Ray-Ban Meta vs. Amazon Echo Frames _ This Smart Glasses Shootout Has a Clear Winner
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enSo I'm a Florida man and when I'm not wrestling alligators or doing any other things that start with watch this well I'm probably wearing sunglasses cuz it's Florida and it's bright out but we're not here to just talk about any old sunglasses right this is Digital Trends we're going to talk about smart glasses now I've spent the last several months with a couple of them with the Amazon Echo Frames and the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and there's a lot of overlap between the two but which one should you get I'm pretty sure I have the right answer before you do anything else of course subscribe to the channel hit the notification Bell thumbs up on the video you know how to do all this stuff right yes okay let's go do it these are the Amazon Echo Frames and the Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses all right let's talk smart glasses so these have been on everyone's mind a little bit more since Apple Vision Pro came out now I know we're talking Apple's nordes right literally figuratively spiritually all that stuff and you know what count me among those who don't think that face computers are quite ready for prime time just yet and I've been using these for a long time all the way back to say Google Glass oo that that that's a rough picture right there and uh also the HTC Vive I was among the first press to give that a shot in 2015 but we're going to talk like proper sunglasses or even just glasses here so the Echo Frames and the Ray-Ban Meta and I tell you what I'm just going to call them Ray bands from here on out cuz Ray-Ban Meta is just a really really clunky name they are essentially the same sort of thing they are glasses or sunglasses with some smarts built in now those smarts include a couple things including Bluetooth so it can talk to your phone that makes sense right they also both have speakers in the stems so you can listen all sorts of things music podcast uh the glasses themselves will talk to you through their various smart uh assistants right but the ray bands also have cameras and that's really going to change the equation we'll talk more about those in a second so given that these smart glasses are actually pretty similar which ones should you get well before I get to that let's just note that these glasses I have here are the glasses that I have here there're actually a whole bunch of different versions of both of them the Amazon Echo Frames and the Ray Bans you can get in a bunch of different styles you can get them with clear lenses you can get them with sung glasses lenses polarized not polarized a whole bunch of different options and Amazon has this totally separate collection called the Carrera collection which are technically not Echo Frames but they are Echo Frames they're all in the same family right just different branding so you have a lot of choices here and my only real recommendation for that is if you have the opportunity to go try them on do it that's really important for things that you're going to wear in your face right first you're going to see how they actually look on you that's important second especially when you're spending this much money you're going to see how well they fit uh Ray-Ban stores anywhere they sell Ray-Ban glasses you should be able to find them there Amazon Echo Frames well that's that's going to be tougher so let's start with a close look at the Amazon Echo Frames now these are the third generation and they started just under $300 and I tell you I'm really digging the way they look I don't hate them at all so I like that there are a bunch of options here and by the way they look damn good on my wife now you're going to have to guess a little bit of the size again this is Amazon we're talking about so go through the steps that they give you to try to measure your face and and get it right the first time it'll save you a lot of pain in the process Now setup is simple enough through the Alexa app if you've ever set up any Echo device the exact same thing super easy and after that you'll have Alexa in your ears and everything that comes with that you got music and questions and notifications it's kind of cool really and it's done really well now I'm going to Short change the Amazon Echo Frames here a little bit and I almost feel the need to apologize for it but I'm not going to and here's why the speakers aren't great as soon as you put on the ray bands you're going to say wow those Amazon Echo Frames do not sound good at all it's quieter it's just not as good there's no oomph to it and yeah you get a little oomph out of the ray bands we'll talk more about that in a second and that's a shame because there's a lot of promise there but it is a night and day difference if you care at all about how things are going to sound and you don't have to have the Amazon ecosystem you're going to want to go straight to the ray band Metas full stop so that's one deal breaker for me the other one is the way they charge so the Echo Frames come with this little stand and the instructions that at least were in my box when I got them didn't really do much to make it easy to figure out how to put them on I followed it I'm a relatively smart guy