After years of murmurs, Facebook was ready to formalize itself announces today its first pair of “smart” sunglasses. Ray-Ban, the Facebook partner in this project, even creates an elegant place mocking the ad two days ago. He even posted Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg video clips allegedly taken with the device. And then the glasses were leaked.
The pictures were posted to Twitter by prolific leaker Evan Blass. And they look a lot like the skin of Snap’s Spectacles. No the most recent, but the before versions that failed carry A few years ago. From the images, it looks like the glasses are called Ray-Ban Stories and are presented in three styles called Round, Wayfarer and Meteor. Like Snap’s Spectacles, there’s a camera on each hinge and at a glance they look like a normal pair of Ray-Bans. Otherwise, there are thick arms (which probably contain the battery) and a set of button controls on the right. Other than that, it’s hard to know if these things will do anything other than record video.
None of this should come as a surprise. We found out they were selling these glasses since 2019. We knew that too that the pair would not have the advanced RA features you associate with the term “smart glasses”. The company blatantly told Virgin that the glasses it would not have an RA screen last year. In a recent earnings call, Zuckerberg also said the glasses would have Ray-Ban’s “iconic form factor” and “allow you to do pretty neat things.” He also commented that he expected “full augmented reality glasses in the future.” The main question is whether these “pretty neat things” include anything other than making short videos.
Facebook has not been shy with its ambitions for virtual reality and virtual reality. Facebook Reality Labs Research, the division working on these projects, has published several in-depth dives on how the company anticipates how RA will shape our technological future. This includes from “smart audio“I facial recognition, a soft bracelets to control RA with your mind. Based on the images, however, it is safe to say that these glasses will not be as different from the smart glasses we have already seen.
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He Echo frames, Bose Frames, i Razer Anzu they are all similar glasses, although they do not have the ability to record video. They work more like headphones, as they allow you to make calls, listen to music, and use your phone’s digital assistant. It is possible that Ray-Ban stories will do these things as well, although we will have to wait for the official details to know for sure.
Another question is how comfortable people will feel wearing sunglasses made by Facebook built-in cameras. He Portal gave people heebie-jeebies. In 2014, there was also a woman in San Francisco assaulted for taking Google Glass to a bar. A big reason why this happened? According to reports, there were people in the bar annoyed by the possibility of being recorded. Combine these two things and it’s easy to see why the Facebook brand doesn’t have glasses so much.
We’ll have to see how Ray-Ban’s stories work. So far people they didn’t seem particularly interested in me about this type of smart glasses and technically we’ve already been here with the Snap Shows. But who knows? Maybe Facebook has discovered something.