Amazon - Echo Frames (2nd Gen) | Smart audio glasses with Alexa | Classic - Black

[Pro: Impressive sound] Amazon’s open ear design produces clear audio. Furthermore, it can be quiet to the person next to you when using the appropriate volume levels. [Pro: More than sufficient microphone] In call tests, my voice was actually mistaken for direct phone communication instead of a Bluetooth headset. I was able to have satisfying and productive calls for work without any disruptions. [Pro: Responsive to buttons presses and voice commands] The Echo Frames responded quickly when I issued commands or tapped/swiped on the device. Despite this device’s unique design, Alexa was dependable in retrieving information and executing requests. [Con: Subpar battery life] Battery life is not great if you expect to rely on this device throughout the day. It can be a hassle to switch between glasses when the Echo Frames need to charge up. [Con: Average build quality] I don’t have an issue with the glasses being made of plastic, but the Echo Frames feels too light. I do have questions about durability compared to my current, everyday glasses. Because of this, they are not the most comfortable glasses to wear for long periods. In conclusion, the Echo Frames are a good experiment with a high ceiling. The sound quality is awesome given the size of the speakers, but the microphone is fantastic for phone calls as well as video calls. If the battery life and build quality would be better then this product makes for great substitute for traditional glasses.

AMAZON - ECHO FRAMES (2ND GEN) | SMART AUDIO GLASSES WITH ALEXA | CLASSIC BLACK - BLACK MODEL:B083C58VDP Best Buy Tech Insider Network GREAT FOR CONFERENCE CALLS - BLUETOOTH GLASSES WITH ALEXA FRAMES OVERALL The ECHO FRAMES are fantastically packaged (truly a premium experience) and work very well for delivering good sound and microphone capabilities through a “Glasses” form factor. I can’t compare them to other Mfg’s “Glasses” as these are the first of the kind I have used. The Sound Quality for spoken words is very good. The microphone pickup and quality are fantastic. Nobody could believe that the mic was built into the glasses. For Music Playback, they were OK, but not great, you are not going to get “earbud” or “Full Ear” sound quality from ECHO FRAMES. They are not waterproof, thus you need to think about your needs and how you might use them is everyday life. MY SITUATION We are still working remotely from home full time. I have ECHO devices in every room in my home. We generally and mostly use the ECHO devices to play music in whatever room we are in. We also use them to control lights and other connected devices around the house. The DashCAM in my car also has what I would call “Alexa Pass Through” like the glasses where they can pass through commands to your phone. I use the DashCAM to call up music from my home PLEX Music library when I’m on the road. SOUND QUALITY OVERALL SOUND CLARITY = 7/10 MUSIC PLAYBACK = 5/10 (a little tin can sounding, but OK) MICROPHONE QUALITY As I said nobody would believe the microphone was built into the glasses. I don’t have a lot of background noise usually, but everyone on the other end of the conference call could hear me clearly. LOOKS / APPEARANCE The ECHO FRAMES definitely have a Superman / Clark Kent Vibe to them, everyone instantly noticed I had new glasses. I found the “clear” lenses easily smudged compared to my real glasses along with some glare. I am near sighted which means I don’t need glasses for close work. With the ECHO FRAMES, I found the focus decreased by 1-2% vs no glasses, and the brightness decreased by maybe 5% over no glasses. In the box they give you a coupon of sorts to take to a glasses store in case you want to put in prescription glasses. This coupon tells the store what types of lenses to use (not free). FUNCTIONALITY The magnetic charger is great, and easy to use. The buttons are well placed and took only a little time to learn and understand. I was easily able to accept calls, pause and restart music or trigger a command. The glasses pair easily in the Alexa App or as a Bluetooth only headset. SOME SORT OF GEEKY STUFF (if you want to skip) The glasses basically pass through ALEXA commands to your phone. The phone is doing all the heavy lifting. This means you must have your phone on your person, a good data connection, and the Alexa App running all the time. This was not the “Liberating” experience I was hoping for. I often walk out of the room without my phone (drops signal). I don’t have great cell phone coverage where I live and drive (drops signal). When “On the Road” I often go in and out of signal range (drops signal). I understand the trade off in battery life, but I would have loved to have at least WiFi direct to the glasses, so that I could at least wander around the house. The ECHO FRAMES only allows for one of two names (wake words) “Alexa or Echo”. I already have my other Alexa devices named these names. Basically, every other room in my house has one name or the other since I found early on that the devices were not doing a great job differentiating which “Alexa” I was speaking to. I would have loved something different such as “Glasses – Tell me the weather”. This way I would not inadvertently be triggering the other devices around me, when I speak to the ECHO FRAMES. In my testing, the ECHO FRAMES always won in terms of responding to a command, even when sitting right next to another Echo device. It is not easy to switch between “Alexa Connected to your phone” and “Glasses (as headphones) Connected to your PC for Conference Calls”. Once you force a paring with your PC, you must use the Alexa app on the phone to Forget the Glasses, and then start the pairing process in the Alexa app from scratch. I did not want to give Alexa access to my contact list as I’ve problems before with Alexa inadvertently calling people all hours of the day or night because it misunderstood something I said. Even without this you can still take and make calls. To make a call you just need to tell Alex the phone number to call instead of the name. One other note, the manual has several warnings not to get it wet with water or sweat. I’m not sure how you are supposed to clean them. Traditional glasses you run under cold water, but the guide says to use the included cleaning cloth. But if you wear glasses, then you know that if you don’t rinse glasses first, using only a cloth runs the risk of scratching your lenses with dust or just smearing around whatever is on your glasses. To me, this limits the glasses to indoor, relatively non active use. I don’t think they would hold up well to an intense workout for example. RECOMMENDATION I love the ECHO FRAMES (2ND GEN) | SMART AUDIO GLASSES WITH ALEXA for PC based conference (video) calls, they are less obtrusive than ear buds. Ear buds make my ears itch after about 30 minutes. For conference calls the audio quality (both listening and talking) were as good if not better than premium ear buds. After each call I easily connect the magnetic charger, so they are topped off for the next call. For me, this will be my primary use case for the ECHO FRAMES. As to the “full” Alexa experience, that is really up to the user. The ECHO FRAMES work exactly as they are supposed to with the Alexa App (no points off). For me, the necessity of having my phone on my person all the time (not just in the same house), and the Alex app running all the time diminishes the freedom I was hoping for with the ECHO FRAMES. I will still use the ECHO FRAMES as my new daily home office headset for conference calls but for now, I’ll leave them paired only to my PC.

