:02Sorry, it's incredible what technology can do in 2026. And I think that Meta are really on the right

11:08track here. They basically are forcing people to learn how to do things themselves without using the

11:16Meta glasses, which is a great thing. You know, I'm going to give you a moment of honesty. Okay.

11:21When this stuff happens, I always think to myself,

11:25are we doing it wrong? Or is it literally just broken? Because to me, it seems too obvious. Like,

11:36hey, you can now check your Outlook and Gmail and you can send email and they don't work.

11:40Well, so here's the thing, I agree. We could be doing something wrong here. You know, we don't have

11:45a lot of time to prep for videos sometimes and we have to just, you know, give it a try

11:49and see what

11:49happens. So yes, except how many times, how many different ways can you ask? Here's why I don't

11:55think we're wrong in this case. Because Meta literally tells us you can do this. And then you say,

12:02okay, can you do this? And it says no. So I mean, I don't think that's us doing something wrong.

12:07I suppose it is your definition. When it says we can send email, what it can do is create a

12:12draft

12:12that you can send the emails. But then also, it literally said, after it had read, you know,

12:18the basics of the inbox, it literally said, hey, do you want me to open any of these and maybe

12:23read the email? And I was like, hey, yeah, that'd be nice. Why don't you read the email from Corey?

12:27Oh, sorry. I can't do that. Yeah, exactly. So I don't know.

12:29All right. So we know that these couple integrations, the calendar, yes, that worked.

12:35But the email, the Google Drive, really no point. Unless again, you want that hands-free capability,

12:42knowing you're going to have to come back at a later point and copy and send that email.

12:47But if that's something you're cool with and want to do, then this was a perfect video for you.

12:52Yeah, it certainly will. And hey, you know, try this for yourself. Maybe there's something wrong with

12:55our glasses. Maybe there's something wrong with our environment. Maybe the moon wasn't aligned

13:00with the stars and the sun in the right way. I have no idea. So try it for yourself. If

13:05it doesn't

13:06work for you, please put it in the comments. I would love to know. If it does work for you,

13:10please put it in the comments. I would also love to know. But for the moment, we will not be

13:13using

13:14this because it's broken. Something that's not broken, though, Corey, is our learning management

13:19system where you can learn about things that do actually work. We have a range of informative

13:24and informational videos. That's the same thing. So much information. We have a number of great

13:31videos there where you can earn free ACV REP credits on demand. And all you have to do is

13:37vision. No, what is vision? Is visit techconnect.vision-forward.org. There we go. I got there.

13:45And you can sign up and get access to those videos for free. We also do a live show right

13:49here on this

13:49channel every other Thursday at 11 a.m. Central. We typically have great guests. We've had the CEO

13:56from Tavala on recently. And then we also did a produced video on the Tavala Smart Oven. Go back

14:02and check that out. It actually is pretty cool. Tasted pretty good. But we always have cool guests

14:07on our live show. So again, right here on this channel, 11 a.m. every other Thursday. Join us. We

14:13would

14:13appreciate it. You certainly would. And with that being said, from Corey, from myself, and from Meta,

14:19goodbye and see you next time.

14:31I can't create this video right now. Would you like me to make a draft of it? And then you

14:36could paste

14:36it into YouTube?

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