Meta's highly anticipated Meta Connect developer conference took an unexpected turn when several live demos of their new smart glasses line faltered. The glitches, far from being simple Wi-Fi issues as initially suspected, revealed deeper, more complex problems within the system's architecture and software. Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth shed light on these failures in a post-event Instagram Q&A, offering a technical explanation for the audience.
One particularly embarrassing incident involved cooking influencer Jack Mancuso, whose attempt to use the Ray-Ban Meta glasses for a recipe demonstration went awry. The glasses failed to respond to his queries, instead inexplicably skipping ahead in the recipe. While Mancuso jokingly blamed the Wi-Fi, Bosworth revealed the true culprit: a critical error in resource management. The activation of Live AI on his glasses inadvertently triggered the same function on every other Ray-Ban Meta device in the building, overwhelming the system.
This wasn't simply a matter of too many requests; Meta had also misconfigured the routing of Live AI traffic. By directing it to a development server intended only for demonstration purposes, they inadvertently created a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on their own server, rendering it incapable of handling the influx of requests. In essence, Meta inadvertently brought down its own system through a flawed design decision.
A separate issue plagued a live WhatsApp video call demo between Bosworth and Mark Zuckerberg. Here, a previously unknown 'race condition' bug caused the glasses' display to sleep at the precise moment the call was received. This prevented Zuckerberg from seeing the incoming call notification, effectively halting the demonstration. Bosworth emphasized that this was a unique and unexpected bug, highlighting the challenges inherent in developing complex interconnected systems. The bug has since been resolved.
Despite the public display of technical issues, Bosworth expressed confidence in the underlying technology. He reiterated that the problems were specific to the demo environment, not indicative of broader product flaws. The event underscored the challenges of deploying cutting-edge technology in a live, public demonstration setting, even for a tech giant like Meta. It also serves as a valuable lesson in thorough testing and resource management for future product launches.
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Originally published at: https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/19/meta-cto-explains-why-the-smart-glasses-demos-failed-at-meta-connect-and-it-wasnt-the-wi-fi/
