Ray-Ban Stories by Facebook
Facebook and Ray-Ban collaborated to launch their first smart glasses recently. While these are not the sophisticated AR glasses yet, they positively seem to be inspired by Snap’s Spectacles. While they come with the iconic Wayfarer design of Ray-Ban, come with 2 designs-round and meteor.
Looking like ordinary glasses, except of course the dual cameras at both of the corners are equipped with 5MP cameras with a LED light near them. White LED lights up when recording. The main function is to let the users to record photos and videos around them from a different perspective without the need for a traditional Smartphone device. As of now, users can only record 30-second videos and capture pictures by the capture button or also by saying- “Hey, Facebook click a picture or start taking a video” like commands.
The videos are crisp and pretty stabilized, the photos are captured only after a half-second shutter lag, with 2592 by 1944 pixels and have plenty of room for editing the media. All of the videos, photos can be viewed and saved in Facebook's View app using the glasses themselves by creating a temporary hotspot. You can create various types of montages using the media in the app itself and share them directly to Instagram and Facebook or any other platform.
Another feature of this is the built-in “open-ear speakers” and a 3-microphone audio array, that ensures that users can take calls as well. According to Facebook, it uses Beamforming technology and a background noise suppression algorithm to assure an enhanced calling experience.You can control the volume by swiping along the surface of the arms which are slightly wider than regular glasses.
Giaia Rener, Ray-Ban’s global brand director, even describes them as “the first smart glasses you’re going to want to wear.”
Privacy would be a major concern for most users. First as according to some reviews have shown that people getting recorded are sometimes not aware that they are being recorded despite the LED light. And sometimes it is indistinguishable between regular Ray-Ban glasses and Facebook’s version. Since Facebook is clearly aware of the questions related to privacy, the company has built a site specifically designed to answer all queries related to privacy and the product itself. Also, they let users decide where they import their media captured by the glasses. The glasses need to gain some data to make it work like battery status, Facebook login credentials and WiFi connectivity.
Using Facebook Assistant for voice command is also optional and users even have the capability to view and delete the voice transcripts as well. With an ad-free experience, Facebook promises that the pictures taken will not be used to create personalized ads. The media is encrypted on the glasses and if someone else tries to login their details into the glass, the previous account’s media present will be automatically deleted.
