Facebook’s Ray-Ban Stories glasses can take photos and videos through cameras at each corner of the device’s frames.
Courtesy of Ashley Bogdan
Facebook on Thursday unveiled its long-awaited collaboration with Luxottica: Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses.
The glasses, which start at $299, let users take photos and record videos with voice commands or by pressing a button on the right temple of the glasses. They also have small speakers that turn the smart glasses into headphones for listening to music and podcasts via Bluetooth from the smartphone they’re pair with. And they include microphones, so you can talk on the phone through them.
It’s the latest example of Facebook building new hardware, and they represent another step into a future where Facebook envisions people wearing computers on their faces, whether they’re Oculus virtual reality headsets or something more normal looking like sunglasses.
Facebook Ray-Ban Stories glasses
Facebook
The glasses were first reported by CNBC in 2019, but Facebook is hardly the first company to roll out a pair of smart glasses. Social-media rival Snap launched its first Spectacles devices in 2016, and the ill-fated Google Glass devices launched way back in 2013.
The Ray-Ban Stories go on sale Thursday and are available at Ray-Ban stores and on Ray-Ban.com in the U.S., U.K., Italy, Australia, Ireland and Canada. The device will launch through more retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, Sunglass Hut and LensCrafters, on Monday.
I got to try out Ray-Ban Stories for a few days prior to their launch. Here’s what you need to know.
What’s good
Facebook’s Ray-Ban Stories Glasses
Sal Rodriguez | CNBC
Facebook’s glasses look fashionable, not dorky, and aren’t obviously equipped with technology. That’s a big achievement for pair of smart glasses sold by a tech company. Just look at Snap’s latest version of the Spectacles. Good luck not getting laughed at with those on.
Facebook’s glasses are available in three of Ray-Ban’s popular glasses: the Wayfarer, Round and Meteor models. You can customize the glasses by choosing different colors and different types of lenses, including sun, prescription, polarized, gradient, transition and clear. I tested the black Wayfarer model with clear lenses.
The Ray Ban Stories glasses, which start at $299, come equipped with Facebook technology that allows users to take photos and record videos with voice commands or by pressing a button on the right temple of the glasses.
Courtesy of Facebook
Facebook picked the right partner. The glasses look exactly like what you’d expect from Ray-Ban. You won’t realize they’re special Ray-Bans unless you’re looking specifically for the two cameras on the corner of the device’s frames.
Facebook’s logo isn’t anywhere on the device or its case. The only trace of the Facebook brand is on the product box. It’s smart when you consider how much mistrust people have in Facebook these days and if you recall just how negatively people reacted to the Google Glass devices, which also had a camera.
Facebook and Ray-Ban told CNBC their goal was to build glasses that allow users to capture what they see while staying present in the moment. You’re faced with a conundrum when you use your phone to take pictures. You either witness something awesome and live in the moment, or you pull out your phone and try to focus on photographing or recording the event. The Ray-Ban Stories solve that problem.
As someone who doesn’t normally wear glasses, the clear lens Ray-Ban Stories felt a bit awkward for me during everyday moments, like walking through San Francisco to a coffee meeting or wearing them at dinner with friends. But they were perfect for sightseeing.
I took the glasses for a spin on a nine-mile bike ride in Yosemite National Park where I found them useful for snapping pictures. Riding through the valley, there were moments where the trees would open up and reveal incredible views of the granite cliffs. Without the glasses, trying to shoot photos or videos of the views with my phone would have required that I ride dangerously while pulling out my phone, or that I slow down my entire group and stop to take pics. The Ray-Ban Stories made it possible to capture the views while continuing to ride and looking up at the cliffs.
The photos and videos show up in a square format within an app called View that Facebook developed for the glasses. Users can download pictures into their phones’ camera roll or share the media directly to other apps, including Facebook rivals TikTok and Snap.
