Sunglasses are one of my favorite accessories, but I never really got into smart glasses until now. They aren’t new—WIRED wrote about Bluetooth sunglasses in 2009—but my regular glasses do plenty just by helping me see better, and I definitely didn’t want glasses that looked like they were out of a sci-fi movie.
However, I’ve been listening to music, following GPS directions, and answering calls with the Lucyd 2.0 frames for a few weeks now, and I’m impressed by their incognito utility. You wouldn’t know based on the frames that these are hiding speakers and microphones inside. I’ve tried other app-connected glasses before, like the Ampere Dusk, and they just reminded me too much of the giant plastic frames they hand out at 3D movie theaters.
Sun Blocked
Lucyd’s eyewear connects to your phone or computer via Bluetooth, and each arm is equipped with two tiny speakers and a microphone. They’re slightly thicker than your typical sunglass arms, but you get used to that pretty quickly.
My usual Pink Floyd and Machine Gun Kelly fare sounded surprisingly nice, considering I was blasting it through sunglass arms. If I cranked it too loud, it could get a little tinny. Audiophiles will probably disagree—and we have plenty of suggestions elsewhere if you don’t mind carrying another accessory—but for casual listening, it was all I needed.
As with other Bluetooth headphones, you can control volume, play, and pause, as well as skipping songs, answering calls, and activating your device’s voice assistant with the buttons on the arms. I could also hear the world around me pretty easily.