The people who buy these glasses will soon be out in public and private spaces, photographing and recording the rest of us, and using Facebook’s new “View” app to sort and upload that content. Confusingly dubbed Ray-Ban Stories, they start at $299 and bring together much of the technology we’ve already seen in smart eyewear. They’ll let you clubmaster take first-person photos and videos on the go, like Snap’s Spectacles. And, similar to Bose and Amazon’s speaker-equipped glasses, you’ll be able to listen to media, as well as take calls. Wayfarers were designed in 1952 by American optical designer Raymond Stegeman, who worked for Bausch & Lomb, Ray-Ban’s parent company at that time.
The camera lenses and indicator light on the Ray-Bans are easy to miss. Where Snap’s design team has leaned into the Burning Man aesthetic for its Spectacles, Facebook and Ray-Ban went normcore. If you ignore the fact that they have cameras and wireless connectivity, Ray-Ban Stories are just a pair of Wayfarers. We weighed one of the pairs, which measured 49.3 grams—just shy of the stated 49.6 grams cited in the specs, and around 5 grams more than the original Wayfarers they’re modeled after. Crucially, that extra weight is distributed well, and both of us remarked that it was easy to forget you were wearing tech-laden shades.
Similarly, the company says that anything you capture is encrypted on the glasses. It has even put out a one-sheet outlining its privacy policies for Ray-Ban Stories, and it built what it calls a “privacy microsite” for people visiting Ray-Ban’s website. Last week Facebook released its new $299 “Ray-Ban Stories” glasses. Wearers can use them to record and share images and short videos, listen to music, and take calls.
You won’t realize they’re special Ray-Bans unless you’re looking specifically for the two cameras on the corner of the device’s frames. The glasses were first reported by CNBC in 2019, but Facebook is hardly the first company to roll out a pair of smart glasses. Social-media rival Snap launched its first Spectacles devices in 2016, and the ill-fated Google ray ban new wayfarer Glass devices launched way back in 2013. Shop our range of iconically Ray-Ban glasses for men and for women today and discover the styles you know and love along with some legendary new arrivals. If Facebook adds facial recognition to these glasses in the future, as the company is reportedly considering, people will have to find new countermeasures.
Our optometrists include industry leaders who provide personalized eye care, innovative treatments, and high-quality vision products. You can speak to them, too, with voice control that’s powered by the Facebook intelligence that is built into these glasses. You can just ask to take a photo, for instance – once again ensuring that you can get on with doing and capturing whatever it is you’re doing, looking up at the world through your glasses rather than down at your phone. They include touch controls on the side, for instance, which mean that you can control your the glasses without requiring a phone or anything else too complicated.