Ray-Ban, the famous sunglasses manufacturer, has a new line of “smart” sunglasses, sold under the Stories name. Editor Zac took a look at these and thought they might be a groovy idea for motorcycle use. So, because I adore this tech and was curious, I hopped over to my closest retail establishment and asked a bunch of questions before plopping down (my own) cash for these cool new specs.

“Round” Ray-Ban Stories in an Arai Signet X. Photo: Kate Murphy (this is a picture taken by the sunglasses)

These glasses have two 5MP cameras, a microphone and several speakers built into the frame of the glasses. 

If you’ve used a GoPro, Sena, or any other bike- or helmet-mount camera, you’ve probably experienced your video getting ruined by bug guts. Perhaps mounting a tiny camera or two behind your visor could cut down on that particular problem?

Maybe they’ll help that problem and several more, like: Where do I mount the camera? How do I control the camera? How do I aim it correctly? What happens if I run out of storage, or run out of battery? I figured, when the camera is on your face, all of these problems are either solved, or it’s more obvious that they need attention.

Notes about these glasses:

• They are not even a little bit water-resistant. They cannot get wet. The embedded electronics will fail.
• They cannot be adjusted. If you try to bend the arms, the embedded electronics will break.
• They can be retrofitted with prescription lenses, but you need to send them out to an approved site to do so.

How they work:

You need to own a smartphone, and load the “FaceBook View” app on it; that is what talks to the glasses.

To activate the glasses, there is a button (at the front of the right temple). Click once, quickly, to take a 30-second (1184x 1184px @30fps) video; click and hold to snap a (2592x1944px) still. There is no option to take a video longer than 30 seconds, but you can tell it to stop recording sooner by saying “hey Facebook, stop recording.” You can set it to, or not to, record you saying that.

The “FaceBook View” app can theoretically  string pieces of these 30-second videos together to create a montage. I don’t know if it is my (admittedly awful) smartphone or the app itself, but I found it extremely difficult to work with. It also has an option to “enhance” a video, but all that did (after a long wait) was make that video unavailable.

Note about that activation button: I am extremely right-handed, and every time I put these glasses on, into my helmet, I inadvertently pushed the button and took a video of me putting my gloves on, getting on a bike, or farting around in my garage. Derp.

How do they charge?

The glasses come with their own hard case which is also their docking station for charging. That case is powered by USB-C. There is no way to charge the glasses without taking them off your face and putting them in their case. The mount is on the left side of the “face” of the glasses, and is magnetized. They seat positively into the case to charge, but after using them for a while, they seem picky to me. I don’t have a lot of confidence they’d charge in a tank bag on a moving motorcycle, for instance; the connection is a bit dodgy unless they’re perfectly still. The case is rated to charge the glasses completely, three times. Then you’ve got to recharge the case itself (similar to wireless earbuds).

How does the charge last?

During a 20-minute ride, I listened to music through the glasses’ speakers from my Spotify account on my phone, took half a dozen videos, and a few more still shots. I started the ride with them at a full charge, and when I got back home, the state of charge on the glasses had fallen to  65 percent. I did the same thing without music, and from fully-charged they only fell to 85 percent on a 20-minute ride. When you’re recording video, the glasses automatically pause any music you’re playing through them, and it is not recorded into the video. This is a decent way to figure out if the glasses heard your command or not. If they’re still playing music, they’re not recording video.

The “Wake Word” is Facebook

If you’re already wearing a motorcycle helmet, you can say “Hey, Facebook” to wake the FaceBook Assistant, and activate it to take photos or videos for you. The “Hey, FaceBook, take a picture” or “Hey FaceBook, take a video” commands work exactly how you’d expect. In my experience, the microphone does not hear me over 35-40 mph, even inside a full-face helmet with the visor closed, even on a bike with a decent windshield.

When it can hear you, you can activate the microphone in the glasses to: take pictures and video, play music through the speakers (and skip, rewind, or turn the volume up or down), or call or send a message to one of your contacts. You can also tell it to stop recording, if you don’t want the whole 30 seconds recorded. You cannot record a video longer than 30 seconds. You’ll have to do that in post-prod. Welcome to the TikTok generation.

Decent Playback

I found the microphones in the glasses to be surprisingly good when it came to sound on video playback, inside a helmet with the visor down and protected from wind. The sales folks warned me that the video optics would not work properly inside a tinted helmet visor. Something about them fighting with any polarization? I am happy to report that is not the case. The video worked great inside an Arai tinted visor as well as the Bell Star DLX Protint “photochromic” visor. In the vids, I am apparently confused and keep calling the visor “Transitions,” which is the copyrighted eyeglasses tinting, and that is not this.

Here’s a video from the sunglasses from behind that Protint visor on a Bell helmet, on a ’17 SV650 with very little wind protection to speak of.

Here’s a video from the sunglasses, from behind an Arai with a Dark Smoke shield. You can hear the difference between the visor open and closed in both vids. I definitely was talking with it open, but you can’t tell. I’m on a ’13 Super Tenere with a tall Yamaha windshield on a MadStat bracket.

What about storage?

The glasses have 4 GB of storage on board, and published storage purports to hold at least 500 photos or 30, 30-second videos. When that’s full, you will need to connect the glasses to the phone app, whereupon all your “captures” get dumped into Facebook View. You need wifi or a data connection to accomplish this. Pictures and videos stay in that app until you download them to your general phone storage, or “share” them from Facebook View to an SMS chat to your Google Drive, or to any other app you have loaded.

In use, I highly recommend allowing the View app to automatically upload/back up the stills and videos it takes to your phone’s hard drive or SD card and/or your Google Drive or other cloud account. That way, when the View app deletes or corrupts a video you’ve taken on the one nice day in a string of cold, drizzly New England weather, it’s not lost entirely. Live and learn!

Fitment

Now, let’s talk about fitment. I bought the “round” style Ray-Ban Stories, since the width of the glasses themselves was just a touch thinner temple-to-temple than the Wayfarer or the Meteor. I figured they’d fit under my helmets more easily.

Generally I wear glasses (actual corrective lenses) to ride in. To test these shades, I popped my contact lenses in. My helmets are all size Medium, and the current-generation (built in 2018) Arai Signet X fits the Ray-Bans the best. They fit into the helmet just like my eyeglasses and there’s no binding or pressure. My Schuberth C3 is on the older side, and is just about at its end of life. If I pull the helmet on and then try to get the Ray-Bans into the helmet, it is an absolute no-go. Owwwww, my ears. If, however, I put the glasses on first and then pull the helmet on, they fit just a bit tighter than my eyeglasses. A Bell Star DLX MIPS helmet, new last year, was the least comfortable with significant pressure behind my ears. I’ve barely broken in this helmet though, so that fit might improve.

Filming On the Sly?

A note about privacy: there is a tiny LED light on the forward frame of the glasses, that lights up when it’s taking pictures or video. It’s very obvious to other people, but might not be under a helmet visor. It’s also easy to cover. This video camera form factor is getting pretty popular (there are off-brand video sunglasses all over Amazon etc.). You could film or be filmed anywhere without someone obviously holding up a phone. I’m honestly not super sure how I feel about all that.

Are They Worth the Investment?

Overall, having plopped down $300 USD for these glasses, will I keep them? Yeah, I think I will. They work well enough for recording short bits of motorcycle rides (and the option to say “hey FaceBook, take a video” when things look like they might get super hairy on the road). I think they will also be great for filming how-to vids, freeing up both hands to wrench. I also sprang for the 2-year warranty for an additional $20, so hopefully if they quit on me I can replace them without too much hassle.

What did I miss? Ask all your questions in the comments.