Instead of wearing sunglasses and earbuds, the Lucyd Lyte glasses merge the two products into one. The sunglasses integrate speakers into the stems and connect to a phone over Bluetooth. It’s a neat idea, but ultimately flawed for several reasons. Worse of all, Lucyd muddies the water with the association of ChatGPT when it’s not actually onboard the glasses.
Lucyd Lyte Audio Glasses
$149 $199 Save $50
These glasses offer immersive four-speaker audio, intuitive touch controls, and 12 hours of music and calls per charge.
- Sunglasses?
- Yes; Polarized UV400
- Functions
- Audio
- Speakers
- 4
- Connectivity
- Bluetooth
- Dimensions
- 135mm (Frame width) 18mm (Bridge) 145mm (Temple length)
Cons
- Disappointing audio quality
- Clunky user experience
- Mis-leading ChatGPT integration
Design and Fit of Lucyd Audio Glasses
The one thing the Lucyd Lyte sunglasses are not is boring. There are lots of frame styles and just as many colors of lenses. The different styles and colors will contribute to the total price, but the retail price is currently between $199 and $399. As part of the review, I tried the Lucyd Eclipse model. They fit well and were generally comfortable.
Most of the options are for sunglasses, but there is a choice for clear lenses if you want to wear them inside. Keep in mind, you will be essentially buying an indoor or outdoor product.
The audio controls on the glasses were fine, but not great. Each stem has a button facing downward that performs different functions. Clicking the left one once lowers the volume. The right one raises the volume with the same single press. Double-clicking either one will pause or play audio.
More than manipulating the controls, I had a really hard time understanding why I needed to turn each side on individually when putting on the smart glasses. It was more perplexing because a single six-second press would turn both sides off.
Sound and Call Quality
The audio quality from the Lucyd Lyte sunglasses is just poor. It, along with the price point, is the single biggest contributor to the overall rating. Some people may be willing to overlook their sound quality for a specific convenience they offer, but it doesn’t change the fact that the speakers sounded tinny and sometimes muffled.
Listening to music on the glasses was a bit like listening with cheap bone-conducting headphones. It’s doable, but it was only more enjoyable than listening to nothing—sometimes not even that.
I don’t want to come across as harsh. But I do want people to go into any purchasing decision with reasonable expectations. Sure, it’s remarkable that four speakers fit into the frames, but these did not sound pleasing at the current juncture.
There was no low-end bass at all, and all instrumentation was squeezed into a narrow frequency range. The highlight was that listening to podcasts and audiobooks worked better than songs. People’s voices are better suited to how the glasses are tuned, so spoken word was more enjoyable to listen to.
Using the glasses to take calls worked fine. The microphones performed well enough not to be a hindrance. They even canceled out a lot of the ambient cafe noise. You can hear the examples for yourself.
Microphone Test: Inside a Quiet Room
Microphone Test: At a Noisy Location
Long Lasting Audio
One aspect of the audio sunglasses that did shine was their long battery life. I know it lasted a long time because several times I forgot to hold the button for six seconds to turn them off. Multiple times the glasses hung on and were still connected to my phone from one day into the next.
Officially, Lucyd claims a 12-hour battery life for listening to music and taking calls. Unofficially, that should mean as long as the sun is out on a single day, you’ll be able to wear the sunglasses to stream songs.
I don’t begrudge the proprietary charging cable, which splits into two parts and needs to connect to each stem magnetically. Sometimes a charging port is too big for a small product. (I do despise the use of USB-A on the other end, however.) You better not lose it or forget it on a trip, or you’ll be out of luck.
The cord is a minor annoyance overall, but another tick against the product as a whole.
ChatGPT in Your Sunglasses? Not So Fast
Press and hold either the left or right button for two seconds to activate Siri—when connected to an iPhone. You can then feed Apple’s voice assist audible commands through the glasses in the same way you could directly through the phone.
The instructions that came with the glasses in the box seemed to indicate these commands were unique to this product, but really, Apple has been enabling a growing list of commands for a while.
If you have the Lucyd app installed (available for iPhone and Android), you can access ChatGPT through it. On iPhone, you have to enable the Lucyd Shortcut in Apple’s Shortcut app. Then you have to trigger Siri and speak the command “Lucyd.” At that point, you’re free to ask ChatGPT a question. Performing this series of events was, let’s say, clunky.
I didn’t find any of this helpful either. If this is the feature you’re after, I beg you to please just buy AirPods of some sort. While you may want ChatGPT or an LLM (large language model) to help you with a resume or speech, you don’t want that audibly in your ear. Siri, on its own, can handle conversions or times of sporting events just fine.
By the way, the Lucyd app does not connect to the glasses in any way. I couldn’t find a way to change the pre-set controls or anything. You could even use the Lucyd app to configure a Shortcut without buying the glasses at all.
Price and Availability
The Lucyd Lyte glasses come in a wide range of styles, at a range of prices. The Eclipse model I tested retails for $199 but has been on sale for $149.
Audio Glasses? How About Video Glasses
If the idea of sunglasses with Bluetooth speakers built-in is intriguing, there are a few other options to consider. I’ve tried the Soundcore Frames, which prioritize interchangeable stems to customize the look of the glasses.
I’ve also tried the Ray-Ban Stories, which came to the market as a partnership with Meta. I found Stories to be the most interesting of the bunch since they can capture pictures and videos, and play audio. Taking videos with cameras in glasses is still a novelty, but I found it could be neat at the beach or the park when I didn’t want to hold my phone.
In both cases, the audio quality was much better than the Lucyd Lyte. Plus, even though Stories are the most expensive of the bunch, they’re Ray-Ban glasses and look the best.
Should You Buy the Lucyd Lyte Audio Sunglasses?
The idea of combining earbuds and sunglasses is worth exploring, but I don’t think the Lucyd Lyte glasses offer enough value for their price. Most people would be better off looking at finding the right pair of earbuds for their audio needs.
If the Lucyd Lyte glasses do strike a chord with you, I can verify that they functioned fine. Minus some very mediocre audio quality, they worked as advertised. But let me leave you with a lingering question. How comfortable do you feel wearing sunglasses inside to take a call or listen to music?
Lucyd Lyte Audio Glasses
$149 $199 Save $50
These glasses offer immersive four-speaker audio, intuitive touch controls, and 12 hours of music and calls per charge.