Facebook Ray-Ban Stories Review

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They Look Like Ray-Bans

(Photo: Will Greenwald)

The Stories look and feel like standard Ray-Ban glasses, just with slightly bulkier temples and small cameras clearly visible in the top left and right corners. They've available in three different, classic Ray-Ban styles—Meteor, Round, and Wayfarer—in your choice of five colors (glossy black, blue, brown, olive, or matte black) and six types of lenses (brown gradient, clear, dark blue, dark gray, green, or photochromatic green). Prescription lenses are also available, and while Ray-Ban hasn't specified pricing for prescription lenses, the company typically charges a hefty $225 for single-vision prescriptions on top of the frame price. Facebook sent us a pair of glossy black Wayfarers with clear, non-prescription lenses.

While the temples are slightly thicker than typical glasses, they aren't nearly as bulky as those on other camera or music glasses we've tested. The frames are virtually indistinguishable from traditional Ray-Bans, and feel well made and comfortable. I found the Wayfarers a little tight around my head, but I was testing the regular version as opposed to the Wayfarer L, which should fit better. Still, spring hinges to add flexibility to the temples would be nice.

Facebook offers no IP rating for the Stories, and warns that the glasses aren't designed to deal with any exposure to liquids. You should probably keep them out of the rain to be safe.

(Photo: Will Greenwald)

A power switch on the inside of the left hinge turns the Stories on and off, while an LED indicator on the inside of the right hinge tells you its status. A capture button sits on the top edge of the right temple, near the front. While not visible, a touch-sensitive surface on the outside of the right temple provides call, playback, and volume controls through different taps and swipes.

The glasses fit snugly in the included hard-shell charging case, which is slightly bulky but stylish. It's wrapped in black faux leather, with a debossed Ray-Ban logo on the top. The inside has special recesses for a secure fit, and to align the charging points on the glasses (on the right hinge, with the glasses folded) with those in the case. A USB-C port on the back of the case charges the battery inside.

According to Facebook, you should be able to get up to six hours between charges, and the case can hold three additional full charges. That's with moderate usage, though, and after an hour-and-a-half walk with the glasses playing music at maximum volume and taking multiple photos and videos, battery life dropped from full to 43%.

(Photo: Will Greenwald)

Surprisingly Not Facebook-Centric

As you can imagine, you need a Facebook account to use the Stories. Rather than the standard Facebook app, you need to install the separate Facebook View app for Android and iOS, and sign in to your account from there. The app walks you through a painless pairing process, connecting the glasses to your phone without requiring you to manually pair over Bluetooth or sign into an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network. 

The app is primarily for managing the photos and videos on your Stories, and to transfer them to your phone's camera roll. Facebook doesn't provide any specific storage size for the glasses, only that they can hold around 500 photos or 35 30-second videos. Pressing the Sync button in the app catalogues the photos and videos on the glasses and generates thumbnails for you to browse. The app doesn't automatically download the files to your phone by default, but you can easily set it to do so. You can also individually download your captures. I found that the app synced with thumbnails very quickly, but fully transferring everything I shot took a few minutes.

After the app is synced and your captures are downloaded to your phone, you can use the app to edit both photos and videos. You can tweak settings like brightness and saturation, tap a one-touch Enhance button to automatically make those adjustments, crop the frame, and trim video clips. You can then share your captures, and to the app's credit, it doesn't funnel you directly into Facebook—it provides the same sharing options as most other apps, including email and Twitter.

How to Snap Stories

(Photo: Will Greenwald)

Taking pictures and video clips is easy, if slightly counterintuitive. Pressing the capture button on the right temple shoots a 30-second video, while pressing and holding the button takes a photo. It feels like those two gestures should be reversed, but it isn't difficult to get used to. You can't take photos and videos at the same time; pressing the capture button while a video is being recorded will simply stop the recording.

You can also say, "Hey Facebook, take a picture," or, "Hey Facebook, take a video," and the glasses will respond accordingly. This is called Facebook Assistant, but it seems to just be those two voice commands; you won't find any advanced voice assistant features like you get with Amazon Alexa on the Echo Frames.

Thankfully, the Stories are built with transparency in mind. A white LED to the right of the right camera turns on when the glasses are taking a photo or recording a video, and an audible shutter sound can be heard. The LED can be difficult to see in bright sunlight, but in most cases it's a good warning to people who might not want to be recorded.

Camera Performance

Don't expect dedicated digital camera or even high-end camera phone performance from the Stories. The dual cameras on the glasses are a modest 5MP, capable of taking photos at 2,592-by-1,944-pixel resolution with a 105-degree field of view. For comparison, the 12MP camera on my Google Pixel 3a XL captures 4,032-by-3,024 pictures. The Stories also take square video at 1,184 by 1,184 pixels and 30 frames per second. All exposure settings are handled automatically by the glasses, and there are no options available to tweak in the app.

Before looking at picture quality, I want to note how good the Stories are at framing. The position and field of view of the two cameras more or less perfectly cover your vision while wearing the glasses, so anything you shoot, as long as you can see it, will be captured. That's an important feature, because while wearing a camera the only viewfinder is your own eyes, and if the camera isn't aligned with them, you can easily take poorly framed photos and videos.

