Facebook Ray-Ban Stories – The future of Augmented Reality

I am sure all of us are aware of Facebook. They own numerous social media apps which influence our lives in one way or another. From Facebook to Instagram to WhatsApp. Facebook’s main business is advertisements which earn them billions of dollars every year.

But apart from advertisements, Facebook is also in the AR and VR business which is believed to be the next big ‘thing’ after the revolution of mobile phones. Facebook recently released the Ray-Ban Stories which has been in the headlines for quite sometime since it was announced.

The collaboration between Ray-ban and Facebook is rather interesting and we will just have to see what it brings on the table. One point to note is that these glasses do not have any AR capabilities and their main focus is capturing the moments that matter. In this article, we are going to dive deep into the specs of this device, its main functions, security concerns that users may have and I will finally give you my final verdict on them.

Specs

• Dual 5 Megapixel cameras.
• Bluetooth 5.0
• Dual Band WI-FI (2.4GHz and 5GHz)
• Enough storage for 500 photos
• Supports up to 32 videos each 30 seconds.
• Comes with Facebook assistant.
• 30 second videos in 1184 X 1183 pixels
• 2592 X 1944 resolution for images.
• Snapdragon processor (unspecified)
• External facing LED.
• Speakers mounted on each temple of the glasses
• Touch sensitive controls to control music playbacks, calls and volume.
• Three microphones for calling
• Comes with a case for charging and storage
• Charges via USB type C.
• Frame colors – Black, Blue, Brown and Green.
• Lens options – can either be regular, polarized or transition lenses (Clear with Blue Light Filter, Brown, Dark Grey, Green, Polarized Dark Blue, Transitions Clear with Dark Green lenses)
• Retails for about $299

Let’s talk a bit about Augmented reality

The Ray-Ban stories are meant to capture the moments that matter; whether it’s through photos or videos. One of the best bits about these glasses is that you can use them as a standalone device, (sort of) meaning you do not need to remove your phone every time you need to capture a moment. (but it is necessary that you have your phone in order to access most functionalities through Bluetooth.)

While it may seem a bummer to some people who were expecting it to have AR capabilities, Facebook claims that this is only the beginning. For those who are not aware, AR stands for Augmented reality. This concept is not new by any means but it is still in development. Augmented Reality is meant to merge the real world with the virtual world by producing computer renders in a real life scenarios.

For example, if you want to buy furniture for your new apartment and you are not sure whether it will fit, you can use IKEA place which is an AR app that works in conjunction with LIDAR scanners to scan your room and produce computer renders of furniture in their correct scale which means you will never go wrong when buying furniture.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many other scenarios of AR including measuring length or height of an object, AR games and much more.

Using the Ray-Ban Stories

As mentioned earlier, the main functions of these glasses are taking calls, capturing photos and videos and music playbacks. Just to clarify, they don’t come with earbuds, instead they have open speakers in each temple which are neither too loud nor too quiet.

Input is through a touch sensitive bar and a button which are both found on the right side of the glasses. To adjust volume, you can swipe left or right. For music playbacks, pausing, skipping tracks, answering and ending phone calls you can either single tap, double tap or triple tap.

To use the device handsfree, Facebook resulted to their own Facebook Assistant. If you want to issue a command, just say ‘Hey Facebook’. In addition to this, if you want to pair your device with the glasses, you will need to download the Facebook view app. It is worth noting that in order to pair, you need an Android device version 8.0 or higher or an Iphone with IOS 13 or higher.

You can use this app to export, edit, share or store your photos and videos. Once edited you can either choose to store or share your content to your favorite social media apps.

Security Concerns

As you probably know by now, Facebook has encountered several lawsuits due to data infringement and many users are worried about their privacy especially since you will be wearing them for the better part of the day.

In Facebook’s defense, they said that they will optionally retain the login credentials of the user, the battery life and some WI-FI information. It’s optional since you can turn the settings off but they are on by default. Another privacy concern is whether Facebook stores your voice assistant data.

They do store the data through a log of the commands which issued security Concerns. Facebook claims that you can delete the log whenever you want or even switch it off entirely. In all these privacy concerns, Facebook says that they are meant to improve user experience but if you are not interested you can disable these settings.

Final thoughts

The concept that these glasses use, is not new by any means. Snapchat for example, has been working on such glasses for quite some time. Regardless of the market saturation, this is still a very big move for Facebook. Their collaboration with Ray-Ban was a good move especially in terms of marketing strategies.

This is only the beginning and I can’t wait to see what this collaboration will bring on the table. The idea of capturing moments as they occur without have to remove your phone is obviously very efficient and I hope that the image and video quality will continue to improve since phone cameras are quite superior to the ones found on these glasses. They are currently retailing for $299 in selected markets (U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, Italy and Australia) Would you consider buying them?