I think I’ve been overdue for a comeback and what a way to come back by talking about a second DIFFERENT type of wearable eye-related tech, and this time a modern piece as well. These are the Bose Classic Bluetooth Audio Sunglasses, a pair of sunglasses (obviously) with built in Bluetooth speakers (again, redundant). They operate by using small, directionally engineered speakers to send the sound towards your ears while causing as minimal noise bleed as possible (whilst still bleeding a lot of noise, mind you). There are plans to add AR functionality to future models, similar to other “smart glasses” many tech companies have discussed.
But these aren’t the most interesting audio sunglasses I came across...
These are the OptiShokz Revves, ANOTHER pair of bluetooth audio sunglasses with a design more akin to what a cycling-enthusiast father would wear but with a far more interesting function. Instead of using plain speakers to send audio into (or in the general direction of) your ears these use a bone conduction platform to send the sound directly into your ear cartilage. This has the benefit of allowing you to hear your surroundings just as well as if you didn’t have headphones in at all (perfect for the cycling-enthusiast fathers out there). However reviews report that you do sacrifice a bit of audio quality which is to be expected from such an indirect form of listening, as well as a noticeable level of noise bleed which I suspect is on a similar level to the above pair.