Limited resolution makes the NYC skyline in the distance hard to see (Photo: Will Greenwald)

In daylight, the Stories take nicely sharp, crisp photos, or at least as crisp as 5MP can offer. Colors are consistently well balanced, and relatively close objects have plenty of detail. That detail drops off in the distance, though; the New York City skyline, while recognizable in the above photo, is little more than a handful of pixels if you zoom in, because of the limited resolution. 

(Photo: Will Greenwald)

Chromatic aberration is also a concern, and strongly contrasting vertical edges will often show a slight purple tinge. It's usually minor, and not something the average non-photographer swiping through social feeds will find distracting. To the Stories' credit, lens distortion is kept to a minimum, and I noticed no warping at the edges of photos.

Videos are smooth and just as well exposed and color balanced as photos, but they take a slight hit in detail. The videos I captured with the glasses were a little softer than my photos, though still quite usable for social media.

(Photo: Will Greenwald)

You should also be able to get good photos indoors, if the room is lit well. My indoor test shot above, with ceiling lights on full, was notably softer than my outdoor test shots, but still showed a good amount of detail.

Low-light images can get pretty soft (Photo: Will Greenwald)

Low-light performance is another story. With the ceiling lights turned off, the same photo is noisy and slightly blurry. This isn't too surprising, considering how small the cameras are. Interestingly, the low-light test photo above looks nearly the same as the well-lit indoor test photo in terms of exposure, showing that the glasses prioritize a consistent look across different pictures, and will pump up sensitivity to maintain that look rather than settle for a dimmer photo.

Audio Quality

Once paired, the Stories also serve as Bluetooth headphones, though I found their implementation slightly finicky on my Android phone. The glasses would show up as connected as soon as I turned them on, and even appear as the default playback device, but music would still play through my phone's speaker until I manually tapped the Stories in Android's drop-down menu and slightly tweaked the volume to remind my phone to actually play audio through the glasses. This is perhaps a rare glitch with my slightly dated phone, but it's an annoyance.

Because the glasses beam sound into your ears with small speakers, sound leakage is a concern in both directions. You will pick up any and all external sounds while wearing the glasses, which means you'll probably want to pump the volume up when you're walking around outside. People nearby might be able to hear whatever you're listening to because there's no sound isolation by design, but the outward audio leakage isn't much worse than with on-ear headphones.

(Photo: Will Greenwald)

As for audio quality, the Stories are among the better-sounding audio glasses we've tested, though as is standard for the category, bass response is minimal. The kick drum hits and bass synth notes in our test track, The Knife's "Silent Shout," barely sound like taps through the glasses. All audio response starts at the low-mids, and really focuses on the mids and highs.

Monster Magnet's "Negasonic Teenage Warhead" sounds much better through the Stories. The vocals and guitar riffs stand out with plenty of presence and clarity, making the track feel exciting. The drums take a back seat because of the weak bass, but the rest of the mix is well defined, and the song is still enjoyable to listen to even without heavy percussion.

The Crystal Method's "Born Too Slow" demonstrates the same audio balance, with the vocals, guitar riffs, and synth standing in the front of the mix while the backbeat is significantly downplayed. It doesn't give the ominous background thump of the drums necessary for the full effect of the track, but the general sound is still represented enough that you can enjoy it. The sound is comparable with the Bose Frames and the Bose Frames Tempo, both of which cost a bit less, but don't have a camera.

Aside from shooting photos and videos and listening to music, you can also make calls with the Stories. The audio balance of the glasses means that voices come through very clearly. The microphone also works quite well, but it has some significant Bluetooth artifacts and can sound slightly distant. It's better than the microphones on most true wireless earphones, but it isn't exactly pristine.

(Photo: Will Greenwald)

The Most Versatile Smart Glasses

Facebook and Ray-Ban's Stories are the most functional smart glasses we've seen so far, doubling as a camera and headphones in a design that's virtually indistinguishable from a pair of traditional Ray-Bans. They take better photos and look far less ridiculous than the Snapchat Spectacles, and they sound much better than the Echo Frames. Neither the camera nor audio quality here are particularly amazing, but it's the best combination of the two we've experienced in a pair of glasses.

This doesn't necessarily mean we recommend running out and buying a pair of Stories. They're expensive, starting at $300, and their performance is only adequate compared with dedicated devices for taking photos and listening to music. And even though they use a separate app from the standard Facebook portal, the connection might be a concern for anyone suspicious of the company's past regarding privacy, or frustrated by some of its other policies.

Ultimately, without truly great performance in some form, smart glasses like the Stories remain an interesting novelty that won't replace your phone or headphones. They're good for what they are, but what they are has yet to really find itself.

Pros

• Stylish design

• Solid audio and camera quality

• App doesn't push you into actively using Facebook (besides requiring an account)

Cons

• Poor low-light camera performance

• Audio lacks bass

The Bottom Line

The Ray-Ban Stories glasses from Facebook snap social media-worthy imagery and double as headphones. They can't replace a good camera phone or pair of earbuds, but they work well as a stylish all-in-one package.

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