This is the perfect product for a Good, Bad, Ugly review... The Good: Cool product, but it almost feels like a solution looking for a problem. Even so, still cool. Product packaging was great, you feel like you are opening a premium product. Inside the box are the glasses, magnetic charger, carrying case, cleaning cloth and quick start/cheat-sheet/obligatory warranty and handy reference to give your optician for prescription lens replacement. The included lenses are straight thru and are advertised as blue light filtering. Controls are simple with on/off, volume up/down and a cool slide touch-pad controller all on right frame. Very intuitive. The fit was nice. Quite lightweight and could easily be worn comfortably all day. PRO TIP: To preserve battery life, the Echo Frames go into "Sleep Mode" when placed upside down to preserve battery life. While a cool feature, for those of you who require wearing glasses all day, this kind of a no-starter since it's not germane to your needs, but for those who can remove the glasses for periods of time, a cool feature. As for the Bluetooth for phone conversations, these are well above average. I tested several calls from my home office, Ford F-250, Ford Fusion Hybrid, Toyota Prius and walking around the neighborhood. Several of the conversations were 15+ minutes. I did not tell person on the other end I was using BT until the end of the conversation. In every situation, the people on the other end were honestly surprised. They said it sounded great and other than the occasional cell/BT hiccup, they were impressed. From my end, it always sounded good (albeit a little quiet {more on that later}) but overall, as good as any other BT devices for conversation as I have used. Well done. The Bad: The build quality is honesty probably pretty decent but the initial feel if a bit flimsy in tactile feed-back. I think this is more impression than reality, but only long-term testing will tell. I'm sure the quality is commensurate to Amazon expectations, just a note I could not avoid to share While the BT for phone conversations was pretty good, these are pretty weak for music. To be fair, they are not designed to be musically robust, but the sound is thin. I guess they are perfectly fine for background music while in the office or walking around the lake, the music sound quality is "mmehh" at best. On the positive side, being open eared, you are certainly aware of your surrounding sounds for safety and awareness. Kind of a wash in the end. Additionally, the music volume was (to me) disappointing. But if I am to be honest, I was a professional musician in the late 80's/mid-90's and I spent WAY TOO MANY hours in front of two Mesa Boogie 4x12 cabinets powered by a Mesa Boogie Simuclass 295 Power Amp and a Mesa Boogie Tri-Axis pre-amp. So, is the volume the fault of the Frames or more the fault of an early 20's semi-rock star who had no mortality who is now 50? Probably the latter, but important to note for my experience. The Ugly (and not so Ugly): Oh my, these things on my ugly mug make me look a bit goofy. The fault of the Frames? No. They look great on my gorgeous wife. They are certainly better on some than others. End of the day as I mentioned earlier, these may be a solution looking for a problem. But they are cool and certainly useful. I think I will use them more than I originally thought. To me the high point is the BT phone audio. I have purposefully sought these out knowing I have a long call coming up and chose these over a plethora of other great Technical Insider Network BT products I could have used. But I would NOT use these for a workout or for high quality music. I would recommend them to a friend (with caveats), but good choice for a product that serves a niche market. I am glad I have them. Postscript notation: Apologies for last picture... My wife made me put it in review since she LOVES her 7 Christmas trees... Only 2 shown, but there are 3 on main level, 2 upstairs and 2 in basement. I think she might a Christmas problem.