You can take photos and videos one of two ways. I was able to say “Hey Facebook, take a photo” or “Hey Facebook, take a video” and the glasses understood me. You can also short press a button on the top of the right temple of the glasses to shoot a video or press and hold the button for a photo.
I found myself using the button more than the voice commands. I didn’t want to draw attention to the glasses by saying the voice commands out loud, and I felt awkward doing so. The button was much quicker than saying a voice command and waiting for the Ray-Ban Stories to register the command and act on it.
Facebook says the glasses have six-hour battery life. They charge when you set them in the carrying case, which Facebook says gives three full charges. I never got close to running out of battery.
Facebook’s Ray-Ban Stories glasses can take photos and videos through cameras at each corner of the device’s frames.
Salvador Rodriguez/CNBC
What’s bad
Augmented reality features, which let you overlay digital content on top of the real world, are notably absent. You don’t see anything different when you look through them. Facebook had previously warned that AR capabilities would be missing from the Ray-Ban glasses, but the lack of AR feels like a disappointment, especially after Snap added AR to the latest iteration of its Spectacles in May.
The two 5-megapixel cameras don’t take the best pictures or videos. Modern smartphones come with multiple lenses that offer zoom or wide-angle capabilities for fitting more into a picture, and most have a sharper 12-megapixel resolution. But the glasses were good for quickly capturing moments on the go.
Facebook’s Ray-Ban Stories Glasses
Sal Rodriguez | CNBC
A white LED lights up on the top right of the glasses when users take a photo or video to indicate the glasses are shooting a photo or video. It’s good that Facebook took steps to make it clear when the glasses are in action, and the company sought feedback on how to best do this from several organizations, including the Future of Privacy Forum and National Consumers League. Despite the focus on privacy, most people might not even understand the light means the glasses are recording.
Facebook and Ray-Ban are also playing up the Stories’ audio features. The glasses include two speakers at the bottom of each temple, but they’re not great.
The audio quality is nowhere near that of earbuds or headphones. If you’re someone who needs audio quality to be top-notch, you’ll be bothered by how poor the Ray-Ban Stories sound. And although the speakers aren’t very loud for the user, they’re loud enough that others around you will be able to hear what you’re listening to, whether it’s a private phone call or your most embarrassing Spotify playlist. That means wearing the glasses and listening to music on the bus or at the grocery store is out of the question, at least for me.
Still, the speakers came in handy while I was riding my bike. The sound was fine for the bike ride when no one was around me. As I cruised through Yosemite Valley, I got to listen to music and some podcasts while keeping my ears uncovered. This made it possible to hear my friends and any cars passing around me.
The glasses also aren’t water-resistant, so you’ll need to be careful if you’re wearing them on the beach or by the pool.
Facebook’s Ray-Ban Stories glasses can take photos and videos through cameras at each corner of the device’s frames.
Salvador Rodriguez/CNBC
Final thoughts
The Ray-Ban Stories are a fine first attempt at smart glasses by Facebook. It’s great that the company teamed up with a brand people will actually want to wear.
But the glasses lack AR features and are more like a point-and-shoot camera with speakers and lenses attached instead of real smart glasses. The pictures aren’t as good as what you’d get from a smartphone while the speakers don’t match what you’d expect from a set of AirPods. That’s a lot of sacrifices to get a camera on your face.
The Ray-Ban Stories might make for a cool birthday or holiday present for a loved one, but for now, they aren’t much more than a fashionable toy.
Founded in 2022, ElevenLabs is an AI voice generation startup based in London. It competes with the likes of Speechmatics and Hume AI.
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LONDON — ElevenLabs, a London-based startup that specializes in generating synthetic voices through artificial intelligence, has revealed plans to be IPO-ready within five years.
The company told CNBC it is targeting major global expansion as it prepares for an initial public offering.
“We expect to build more hubs in Europe, Asia and South America, and just keep scaling,” Mati Staniszewski, ElevenLabs’ CEO and co-founder, told CNBC in an interview at the firm’s London office.
