You know the people ... those ones bopping their head while walking down the street and sometimes they are talking to themselves. We used to mock these people staying they must be high or pity them for being mentally insane. The reality over the past decade or so is that these are just folks jamming out to music by plugging earbuds into their heads and effectively sealing off reality. Not only is this dangerous but it is also disruptive to those around them in busy city environments for instance and tragic in other situations like a hike where you might like to enjoy some music ... but not miss the natural sounds of creeks, birds, or the wind blowing through the trees. That's where Lucyd comes in and offers an alternative to make music and calls on the go safer while not isolating you from the environment.
What Exactly Are Lucyd Glasses?
The concept here is pretty clear - Lucyd takes fashionable frames, combines them with a set of chunky but still fashionable temples that contain speakers that sit just over your ears as well as microphones and batteries to give you about a 12-hour usable lifespan.
As you would expect, you can also connect it to Google or Siri and using the app it can also read webpages and other content to you or even write an email using the ChatGPT app.
The concept here isn't difficult and frankly they work pretty well with a few points that you need to consider before pulling the trigger to make a purchase.
What Did We Like About Lucyd?
There's a lot to like with Lucyd glasses - the frames are pretty good quality, while there are limitations in styles that can be offered due to them needing to be compatible with the temple pieces that house the magic, at no point does it feel unnaturally or unbalanced. In fact, only once did I feel like these glasses were uncomfortable and that was as much because I was wearing a hat that came down and overlapped the glosses in the back.
These temple pieces are a bit longer that traditional glasses and they are also far thicker at the ends which isn't always an issue.
We also liked that for folks looking for prescription glasses that there was a wide variety of customizations though maybe too many, without really being able to understand the differences between their version of transition lenses and the authentic transition lens tech
Finally, the reason why we wear these glasses is that I simply don't like wearing earbuds or headphones in crowded areas unless my objective is to protect my ears and tune stuff out. Otherwisee, the notion of walking down the street listening to music or having a conversation just seems unsafe.
With Lucyd I have full environmental awareness of everything around me. This is why these glasses are what I'll wear on a train or in the airport for instance before switching to a pair of high-quality noise-blocking headphones once the engines spin up.
One thing that I liked ... but wonder if it could be better was the speaker. You quickly learn to ignore it but the reality is that the speak is a speaker pointing out into the world and not something pointing into a hole in your head. As such, if you are sitting next to someone - on the couch after dinner for instance - your partner will be able to tell that you're watching Tiktok videos. It's not 100% discrete. However, the sound quality is pretty good and it feels natural for the user ... so I'm not sure what bucket to put that into :)
What Did We Wish Was Different?
There are two things I wish were different about Lucyd glasses and they both involve the battery. While I mostly understand and appreciate the limits of technology today in terms of what battery life can deliver etc. I think it is important to recognize that these are a nice piece of tech ... but they aren't magical.
Battery Life
They advertise a 12-hour battery life but that's barely adequate for folks who are busy and who don't expect to charge their glasses. This is said to be designed so the "typical" user will only have to charge them every few days but at least in my life and testing experience where I kept them on to take incoming calls, listening to music and occasionally asking google to look something up --- by dinner time I was forced to switch glasses.
Charging Procedure
Right now they have two magnetically attached charging pieces on the end of a USB-A cable that comes standard with the glasses. There is apparently a Charging Dock accessory that I wish I'd know about and probably would have purchased on my own if I'd known about it. Unfortunately, on their website where they list it under accessories there's really no description and so I have to assume that it probably don't work as well as I would hope.
The sad reality is that this $35 product could be the difference between being a satisfied customer and someone who is happy that they were just engaged to do a media review.
Finally, I'm not going to include price here since quite frankly - eye glass prices are out of control everywhere and the same with sunglasses. Here you can get a pair of non-prescription glasses for less than $100 (depending on the sales and current offers) however, when you add on other options such as Transitions or Chromatics or Polarization - the cost quickly jumps up to $300 + ... this might be a shock to some folks but is par for the course these days with premium eyewear.
Lucyd can be purchased online as fashion and sunglasses as well as with prescription optical lenses.