I was always intrigued with the Echo Frames since they came out, but was hesitant to purchase them since I already own Bluetooth noise cancelling headsets, a ECHO Dot at home, and the Alexa app at home. I let my curiosity get the best of me and got these to try out. I must say, I was very pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed using them in my everyday uses. Yes, it does not replace a true ANC experience but I knew that coming in. After getting these back from LensCrafter with my prescription, here are my thoughts: -Prescription: The Echo Frames comes with a detailed instruction page that you give to your optometrist to ensure that they can get you the correct lenses. My normal optometrist was not able to do it, and they pointed to a more mainstream vendor like LensCrafter. Thankfully, with my prescription in hand, they were able to get my prescription into these frames. -Set-up: Again, a detailed guideline for setting these up are provided and you have to have the Alexa App installed on your smart device. Setting up took only a few minutes and I was up and running quickly. -Alexa experience: I learned quite fast that you cannot be in the same room with any other Alexa device (my ECHO Dot). When I would try to use Alexa, I was getting double responses (from the Echo Frames and the Dot) simultaneously. Having Alexa with my glasses offered some pretty unique and hands-free experience, and I felt that I was clearly being heard with my shopping lists, notifications, etc. I felt it was a better experience than having to be within ear-shot of my Dot and not I have Alexa wherever I go. Also, I don't have to be looking at my phone app to do this. It's almost as if having Cortana communicate with the Master Chief experience (yes, I made a Halo comparison). Using the swipe on the right frame allows you to change your notifications. -Style: I opted for glasses instead of the sunglasses edition because I wanted to use these on a daily basis, not just when I am outside. These Echo Frames look very close to my regular glasses. They don't hurt at all and I have good vision perception with these frames. -Battery Life: I get a decent amount of battery life with these. On a full charge, with moderate usage of listening to audiobooks/music/etc, about the entire day before having to recharge them. On standby, I noticed that it dipped 10% after a few hours without using them. Also, if I wanted to use my other glasses, simply taking them off, fold them and place them upside down will turn them off and you would save battery time. -Sound quality: this is a hit or miss. When listening in a quiet room, I hear my audiobooks/music really well. When I am outside walking my dog or driving in my car, the sound quality is not that great. I knew that I was not going to get ANC sound or bass, and I like how the 4 speakers point inward towards my ear, so I can get the sound quality without disturbing anyone next to me. While in bed, having them at a minimal sound setting, my wife is not able to hear what I am listening to but can hear "sounds". But I mostly wanted to use these to listen to my audiobooks or podcasts, not music or movies. For this purpose, I felt that the Echo Frames work really well. Alexa comes in very nice and clearly understandable. Overall, I am very happy with these Echo Frames. I know that there are a lot of people who are terrified that Amazon would be more of a "big brother" with these frames, but c'mon, if you have Social Media on your phone than they already can track you through that device. I felt that these frames are targeting a very specific audience and I happen to be one of them. I really enjoy the audiobook experience and having true hands off with these frames wherever I go. I just wished that the sound quality was a little better when outside.

Overall, my experience with the Echo Frames 2 has been excellent. The ability to hear my notifications, take calls, and listen to music (audiobooks, podcasts, etc.) without a headset is amazing to me. Amazon also understands that there are times that you would not want to hear these, and added in a way to quickly turn off notifications. Their is also a software update that will adjust the volume of what you a hearing based on the noise around. The setup itself is very straightforward and is done through the Alexa app on your device. I went ahead and ordered prescription lenses (easy to do, just Google it) so these will be my every day glasses. A++ product from Amazon.