The Surprising Joy of ‘Smart Glasses’

Ray-Ban Stories seem ridiculous. Starting at $299, Ray-Ban will sell you a pair of “smart” sunglasses that have to be charged but do not have a screen to look at, nor an app store to download from, or any original features.They have two cameras — one for video, another for photos — but so does your phone. They can play audio — through a speaker in each temple — but so can the earbuds in your pocket. Voice commands can be issued by saying “Hey Facebook,” but with fewer functions than Google Assistant or Siri.To top it off; these camera-laden, microphone-equipped wearables are made with Meta, whose loose concerns about user privacy has won them constant criticism in the press and billions in fines.In theory, these are a tough sell. In practice, Stories are among the best tech products on sale and the most tangible example of “ambient computing,” where technology enhances your life, whilst staying firmly in the background.Most tech products pull your focus from the world to the screen in your pocket, but you feel present using the Stories. Compare them to smart watches. Despite the advertised health tracking features, they primarily duplicate your phone’s notifications, adding to your digital buzz and noise.By contrast, you don’t feel cocooned from the world as you listen to a podcast on the glasses or take a phone call. When you see something unexpected or striking, simply press the button atop the right temple, and the moment’s saved. You never divert your eyes or pull out your phone. You stay in the moment.The photo is inferior to even mid range smartphones, but they’re more than acceptable, and as tech critic Marques Brownlee has observed, convenience usually trumps fidelity in consumer technology.Best of all, the Stories are almost indistinguishable from ordinary sunglasses. They don’t weigh much more; nor are they much thicker; and yes, you do have to charge them, but they do in an elegant, leather-esque glasses-case charging dock. And that only rarely needs charging.To some, the mundane nature of the Stories is precisely the problem. Why pay $300 to $400 — depending on the version — for a device without a screen? Yet, the Google Glass or North Focal smart glasses were so subpar that they were swiftly killed, and the best augmented reality experience — through Apple’s upcoming bulky Vision Pro headset — costs $3,499.Similarly, many tech-publication commenters wish you could live-stream or video-call from the Stories, or that the glasses were constantly recording, enabling wearers to press a button to save the last several minutes. Ignoring the myriad of privacy concerns, were these features computationally possible in such a small device, they would likely obliterate battery life, and make the glasses run very hot. Hot devices are annoying on your desk or in your pocket, but they are nauseating when half an inch from your eyes.This is not to say the Stories are flawless — particularly at the price. That glasses case should have wireless charging at the bottom. Despite regular firmware updates, the Bluetooth connection intermittently fails. Multi-point connectivity is an essential feature for premium audio products — allowing you to simultaneously connect to your phone and your laptop over Bluetooth — and these should have them. Similarly, though Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated the glasses in 2021 whilst paddling a boat, they have no official Ingress Protection dust or water resistance certification, and aren’t polarized.They also need a far better voice assistant. Getting turn-by-turn voice navigations for Google Assistant, streamed from your phone to the glasses, is technically feasible, but Meta stubbornly refuses to support that, or any other voice assistant. Finally, these will not be easily repairable, and neither Ray-Ban’s parent company, Luxottica, nor Meta has a stellar reputation for customer service.And yet, what Stories provide is so special that all these complaints —much like the glasses themselves – fade into the background. There are few devices that can make the mundane more pleasant, and joyful. And yet, taking a call on my sunglasses, listening to my music on them, or pausing to capture a quick photo of a passing dog, all without touching my phone or looking at a screen, truly provides that._________The author received a complimentary review sample pair of Ray-Ban Stories from the manufacturer.

The Surprising Joy of ‘Smart Glasses’

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