Discreet Facebook Sunglasses Are Here For All Your Creeper Needs

Kate9/09/2021 9:40 PM

You know your one aunt who posts mundane videos on FB all week long? A small concert in her local park, a quick scan of a meal she's about to eat, her dog being silly... Wouldn't you love to continue seeing content like that, but wayyy more often & much more wobbly? Thankfully Facebook is here to help with a product we need like a fish needs a bicycle: $299.00 "Ray Ban Stories" video camera sunglasses that also record sound.

Via The Verge:

The frames feature two-front facing cameras for capturing video and photos. They sync with a companion camera roll app called Facebook View, where clips can be edited and shared to other apps on your phone (not just Facebook’s own). There’s a physical button on the glasses for recording, or you can say “Hey Facebook, take a video” to control them hands-free.
And, perhaps most importantly, they look and feel like regular glasses.

That 'look just like regular glasses' part had a lot of people up in arms saying this was yet another way for Facebook to invade our privacy, but thankfully Zuck has a solution:

Ah, a power button and a teeny-tiny light that I'm sure a small piece of electrical tape could never thwart.

Also, you can take phone calls with them as there are speakers built into the sides. Ya know, for when you want everyone around you to hear the conversation you're having.

As we all know this idea has been done before; First there was the now-shuttered Google Glass, and Snapchat Spectacle has been going for several years now (though with abysmal numbers), so I'm not sure what might make this successful for FB. I get that tech believes smart glasses will be a main interface in the future, but for now it just seems like one of those novelties that is cool for a few weeks but then you get sick of it; clunky & isn't really practical.

Also, perhaps I'm much more negative-brained but the first thing I thought when I saw these clips from Snapchat Spectacles was, "Oh God… the only people I can see really wanting to buy video camera glasses are creeps":

..And these FB versions are wayyy less obviously video cameras than Snap Spectacles. Now I'll be scrutinizing everyone's shades like a nut when I start taking my son to the playground.

When I was a kid I had a pair of Dick Tracey spy sunglasses where the far left & right corner of each lens facing my eye was mirrored so I could see backwards & forwards at the same time. I'd tell other kids to put up their fingers behind me & I'd guess how many they were holding up. Minds blown. Not an iPhone or app in sight… ::sigh::