Facebook released its first AR glasses yesterday and they don’t seem very impressive

Facebook’s first augmented reality sunglasses got released yesterday, and they’re less augmented and more reality. Buil in partnership with Ray-Ban, the $299 shades have two inbuilt cameras and near-field speakers, as well as that classic Ray-Ban Wayfarer styling.

The most surprising part to me is that they only have the Ray-Ban branding on, without Facebook’s logo. Maybe they figured nobody would wear them if that was the case.

Ray-Ban Stories, as they’ve been named, come with two 5MP cameras that can shoot images or videos, in normal and 3D versions. Three microphones record sound, and two tiny speakers direct sound to your ears, so you can use them for phone calls and consuming media. Pressing a tiny button records 30-seconds of video, or holding it down takes a photo. And yes, you can use Facebook Assistant to do that hands-free.

Ray-Ban Stories have their own storage for those videos and images, which are saved encrypted and need the Facebook View companion app on your smartphone to download and view. Oh, and there are pretty prominent LEDs, next to each camera, that turn on when the glasses are recording.

The best thing? They look like normal Ray-Bans, albeit slightly larger. Probably the best business decision Facebook has made for years was to not make Ray-Ban design something new or wacky.

If you really, really, really want to have Facebook sitting on your face, you can buy them directly from Ray-Ban starting at $299, in Ray-Ban’s Wayfarer, Round, or Meteor styles. If you want polarized lenses, Transitions, or need prescription lenses, that price will be higher.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere. His hobbies include photography, animation, and hoarding Reddit gold.