Everything is “smart” these days- I can talk to my Alexa speaker and she talks back. GMail knows what I’m going to type before I do. My 16 year old daughter is smart- in fact she reminds me daily that she is smarter than me until she wants something. Glasses are now “smart” too. Actually, way back when in 2012 a product called Google Glass had a short lived run. In fact, I told y’all about it here. But now it looks like smart glasses 2.0 may be here to stay.
I have to admit that I am not much of a tech person. I think it’s cool that Alexa can play millions of songs, but when I exercise at home, I prefer to listen to sports talk on my old fashioned “boom box” that I still have from college. I don’t want or need a fancy watch that can monitor my heart rate or multi-thousand dollar exercise bike.
So a few weeks ago a patient asked me if I could make lenses for a new eyeglass frame he bought. They’re called Rayban Stories. Of course I never heard of them. They have a 5 megapixel camera built in to the frame to capture photos and video. All you have to do is tap the frame to turn it on or say “Hey, Facebook take a video”. No more having to pull out your Kodak Instamatic and make sure it has film in it- that’s for sure! My kids already take hundreds of pictures and videos every minute with the inconvenience of having to hold their phones up and open the camera app. I can’t image how many they would take just by tapping their glasses.
Several other smart glasses are available in additon to Rayban Stories. Amazon Echo frames allow you to listen to music and make phone calls. Glasses made by Solos keep track of your running distance, pace, and even your posture! And I hear that smart contact lenses are finally ready for prime time- although I’ve been hearing that for 15 years.
Time will tell if these new glasses are the real deal or just a passing fad. But for now we’ll just…. Whoops- I gotta run. There’s a call coming in- on my land line of course!
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