The future of high-tech sunglasses to come is being tested with the new Ray-Ban Stories sunglasses.
The unassuming look and familiarity of the sunglasses style will make them sell at $299 a pair. The sunglasses come in three variants of Ray-Ban frames, Round, Meteor, and the classic Wayfarer. The lenses of the sunglasses come in clear, polarized, transitional and prescription options. Overall, there are 20 models to choices from in various color options.
While the Ray-Ban Stories are not full-on augmented reality glasses, they do offer some technology. The frames are sleek and have many inputs and indicators that are imbedded in the design. The temples have volume controls and hand capture buttons for taking photos and videos. Along with speakers by each ear, the eye wires house two cameras for the sunglasses. The sunglasses are, however, not waterproof.
Think of the Ray-Ban Stories more as capture-the-moment glasses. The dual cameras are only 5MP, which is less than most smart phones offer. Footage quality is adequate for the purpose of posting to social media. However, they do smooth over a lot of the details, and the white balance is often a problem. On the bright side, the sunglasses can store 500 pictures and 36 30-second videos.
The call quality of the speakers is good, with a speaker by each ear. The built-in microphone does a decent job of capturing your voice as you have conversations. However, the music quality coming out the speakers is lacking. They would be fine for walking around campus between classes, but wouldn’t take the place of your Bluetooth wireless headphones on a quality standpoint. The bass balance and highs of songs do not equalize well.
If security is a concern for you, then the Ray-Ban Stories sunglasses are not for you. Ray-Ban partnered with Facebook to create the glasses, and you will have to have a Facebook account in order to use the sunglasses’ app. The app is permanently on once you install it, even if you have closed it out.
The battery life is advertised at six hours intermittently used. However, after testing that statement, the battery life is two hours intermittently. However, the sunglasses do come with a case that charges the glasses, so all is not lost.
While Ray-Ban Stories are looking towards the future, the sunglasses feel more like a prototype. Maybe after some market testing and trial by fire, Ray-Ban and Facebook’s 2.0 model will fix the bugs of the Stories sunglasses.