He identified Paris, Singapore, Brazil and Mexico as potential new locations. London is currently ElevenLabs’ biggest office, followed by New York, Warsaw, San Francisco, Japan, India and Bangalore.
Staniszewski said the eventual aim is to get the company ready for an IPO in the next five years.
“From a commercial standpoint, we would like to be ready for an IPO in that time,” he said. “If the market is right, we would like to create a public company … that’s going to be here for the next generation.”
Undecided on location
Founded in 2022 by Staniszewski and Piotr Dąbkowski, ElevenLabs is an AI voice generation startup that competes with the likes of Speechmatics and Hume AI.
The company divides its business into three main camps: consumer-facing voice assistants, integrations with corporates such as Cisco, and tailor-made applications for specific industries like health care.
Staniszewski said the firm hasn’t yet decided where it could list, but that this decision will largely rest on where most of its users are located at the time.
“If the U.K. is able to start accelerating,” ElevenLabs will consider London as a listing destination, Staniszewski said.
The city has faced criticisms from entrepreneurs and venture capitalists that its stock market is unfavorable toward high-growth tech firms.
Meanwhile, British money transfer firm Wiselast month said it plans to move its primary listing location to the U.S.,
Fundraising plans
ElevenLabs was valued at $3.3 billion following a recent $180 million funding round. The company is backed by the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and ICONIQ Growth, as well as corporate names like Salesforce and Deutsche Telekom.
Staniszewski said his startup was open to raising more money from VCs, but it would depend on whether it sees a valid business need, like scaling further in other markets. “The way we try to raise is very much like, if there’s a bet we want to take, to accelerate that bet [we will] take the money,” he said.
Synopsys logo is seen displayed on a smartphone with the flag of China in the background.
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The U.S. government has rescinded its export restrictions on chip design software to China, U.S.-based Synopsys announced Thursday.
“Synopsys is working to restore access to the recently restricted products in China,” it said in a statement.
The U.S. had reportedly told several chip design software companies, including Synopsys, in May that they were required to obtain licenses before exporting goods, such as software and chemicals for semiconductors, to China.
The U.S. Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.
The news comes after China signaled last week that they are making progress on a trade truce with the U.S. and confirmed conditional agreements to resume some exchanges of rare earths and advanced technology.
The Datadog stand is being displayed on day one of the AWS Summit Seoul 2024 at the COEX Convention and Exhibition Center in Seoul, South Korea, on May 16, 2024.
Chris Jung | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Datadog shares were up 10% in extended trading on Wednesday after S&P Global said the monitoring software provider will replace Juniper Networks in the S&P 500 U.S. stock index.
S&P Global is making the change effective before the beginning of trading on July 9, according to a statement.
Computer server maker Hewlett Packard Enterprise, also a constituent of the index, said earlier on Wednesday that it had completed its acquisition of Juniper, which makes data center networking hardware. HPE disclosed in a filing that it paid $13.4 billion to Juniper shareholders.
Over the weekend, the two companies reached a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department, which had sued in opposition to the deal. As part of the settlement, HPE agreed to divest its global Instant On campus and branch business.
While tech already makes up an outsized portion of the S&P 500, the index has has been continuously lifting its exposure as the industry expands into more areas of society.
Stocks often rally when they’re added to a major index, as fund managers need to rebalance their portfolios to reflect the changes.
New York-based Datadog went public in 2019. The company generated $24.6 million in net income on $761.6 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2025, according to a statement. Competitors include Cisco, which bought Splunk last year, as well as Elastic and cloud infrastructure providers such as Amazon and Microsoft.
Datadog has underperformed the broader tech sector so far this year. The stock was down 5.5% as of Wednesday’s close, while the Nasdaq was up 5.6%. Still, with a market cap of $46.6 billion, Datadog’s valuation is significantly higher than the median for that index.
