Facebook and Ray-Ban have teamed up to take on rival Snap’s Spectacles and the result is pretty darn interesting if you’re in the market for that kind of thing.
Somehow this slipped by us but, in essence, the Ray-Ban Stories is the Snapchat Spectacles in all but name and attached to rival Facebook’s platforms.
And at $USD 299, it isn’t going to break the bank yet it’s also not that cheap, either. Currently, you can get Snapchat Spectacles 2 for about $USD 199 while the new 3 series costs $USD 380 on Amazon. This would put the Facebook/Ray-Ban effort somewhere in the middle of the pack between Snap’s last-gen device and the current latest-and-greatest.
As for the design itself, it is actually pretty tough to spot the two cameras added to the traditional Ray-Ban Wayfarer design (also available in Wayfarer Large, Round, and Meteor).
In terms of the cameras, we get two 5MP cameras with photo resolution at 2592×1944 pixels and video at 1184×1184 pixels at 30 fps. Ray-Ban further states that the camera automatically adjusts surrounding lighting to improve capture quality and lets others know that you are taking a picture or video via LED signals.
The Stories glasses also have touch controls for audio such as when listening to music or phone calls. They also have integrated Facebook Voice Assistant. To help share the content generated by the glasses to the Internet, Facebook developed the “Facebook View” app that acts as the hub for your Ray-Ban Stories. Offered in a range of colors and designs as well as with prescription lenses or clear lenses, Stories is on sale now in the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, Italy, and Australia.
You can check out a video showing off what Ray-Ban Stories does at this link right here.
What do you think of Ray-Ban Stories? Does its integration with Facebook’s platforms make it something you would be interested in owning? Let us know your thoughts on Facebook and Ray-Ban’s partnership in the comments below.
Check out some of our other photography news at this link right here.
[Ray-Ban]