it was frustrating but then there's the fact that you have to have the stand to charge them that's not fun you have to either be at home or in an office or someplace where you can put the stand down and plug it in and charge them it's clunky and it means I'm never going to take these somewhere where I'm on the go on a trip or even in the car just it's awkward it's not great and that's it sound quality charging deal breakers for me sorry Amazon I really wanted to like them it's just nothappening now on the ray band Metas and first things first these things are all Facebook I still have some serious concerns about that I am not crazy about Facebook sitting on my face I'm not crazy about Facebook having cameras on my face I'm not crazy about the pictures I take with those cameras being that close to Facebook I'm going to have to give them the benefit of the doubt here Facebook today in 2024 is not the Facebook of 2015 I might have to get over that but I'm never going to stop being a little worried about it so I already mentioned the speakers and the stems let's talk about them a little more they are great for speech things like podcasts and phone calls they are great for music there's actually a little base in there totally surprised I almost thought they were bone conducting at first they're not now keep in mind there's a pretty good chance that somebody sitting next to you is going to be able to hear if you have music playing they're going to be like where's that music coming from I might have had them you know tilted up on my head at the Thanksgiving dinner table and everybody noticed and you can still hear things even when you're not wearing them directly on your face like you would normally wear sunglasses right so sometimes when I have them tilted up I can still hear things it's as good but it's better than nothing so keep that in mind it's a really interesting use case so the bottom line on the speakers and the stems and we almost need a new name for those Stiers stemmers I don't know whatever it's almost like having a pretty good pair of uh open ear earbuds like shocks I've reviewed those in the past like them a lot Bose has some really interesting ones so it's almost like we need a new category for speakers and glasses I'm going have to think about that some now let's talk about the cameras because they are a really big deal here now on paper these are 12 megapixel cameras in actuality what you get out of them is you know the math doesn't quite work out to 12 but it really depends so videos shoot from the left camera at about 3 megapixels and that will actually vary a little bit because there's some Optical image stabilization going on uh if you ever notice that videos are cropped that's what it is that's why it happens Stills are higher resolution and they're not bad uh you know maybe not as good as what you get from a modern smartphone but for something that's sitting on your face and super easy to use they're pretty good they're also wide angles so if you're going to take a picture of anything close up you're going to have to be really close to it uh but really interesting for just contextual kind of scene setting pictures so you have these cameras on your face the next question is what am I going to do with them what kind of pictures am I going to take with these glasses well at first I tell you I was like I'm going to document all the things and then I got out there with them and it's like should I be documenting all the thing should I be documenting anything I mean look there's a notification light on the front of the glasses to show people when you're taking videos and stills and you get a little notification light on the inside but I kind of learn to ignore that pretty quick cuz it's in my peripheral vision so it's a good thing that people technically can tell that you're taking video right that's smart that's important but that doesn't necessarily mean that you should be taking video of anybody anywhere yes you can be in public no people in your video didn't necessarily consent to it we can have all kinds of arguments about this right it's not a new argument uh there's a big thing of Photography right now should we even be shooting street photography anymore I can argue both sides of that all day long it's really going to be up to you at the end of the day just be smart about it be safe be courteous by the way you can live stream out of these to uh Facebook or Instagram I have had zero desire to do so for me the uh one minute time limit on videos is usually enough after that there's like what am I looking at what am I staring at 1 minute it's fine you can set that lower if you want in the app uh but you know one minut is great and doesn't burn anything up or kill the battery too bad now the cameras are another time that I've been thinking about having Facebook on my face so what you should take pictures and video of is one question how much I want Facebook to be able to grab those things is another I'm really uncomfortable with Facebook having unfettered access to everything I'm shooting now when you first take a picture or a video it lives in the glasses and then you have to transfer it to your phone somehow a couple ways to do that one is over Wi-Fi in The Meta live view app super easy to do it's not you know seamless it's not the most