Ray-Ban Meta vs. Amazon Echo Frames | This Smart Glasses Shootout Has a Clear Winner
Smart glasses haven’t quite become mainstream just yet, but it isn’t for a lack of trying. We now have two major contenders - the Amazon Echo Frames (3rd Gen), and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.
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They’re similar, but also very different. Both have speakers tucked into the stems, so you can listen to music or podcasts, and get information from their included smart assistants. And both come in a variety of designs. You can get dark lenses. Or clear lenses. Or prescription versions of both. It’ll almost make you want to have multiple pairs, really.
But the Ray-Ban Meta glasses go a pretty big step further than Amazon’s in that they include cameras for video and stills. And that opens up an entirely new world of options. (But it also raises the question as to when and where it’s appropriate to shoot photos in a way that it’s immediately apparent to everyone around you.)
The cameras are one reason we’d pick the Ray-Bans over the Echo Frames. Ease of charging is another. And the speakers are yet a third reason. The Ray-Bans are just night and day better. In fact, you can make the argument that for some folks in some cases, they’re the only earbuds you’ll need.
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Ray-Ban Meta Review: www.digitaltrends.com/computi...
Amazon Echo Frames (3rd Gen) review: www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/...
VIDEO CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
00:57 Overview
03:09 Amazon Echo Frames
05:14 Ray-Ban Meta
12:33 Final Thoughts
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Seriously, there's only one winner here. (And be sure to see the comment below about colorblindness and accessibility. Super important!
Excellent review! Does it come with different frame sizes?
I bought Echo frames in a moment of weakness. Main issues I found were: 1) if you own other echo devices in your house and say the wake command while wearing these glasses the multiple devices don’t know which one you’re talking to. 2) Audio: it bleeds from the speakers. My family complains whenever they hear it. Audio quality outside of calls is not great. 3) the charger is super frustrating. It takes multiple tries to get it to work. I’d still never get a Meta smart wearable either. Maybe Apple or someone else will figure out smart glasses
Definitely wear something that captures everything you do and say. It can’t backfire
I would never do or say anything dumb. Ever! Again!
@@PhilNickinson -10 social score for talking bad about the government
@@samfisherxboxog8925black mirror 😂
@@AcesMR6 China
Yea, who would do that? *closes KZhead app and places phone in pocket* I think that ship has sailed if you carry a smartphone, or have home assistants, or have any interaction in public
Fantastic, Phil. Great content. I learned a great deal. The video is easy to follow and good-looking. Remarkable, really.
Thank you, sir!
Hi, great video thank you. What about the weight? How much heavier are they from the regular Wayfarer?
I've been thinking for a while this is a perfect solution for vacations and tourism. I'm plannig a 3 weeks trip to Japan and I hate to stop and take pictures or videos. Do you recommend Ray-Ban Meta for this purpose? I'm not a content creator and I'm not planning to do lives from Japan. Just want the memories as close as I remember and not a selfie. What do you think?
Totally. Highly recommend trying in first if you can.
Where to get a pair? It’s said that you can’t get Ray-Bans in Europe. The only big minus about Ray-Bans is vertical video. It’s ok for those who make videos to TikTok, but KZheadrs or those who make home videos it should be horizontal.
I recently bought the transition ones, but it only says Ray Ban, not Ray Ban P, I was trying to figure out if they are polarized or not. Or if you can even get the transition ones in the polarized option.
.. the Ray Ban Meta’s only have a single camera .. not a left and right one ..
You're right. I forget how I'd convinced myself otherwise, but you're 100 percent right. Dumb unforced error.
They are great to take on vacation. However, the wide-angle lens camera does shoot a picture that will need to be cropped after being taken if you don’t get closer to your subject. Also, the videos and photos in low light or taken at night don’t come out as good as doing the day in bright light.
How can they not have a charging case??! Snap spectacles 1 did years ago it was great on vacation
I am a pilot in training. I'd like to record my first solo flying to new airport. You say 1 minute is max video length. Is it easy to tap and record. Is it not possible to extend, say, 5 mins? With continuous video use, could you estimate battery time? Thank you.
