A conveninent way to take music with you and have shades at the same time.
Not too long ago, I took a short beach vacation. During that vacation, I spent a lot of time reading on the beach or on our deck watching the waves. I found myself rarely without my sunglasses but I almost always left my earbuds in our room. So, wouldn’t it be great if you could grab a pair of sunglasses and have headphones built-in? Fortunately, thanks to Fauna, Audio Glasses are something you can have.
DETAILS
The Fauna Audio Glasses are designed to allow the user to enjoy music and other audio without needing a separate set of headphones. The glasses have micro-speakers built into them and the glasses are available in various styles/colors. I have the Spiro Transparent Brown set. They come with a charging case.
The sunglasses protect the eyes from UVA and UVB rays and the lenses can be replaced. The glasses use Zeiss DuraVision BlueProtect lenses. They are water and dust-resistant. A charging case, USB-C cable, and cleaning cloth are included in the package with the glasses. The glasses allow you to listen to music as well as answer/place phone calls.
USER EXPERIENCE
The glasses are shipped in a bright orange box with a sticker showing an image of the glasses on the front. The label states that the lenses are replaceable and outlines the color/style you received. The bottom of the box has another label that calls out the contents of the box and some of the main features such as its weight, app compatibility, and the fact that it uses Bluetooth.
Then the top of the box lifts off the bottom of the carton and then you reveal a packet of information that includes the quick user guide in multiple languages. This was a little confusing at first because there were so many individual booklets.
Getting the glasses set up is very easy. The first step is to remove the plastic tabs from the stems of the glasses and place them into their charging case. This ensures that they get fully charged before you start using them. There is an LED indicator inside the case which is the glasses status light. This light will illuminate once the glasses are activated.
This means they are put into pairing mode. You can connect to the glasses as a Bluetooth device without having the app, but it is recommended that you download the app in order to get the most from the experience. The app doesn’t seem to have a lot of features for the glasses outside of the features that are built into the glasses themselves.
The first thing I noticed right away was how comfortable the glasses are. They feel very much like regular sunglasses – just with a little bit more weight. The weight isn’t distracting though. I did notice that the glasses slipped down my nose a couple of times when I was just wearing them while I was sitting at my desk. They didn’t fall off my face completely – just slipped.
As far as the sound quality goes, I would have to rate them as a 6 on a 10-point scale. I could hear things just fine, but they really can’t compete with the quality that most headphones put out these days. The one perk of these glasses is that you could wear these on a walk, hanging out on the patio, or at the beach and not have to take your earbuds with you. They do help to eliminate a device.
I was actually really impressed with the touch controls. Each stem has a touch-sensitive panel and each side has its own set of controls. To be honest, the controls seem to work better than most touch controls on earbuds/headphones. Another feature I was impressed with was sound isolation. When I tested these out, my fiance, Nick, was sitting across the room from me. He was only about 8 feet away, but even at full volume, he couldn’t hear the sound coming from the glasses. As the wearer, I was pretty happy with the volume around 50%. The volume control comes from the connected device and is not amplified by the glasses.
CONCLUSION
I’ve tried out other speaker-enhanced glasses before and was not as pleased with their performance as I have been with the Fauna Audio Glasses. They are comfortable and they make it easy for you to enjoy your audio wherever you are. I found these to be a very unique device and very useful in certain environments. The glasses retail for around $200 (depending on the model) from Fauna’s website.
For more information, visit wearfauna.com, Facebook, and Twitter.
