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Comment by TheHumanist | Hacker News Reader

Ok so do you just wear these around in public? Do you think people will see the pretty obvious lenses and be confrontational? That's the only thing stopping me... I love tech like this but I'm not trying to get bitched at in public when people think I'm filming them or their kids or something like that, you know?

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I’ve been wearing these in public with prescription lenses and in Germany, of all places. The only person who has mentioned something so far was the guy at the door in the apple store. He recognized them immediately but I could tell he was into tech, so not an average joe and we had a nice chat about the glasses for a bit.

I always make it a point to explain that I’m not recording and that if I was the light would be on. And that if you try to cover it it actually will not allow you to record (which is true).

I have the first gen Ray-Ban Stories (they look very similar), and almost nobody noticed (~3 people in 2 years). I have clear lenses and wear them like normal glasses every day. I mainly use them for the speakers for notifications.

When the new Meta smart glasses were announced, I suddenly had >6 people comment on my old glasses. All the comments were positive, but it did make me more aware that I might get a negative reaction in the future.

Its really hard to notice that they are different from normal raybans, unless you take a picture.

The lens are pretty subtle, and they look like normal wayfarers. When the light comes on, as you make a recording or take a picture, then they notice, but not all of the time.

Ok, so if I wanted to walk through downtown on a pretty day and livestream that, it will have a bright light to let people know I am recording? I can't just do that subtly?

Yeah if you are recording, the new ones have a bright light (possibly flashing I'm not sure) on. Which makes sense really.

They offer better protection against "unsuspecting picture taking" than normal phones, as the light is vaguely tamper proof. I'm not sure they record if you take them off either.

I would think some paint could solve that problem or would that be detected?

The detection is pretty good.

but, my friend, why do you want to cover up the light?

Or a needle to pop the light.

I've worn GoPros around live streaming and people don't notice. Wearing these glasses with a little led on the frame 99.9% of people won't notice.

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