Hello, I enjoyed your review. I'm getting the new Skylers when they come out with my prescription in them and with insurance, I'm only paying oop about $460. It's not bad when the price point mentioned is around $700
Dude first got these glasses was gonna return them, thinking they're just too gimmicky.. Now obsessed with them, best purchase of the year so far 😊
I got rid of Fakebook 5-6 years ago and I love my Raybans so I guess I will have to wait on something else to come along with good sound that is not in a big ecosystem. Yes, I have a lot of echo devices and I give Amazon way too much money. Maybe Apple will come along with something discreet to wear for the outside. Yes, they are big but its my belief they don't share that much information.
I need the sports version of these glasses.
Carrera isn't different Echo branding, it's an actual glasses brand from Italy.
Might u review the tcl c755…???
The Ray-Bans look pretty good but the FB integration is a non starter for me.
That part REALLY bugs me. (Even though it's also very well done.)
I have the echo frames and they don’t work for me because they want control of my phone when I’m in the car. I use Apple CarPlay and want that when in the car. I wouldn’t mind having the Meta when primarily out and about. Not sure how the Meta’s would handle CarPlay. I was an early adopter of the Echo frames so I’m sure the newer models may be more attractive.
Yeah, Ray-Ban can mess with that some, too. I've ended up just turning them off half the time while driving since basically everything will come through CarPlay anyway.
Great review!!!!! Production value is very good!!
Great real world review. I wouldn’t say the ray bans sound anywhere near “good”. They sound like $10 ear buds to me… but yes they still sound better than Amazon! Only reason I’d buy these would be if I loved the style, and I wanted to live stream concerts from the stage (I’m a performer). They get real expensive fast with transition progressive lenses and you can’t save money by having a Costco make lenses for you.
That'd be a really cool use case, though.
Nobody has to consent to being video'd in public. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy. You're being recorded by dozens of cameras in any modern city, private and public.
In the US, that is true, but there are countries where that is not the case.
When you are in public, you are in public
Can the blinking light in the Bans be turned off?
No. The camera won’t work if you try and cover the light as far as I know
you cannot use the sunglasses in the sunshine. It gets hot in the video. Will work when you call Ray. They say it automatically shuts down when the glasses over. Let's remember the sunglasses. I think that's a big snafu
it's kind of funny.. an afterthought this guy had was going into a closet and have the glasses pick out clothes that match.. he thought the use case was kind of stupid.. that is the only feature I would ever use. I need that feature now! I'm color blind and one of the hardest things I have to do everyday is figuring out which clothes match... honestly most of my wardrobe has been Grays and blacks because of that daily challenge.. and not everything goes with khaki. trust me I know because I've been there before. lies lies lies!
You're not wrong at all! And really that just shows how much more we need to be thinking about accessibility.
Cant wait till they make the 3rd edition its gonna be way better 🙌🏽 Better Cameras better speakers we know ppl like them so we just need to wait for improvements know lol
Here is an angle for you. Blind people are using the camera and AI functionality to provide some feedback about the environment and get information about what clothes there are and what colouring are in the cupboards. Maybe it could be an angle around "Accessibility" that the smart glasses are providing as vision "substitution" strategies. The AI can be used to recognised the environment at a distance but it can also read information such as bus time tables by scanning the board and then asking what time is the next bus and the bus number et cetera et cetera. Perhaps this is out of your wheelhouse in itself but if you know someone who is blind or has low vision or maybe approach your local Society, for the Blind you could have an episode experimenting with this idea. I would think it takes a little adjustment because the AI is not quite as good as the Google or ChatGPT language models and the descriptions are not quite as details. Just some experimentation of what voice command can be given to Step it through what is an image. I have noticed myself though that there are some visual hallucinations where it describes things that are not actually there or gives me generic answer unless you say something like "what closing can you see "rather than "look and tell me what you see". One describes the closing and the other just says "casual clothing". Of course, sighted people use the product recognition to find more information about the product information including general instructions et cetera. Anyway, just a thought to extend your thinking around its wider applications.