smooth thing in the world but it's not hard now these pictures and videos will end up in your camera roll and that makes it really easy to share to any other app fine or you can share them directly out of the Metav view app there's also Meta Cloud media which gives Facebook direct access to it and will allow you to send pictures just by your voice you don't have to use your phone you don't have to touch anything really just activate uh the Facebook assistant and say send a picture and it will send a picture but that's automatically uploading everything to Facebook you can use it if you want I'm not I'm going to have to think twice about that here's my bottom line of the cameras they're not bad I love having the option to use them I love having the option not to use them right it's up to me at the end of the day now if you're a content creator this is the sort of thing you should absolutely have it is great for firstperson video in all sorts of contexts except at night maybe cuz sunglasses but whatever you know what I mean and they're super convenient for doing behind the scenes shots which I know the kids are all about these days now I said battery and charging was a big deal with the Amazon Echo Frames mainly charging was pain in the butt it is way simpler with the Ray Bans so all you got to do pop them in the case that's it it's like airpods it's like earbuds it's like anything else you've used like that you use it you put it in the case it charges and you don't have to think about it and that's important for a couple reasons one if you're going to spend $300 or more more than $300 on sunglasses you should take care of them and I started doing that when I got my first pair of expensive sunglasses years ago which also happened to be Ray bands keep them in the case right keeps them safe and in the case of these smart glasses it charges them so anytime you run inside real quick pop them in the case they charge while you're there and then just every day or two whenever I need to I charge the case it really is simple it really is well done it looks and feels like any other Ray-Ban case out there Kudos that's the way it should be all right a couple other odds and ends I want to go through to wrap this up first There's an actual power switch hidden in the left stem that's handy for a soft reset and it's just a good thing to know about and actually when there are times that I know I'm not going to be using the cameras or using the speakers or any of the smart functionality I'll just reach up and turn the glasses off that way I'm not wasting the battery and again just to reiterate you have a lot of options what you see here is what I got but you can get clear lenses you can get prescription lenses you can get sunglasses prescription sunglasses you can get a whole bunch of different styles so absolutely go through the website take a look take your time you're not stuck with what I'm wearing and finally there's this AI recognition stuff maybe you've seen the demo Zuck did it where uh he took the glasses into his closet to pick out some clothes you should not have to put on smart glasses to go to your closet and pick out clothes and have it figure out what goes with khaki everything goes with khaki uh it look it was a cool demo it's an interesting concept I don't have it yet it's currently in beta so I can't really speak to it I'll be interested to try it I wouldn't use that as a selling point for these necessarily so the bottom line between the Amazon Echo Frames and the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses it's Ray bands all the way okay uh I like the look better the speakers are 1,000% better that's a big enough selling point on its own and you have the option for cameras cool I like having the option for cameras even if I don't use them all the time and also with the smarts on the inside I don't need Alexa on my face that bad look I don't need Facebook on my face that bad but if I I had to pick between the two Facebook's probably the more useful one for me personally at this point again the Ray Bans sound that much better I can't stress that enough it is a night and day difference if you care about that at all you're going to want the ray bands in fact it's making it so I don't even take earbuds with me half the time if I know I'm going to be outside wearing sunglasses I just take the Ray Bans and I use those as my earbuds bigger question is this the future of face Computing not these specifically not yet uh you're really going to have to get to the point where there's a display on the inside to get more information right but this is the start it's really interesting and these Ray band Metas are really really well done if you are in the market for a new pair of sunglasses and have the wallet to spend several hundred doar on them absolutely check it out I think they're that good I think they're that cool and yeah they're actually that useful right now if you have any questions if you think I'm wrong if you think I look really good or if we should see more my wife wearing these sunglasses let me know down in the comments yes I read them yes I reply again be sure to subscribe to the channel like the video thumbs up notification bell all that stuff you know how to do it that's right we will be back with more here Digital Trends real soon seeyou\n"