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Facebook and Ray-Ban Stories are not AR smart glasses

The new glasses from Ray-Ban and Facebook are essentially a wearable camera.

Donovan Erskine

September 9, 2021 10:50 AM

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Wearable technology has been a big point of discussion in tech spaces over recent years. With smartwatches and fitness trackers already seeing strong success on the performance, augmented reality or “smart glasses” seems like the next step in that journey. Facebook and Ray-Ban have revealed Ray-Ban Stories, a pair of smart glasses that they made in collaboration. That said, the glasses do not seem to feature any augmented reality capabilities.

Ray-Ban and Facebook revealed the Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses in a news release on September 9, 2021. The glasses look like your typical pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses, but feature cameras in the upper corners of the frames. Users will be able to capture images and record videos of their surroundings. The glasses also feature a speaker, and will let wearers listen to music, and even answer phone calls.

“From daily activities like riding your bike to special milestones like your favorite music festival, Ray-Ban Stories’ dual integrated 5MP cameras let you capture life’s spontaneous moments as they happen from a unique first-person perspective,” the announcement post reads. The Ray-Ban stories can capture up to 30 seconds of video at a time.

The Ray-Ban Stories’ camera functions have already raised serious privacy concerns among audiences, especially given Facebook’s not-so-clean track record of privacy issues. There’s a small LED light above one of the lenses that activates to indicate that the cameras are in use.
Katie Notopoulos, a Tech Reporter at BuzzFeed, got to go hands-on with the glasses and said that she was able to easily tape over the LED, which would leave strangers completely oblivious to the fact that they were being filmed. Facebook states that tampering with the LED light is against its terms of service.

The Ray-Ban Stories are available for purchase on the Ray-Ban website and start at $299 USD. For more on the latest offerings from Facebook and how they impact the technology world, stick with us here on Shacknews.

Donovan Erskine

News Editor

Donovan is a young journalist from Maryland, who likes to game. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge Scream nerd and film fanatic that will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_