The right stem also has a touch sensor on the side that’s able to detect taps and swipes.Īll those components are there, but unless somebody is looking for them, they’re basically invisible.
Each stem has two tiny holes located back near your ear for audio. There is a mic, power button, and a couple of volume buttons on the underside of the right stem - plus a magnetic pogo pin receiver for charging. (I normally wear glasses, so I had contact lenses in during my testing.)Īs far as the techy components go, they’re subtle. Those built-in lenses are reflective as hell, making them so distracting during Zoom calls that I had to take them off. They look normal, but they don’t look especially nice The temples contain all the electronics, and are quite thick.Īmazon has a partnership with LensCrafters to help people get prescription lenses added to the Echo Frames, but I used them as they shipped, with clear plastic lenses. But while I’m sold on the concept, for reasons both in and out of Amazon’s control, the experience of actually using the Echo Frames falls well short of their potential. It’s a bit like discovering headphones all over again. The Echo Frames have sold me on the concept of having discreet, personal audio available at all times.
Bose is also on its second iteration of sunglasses (or eyeglasses) with little speakers in the temples - and it offers multiple styles, to boot.
That’s doubly true for these Echo Frames, which are now widely available for anybody to buy in a version two of the product that makes some tweaks to the internal hardware and battery life.Īmazon isn’t alone in this category, though. Maybe that’s in the works, but as with many of its products, Amazon starts with a minimum viable product and iterates. It’s a much smarter strategy than the failed smart glasses that tried to add a display into the mix. They run $249 and come with basic plastic lenses, but you can take them to an optometrist and get prescription lenses. The concept is relatively simple: they’re a pair of eyeglasses with tiny little speakers and microphones embedded in the temples so you can listen to music and command Alexa. I did not expect to like the Amazon Echo Frames as much as I do.
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