I’ve seen the Ray-bans promoted on the Facebook for awhile now. Just thought it was an odd team up. Thinking it was probably just ok for pics. Never heard of the Amazon ones till this video. Also never really researched these enough and I never realized they had speakers. No… I’m not a boomer. Lol. I’m a Ray-Ban brand owner so I’d naturally lean towards them anyway. But curious to see where it goes from here. Apple and Ray-ban does seem like a better fit… does anyone actually use The facebook anymore? Great video, cheers, I’ll go share it on The facebook. Ha.
Ha!
👍👍video, Not buying any of these tech glasses until they are true augmented reality like what google glass tried but google was way early before the technology was ready for mass market, within next few years the hardware technology available combined with Ai is going to get interesting
Great Video!!
The selling point is the Camera, echo frames don’t have cam
I exactly know what you mean about wearing something that's made by Facebook. That's what held me back from buying these.
i love my razer anzu glasses. camera in glasses are just creepy
Only if you use them in a creepy way.
It's not just the user using the cameras...@@PhilNickinson
I think these will be useful when they integrate ai search capabilities. I don’t see why you’d use them as a camera when your phone already does this.
That's what I'm really curious to use.
When you are in public you have no expectation of privacy
I’ve had these stupid glasses since December and still don’t have access to look and ask. Why do only some people get this feature? Waste of $400.
She really pulls those echo shades off! We could all use more pics of her 😅. I like the tv as a backdrop, simple smart and effective.
lol. Yeah she does!
After three months, I'll say Rayban is the clear winner, hands down. The AI is priceless
You don't need consent to record in public is the 1st ammendment.
All the "AI features" can be better accomplished with earbuds (except image recognition).
Putting these two together is not fair to the Ray ban glasses. It's like comparing the PS1 with PS5.
A 14 minute video that could have been done in 4...
I tried that. Butthewordsallrantogether.
Agree…he’s the kind of guy that speaks all his thoughts like that kid on “Malcolm in the Middle”.
A 4 second post that added absolutely nothing to my life.
Not really. Thats only true if you want the straight conclusion of which of these is better. For those of us not really following the smart glasses stories, the mini-review of both products to provide context before getting to the conclusion was very helpful. Since most people on KZhead are not following this world and a comparison like this would be more helpful to the casual viewer, this style makes more sense. Those of you who already know about both of these probably already have your own conclusions and don’t need a comparison video anyway.
@@caliperspective I actually was kinda disappointed just how much difference there was between the Amazon glasses. But the speaker is so much worse that it really made it a nonstarter. Between that and the fact that the RBM have a camera, there wasn't much reason to spend too much time on both.
My only issue with the meta is you can't find chargers anywhere but from rayban and they are crazy expensive
Just ... use the case?
@PhilNickinson but what if the case is lost or stolen? Or you want one for work and one for home. $70 is a lot for a replacement
Now literally Facebook
You're in trouble if you lose the meta case. I have a prescription version
Yep. Don't lose it.
I call them Meta Ray Bans. Its easier to say that way.
I really struggle to understand the purpose of outward-facing cameras on wearable tech. I don't need every 16-year-old wandering around with a live stream of their day. Smart glasses with AR, I think, are far more valuable. Anything that you can do with those glasses and their cameras are better handled by your phone anyway. And the fact that they look like normal glasses just leads people to be creepier with them. This is not dissimilar from AI tricking people with images and voices as authentic. The only outward facing camera device that I've been curious about having a real real purpose is that AI pin from mwc. It can't be mistaken for any normal piece of jewelry or accessory. Therefore people will automatically assume it's a camera based on its shape and the way it's worn. Applevision pro cameras that look at the user and their hands are actually interesting and intentional cameras. It makes me wonder if it wouldn't be better to have something like a lidar scanner on smart glasses instead of a video camera. But still, I'm growing into a luddite - no cameras in "normal" looking glasses. Use your phone and take pictures with intentionality.
