Iconic eyewear brand RayBan and Facebook Thursday launched their new smart glasses, the latest effort in a tricky, niche market but which the social media giant sees as a step toward its future.
The “Ray-Ban Stories” shades can take pictures and video upon the wearer’s voice commands, and the frames can connect wirelessly to Facebook’s platform through an app.
Notably, the Ray-Ban Stories glasses will not have augmented reality features — technology that can mesh online computing with visual cues such as mapping or face recognition.
The company had said in July it was combining specialists from across its hardware, gaming and virtual reality units to build an immersive digital world known as the “metaverse.”
Privacy features by Rayban & Facebook
Priced starting at $299, the Ray-Ban Stories will roll out in Australia, Britain, Canada, Ireland, Italy and the United States.
Cameras are built into the front of the frames, while the arms are designed to act as directional speakers for listening to calls or streamed audio.
A white light in the front of the frame goes on when the cameras are being used, which is intended as a privacy feature to alert people they could be filmed.
Users can take a picture or a video clip of up to 30 seconds by pressing a button at the temple or using a voice command, both of which can be cues that a camera is on.
“We need the user to feel completely in control of their capture experience,” said Facebook Reality Labs product manager Hind Hobeika.
The glasses also have a physical switch for turning them off.
Users log into the glasses’ Facebook View app using their accounts at the social network.
Ray-Ban Stories frames sync wirelessly to a smartphone app designed specifically for handling images or video captured by the glasses.
Only data needed to run the app is gathered, and no information is used for targeting ads, said Hobeika.
