My 5-year-old wore them running around a family Rosh Hashanah dinner, and the footage was like a charmingly demented version of the restaurant scene in Goodfellas. The Ray-Ban Stories, a new line of eyewear by Facebook and Ray-Ban, in San Francisco on Sept. 8, 2021. Facebook has teamed up with Ray-Ban to create glasses that can take photos, record video, answer phone calls and play podcasts. Ray-Ban sunglasses (sometimes written simply as “RayBans”) are luxury eyewear products that date all the way back to 1936. The Italian-American brand was founded by Bausch & Laumb, an eye care company that continues to manufacture a wide range of eye care products.
That’s a big achievement for pair of smart glasses sold by a tech company. The form factor drove a lot of decisions, from speaker architecture to the camera selection. The people I spoke with said Facebook took their feedback seriously, and that they overall feel comfortable with how the product is designed. But some agreed that the recording light should be more prominent. The two companies first connected over two years ago when Luxottica’s chief wearable officer, Rocco Basilico, cold emailed Mark Zuckerberg asking to meet and discuss collaborating on smart glasses. Zuckerberg had publicly laid out Facebook’s aspiration to build AR glasses that could one day be as widely adopted as mobile phones.
In a 2017 speech at Facebook’s developer conference, he showed the crowd a mockup of smart glasses that looked similar to Ray-Bans. Basilico was leading Luxottica’s own smart glasses efforts at the time and knew the eyewear giant needed to partner with a tech company to build them. The tech in the glasses is so hidden that it’s hard to tell there are cameras on them at all. The white recording light is also fairly dim, which could pose privacy concerns if people don’t realize the glasses are capturing photos or video. Even though all of the features are hidden away, the glasses ensure privacy by including a little light that illuminates when the camera is recording. That means you and people around you can be safe in the knowledge that the glasses are never watching without you realising.
On the other hand, for an active adventurer or endurance athlete, Oakley is your jam. Between their ergonomically-designed wraparound frames and precision performance lenses, you’ll be better equipped to go faster, longer, and harder in one of their sunglasses. If style and fashion is your thing, Ray-Bans are a no-brainer. Their iconic frames never get old – plus, they come out with modern versions that look fresh and new even though the “bones” of the original is still in there. You can also get prescription lenses through any one of these shops too.
There’s a hard-wired LED light that comes on whenever you’re taking a photo or a video so other people aren’t caught unaware. Facebook today launched its first smart glasses, which were created in collaboration with Ray-Ban. The Ray-Ban Stories are priced starting at $299 and come in 20 style combinations. In interviews, Facebook and Ray-Ban indicated it’s possible that the companies could eventually work together on AR versions of the glasses. They also said the partnership would expand to additional Ray-Ban styles and offerings from other Luxottica brands. Luxottica also owns the rights to Oakley, Chanel, Prada, Burberry and dozens of other name-brand glasses.
The phrase “secret spy camera glasses” is making your heart race. Knowing that Facebook is discussing building facial recognition into these things curdles the stomach. Get email exclusives, special offers and more delivered right to your inbox.
Ray-Ban continues to offer a variety of traditional, contemporary and performance sunglasses and eyeglasses styles for men, women and kids. After testing out the Ray-Ban Stories for a few days, I found them far more compelling than any smart glasses today. They don’t look as goofy as the Snap Spectacles, and they’re far more comfortable to wear than Bose and Amazon’s Frames. I could only use the Stories in limited situations though, since I need prescription lenses to actually see well.
Acetate frames like the Wayfarer are smooth and seamless because theycut them from a single block. If you’ve ever owned or tried on a pair of Ray-Ban knockoffs, you’ll see and feel the difference in the details – the real thing has perfectly aligned fit and edges with hinges that open and close smoothly. Both Ray-Ban and Oakley use high quality materials in the making of their frames. Ray-Ban’s frames are built for everyday use while Oakley is more focused on protection and performance with durable, flexible frames that can withstand impact. Founded in 1975 by Jim Jannard in his garage, the fledgling company initially sold handlebar grips for motocross.
There’s no danger that you’ll be mistaken for some nerdy person from the future, since the looks are just as good as the features. They also come in a range of different colours and lens combinations that mean you can get access to the smartest glasses you’ll ever own in whatever design you’d like. The camera is just the beginning of the smarts that are integrated into the Ray-Ban Stories. It includes a wide variety of other features that mean they are the smartest glasses you’ll ever have worn, in a variety of ways.
As you’d expect from Ray-Ban, even with all of those smarts inside these glasses look incredible smart, too. You can choose from three of its classic styles – the Wayfarer, Round or Meteor – all of which pack in the same quality, luxury and fine design that the company is so well known for. You can speak to them, too, with voice control that’s powered by the Facebook intelligence that is built into these clubmaster glasses. Unlike carrying a phone or a devoted camera, you won’t have to reach into your pocket and pull it out, by which point the moment is probably gone. And you don’t have to hold a device in front of your face, taking yourself out of the moment so that you don’t really get to experience it the first time around. In many ways, Ray-Ban Stories look just like any other of the brand’s glasses.