I really struggle with overly verbose comments, so I don’t bother.
Phil great information thank you. Also your wife is lovely, have a wonderful day. Peace and God bless you.
Facebook is a no go for me.
Glad these are becoming more normal, looks almost like regular shades!
Very much so! I haven't actually had anyone ask if they're not normal.
I modded mine so the light wouldn’t come on when recording.
Not cool.
@@PhilNickinson What did you mean not cool? What’s not cool is you liking your own comment.
Come hai fatto?
Where is Caleb?
@ 7:58 Cops and businesses don't ask us if we want to be recorded.
Should they? You opt to go into a store. Or not.
@@PhilNickinson 1) cops = (constable on patrol) they have a body cam and record you without your permission and if you try to record them they'll hand cuff you and or take away your phone. 2) A private apartment buildings are businesses and have cameras around their perimeter recording public sidewalks.... 3) all businesses on the street have cameras pointed at public spaces i don't have to opt in for my image privacy to be stolen. if anything these things specially the clear lenses can help stop police brutality witch is running ramped in this day in age!!!! 4) America has more people in jail, than all the countries in the world combined.....am I lying? you better do your home work before responding to all your comments. 5) yes performance denotes intent..... so walking in the store means you agree to store policy and to be recorded but what if i didn't walk in and I just walked by, should I be recorded when walking in a public space isn't that a violation of privacy?
@@thefinness7849 None of your examples is an instance in which anyone has a reasonable expectation of privacy, which is the standard that comes into play here. Thanks, though. (And I totally agree we need to do something about No. 4, but that has nothing to do with what we're talking about here.)
@@PhilNickinsoni see your all about the fashion not the function. why would you want to be recorded walking to your destination? youre acting like cameras always existed and im mentioning some weird scenario Im talking facts!!! about rights that we have, that you obviously dont care to loose) its all entertainment! but your not suppose to have my image with out my consent its against privacy laws to hold my image in your disk without my known even if they dont use it to cause me harm i can have it deleted or am I lying?
@@PhilNickinsonim talking about how we can use this. what are you talking about, that it looks cute?
Vloggers don’t ask for permission. I wouldn’t worry about that. I would prefer that the video and stills go directly to my camera roll in my iPhone.
Then vloggers are doing it wrong.
I used my health savings card to pay for a pair for my wife and she loves them
Good use of funds!
DT shud fire all their reviewers especially this guy….just keep caleb
Who's Caleb? And what is a shud?
There is no legal expectation of privacy in public.
two decent products by two awful companies. imma wait till i can jailbreak the metas
In public people dont have to consent! you just lost me on your video with that!!!
It's public, cameras everywhere now a day. No different than people recording or taking pictures with their phones. People walked into my video all the time. I can edit them out or blur their face. Or walk away if you don't want to be in their video. I never wanted to video anyone, i'm focusing on my face to be in the video, if you walk past by, it's too bad. I'm vlogging in public all the time, people usually stay away or just ignore me.
also it sounds like your hiding something what don’t you want Facebook to find out if you have nothing to worry about then you should be fine with facebook.
I honestly see zero value add except hands-free pictures. But who really cares THAT MUCH about hands-free pictures (ie. $700+ out-the-door w/ prescription) unless your ENTIRE life revolves around making content for social media? A pair of BT earbuds that hold 3x longer battery + your cellphone that practically everyone carries 24/7 provides the same functionality BUT offers MORE privacy - no sound leakage. These glasses provide no extra functionality. There is no augmented reality. There is no heads-up display. There is no remote computing. This is literally just over-ear BT speakers + a mediocre 12MP camera crammed into all $149 Chinese cellphones.
YOU are NOT the target audience for Rayban Meta glasses. Move on. 🤣🤣🤣
Nice video content but those things aren't for me.
Can't argue both sides dude. 1st amendment argues the sides.