Full Transcript
Jeff Thompson:
Enable the Blind Abilities skill on your Amazon device, just by saying, “Enable Blind Abilities.”
Jeff Thompson:
Welcome to a blind tech show special. I’m Jeff Thompson, and in the studio with me today is Brian Fischler. He’s got a brand-new device that he wants to share with us all, and he’s gonna use the device throughout the entire podcast.
Jeff Thompson:
Yes, this is a great device you can use outdoors, indoors. You can use it in the sun. You can use it while you’re navigating. This is a great new device. It might change the way we take in information while we’re out and about. Take in information while you’re indoors, who knows?
Jeff Thompson:
But without further ado, and Brian asked me to say, “Without further ado.” He loves that line. Here’s Brian Fischler. Brian, how you doing?
Brian Fischler:
I’m doing super cool because I’m talking to you on my Bose Frames.
Jeff Thompson:
The Bose Frames, the new ones for 200 bucks.
Brian Fischler:
That’s correct, 200 bucks, U.S. That was a great 80’s song back when music was good called “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades.” And I’m in the studio wearing shades, so …
Jeff Thompson:
There you go. Now tell me, did you get the large ones or the small ones?
Brian Fischler:
I went with the larger ones, because they tell me I’ve got a forehead that you could air a movie on, so I figured the glasses with, I always look better in bigger sunglasses. I guess I got a big noggin. I went with the bigger frames. I love these so much, and the fact that they’re only 200 bucks, I’ve been contemplating also picking up the smaller pair. You know, mix it up a little.
Brian Fischler:
And if I get both and I’m out and about, that’ll give me seven hours of battery life instead of just three and a half. I’ve actually had to lower the volume on this phone call. I thought I’d max it out, and you were just, to quote Huey Lewis in Back to the Future, “You were just too damn loud.” So …
Jeff Thompson:
Well, that’s really cool. Now, these are regular looking sunglasses. Can you tell the listeners where the sound comes out of?
Brian Fischler:
Yeah, right on the legs of the glasses, you have two little slits in the glasses. And that’s the only place, because they’re on both sides. I’m assuming the speakers come down right there, because they’re only a few inches away from your ear. And there’s not much sound bleed. And the great thing about these, because I’ve tried out different pairs or different brands of glasses with audio built into them. And on some of these other brands, they would vibrate on your face.
Brian Fischler:
There’s very little vibration to these glasses. They’re very comfortable to wear. I don’t feel them sliding on my face at all. The audio quality is, in my opinion, almost as good as the Air Pods. If you are in a very loud restaurant, you might have a little trouble hearing them. The time that I only had trouble hearing them, I was in a taxi cab on the BQE here in New York, with the window open on a nice day. And yeah, we’ve had one nice day this winter. You know, some of the traffic was really loud whooshing by, but I was still able to hear them. I’ve been very, very happy with this purchase.
Brian Fischler:
And you know me, I’m the king of the under 40-dollar purchase, but I splurged for these.
Jeff Thompson:
Now, these are nothing like a bone conduction head phone. These are actual speakers.
Brian Fischler:
Correct, true audio as I would call it. I do have a pair of bone conduction sunglasses that I got for about 60 dollars on Amazon, and those things, the sound quality, one, is nowhere near as good as these. Two, they vibrate on your face. They shake. These right now, when you talk, there’s no shaking. I’ve played music on them. I love listening to podcasts. Since I got these, I barely ever put the ear pods in, because this will give you more freedom to hear out of your ears, and people with hearing impairments, I turned these onto a client of mine who wears hearing aids, and I don’t know how severe her hearing loss is, but she put these on her face, and she was able to hear voiceover through that. So, she was gonna pick them up and everything.
Brian Fischler:
So I think these might be a possibility for lots of different people that want to hear voiceover, but don’t one, necessarily want other people to hear what they’re doing in public.
Jeff Thompson:
I did a search for the Bose Frames on the internet. And I found some descriptions and some specifications off of some websites, one of them, B and PC Magazine, and a few others that Bose has released.
Jeff Thompson:
The frames come in two styles, alto and rondo. Alto, which are similar to the Ray Ban Wayfarers, and rondo, which come in rounded frames in a smaller fit. No matter the style, they both come in flat black and have dark lenses. Although they say you can still see your eyes through the lenses.
Jeff Thompson:
The temple area is a little bulkier than most style of sunglasses. This is where the audio driver’s mic, battery, and Bluetooth circuitry are located. One button, located on the right temple, is all you need to power up, pair, play, pause, manage calls, and skip tracks. There’s no volume control on the frames, so you have to do it through your mobile device.
Jeff Thompson:
The included USB charging cable connects via a magnetic port located on the interior of the right temple. Bose estimates battery life to be 3.5 hours which is similar to most true wireless ear buds, and will vary with your volume levels.
Jeff Thompson:
Bose claims that the frames are for outdoor use, however, the resistance to water, the IP rating is X2, which is low as it gets, so I would not recommend wearing these during a downpour or washing them under a faucet. The other thing is, with the dark lenses, are these for indoor use? Now, if you have some usable vision, that might be a problem. For me, it’s not that much of a problem at all.
Jeff Thompson:
And in the future, they’re talking about maybe coming up with some prescription lenses. You can do this, but it’ll break the warranty. Is this for everybody? No. But is it for someone with visual impairments? This is a great alternative to bone conduction or putting in ear. So, with the sunglasses on, which helps with if you’re sensitive to light as Brian has mentioned, or just putting them on and not having something in your ear. Yeah, being that the speakers are not actually closing off your ears, your base response is gonna be a little bit different. But they say that these are perfectly good sounding headset, and the microphone is very clear.
Jeff Thompson:
The ratings are high on that. With the AR coming up, who knows what this could lead to. So, the possibilities are wide open in the future.
Jeff Thompson:
Now, for the listeners, I just want to let you know, we’re talking on Zoom. It’s coming across pretty good. I’ve never recommended anybody to use a Bluetooth microphone before in a podcast situation, but this is pretty unique because when you called me the first time, I said, “Hey, you just sound different.” And you didn’t tell me right away what you’re doing. But after I talked to you for a little bit, it sounded good.
Brian Fischler:
And it was me, too, when you’re saying it sounded good, so …
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, there you go.
Brian Fischler:
Yeah, but I was pleasantly surprised when I got them. You know, I just read some reviews about them, and I called up Bose. And I heard in the end of January, if you called the Bose 800 number, they were sold out. They could have them back in stock now, but there are Bose stores throughout the country. Just do a Google search, see if there’s a Bose store near you. You might be able to go in and test them out and see which frames you prefer. Go with a sighted person, obviously, to get their opinion of what they look like.
Brian Fischler:
People just think I’m wearing regular sunglasses. And they have no clue. If somebody’s right up against you, they might be able to hear something. But I’ve asked people sitting next to me, I say, “Can you hear anything?” And they say it’s barely noticeable.
Brian Fischler:
And with the bone conduction headphones, obviously, there’s much more audio bleed. But this is Bose. We know they’ve always done audio great, and I think this is what their new thing is, wearables. And I couldn’t be happier with these. I mean, I would have thought a pair of sunglasses like these would have cost 499 for the quality and everything.
Jeff Thompson:
Now Brian, through my experience with you and new products, I waited a long time before we did this.
Brian Fischler:
I know.
Jeff Thompson:
Because I remember calling you after, like, eight days and saying, “How are they now? How are they now?” And you were still using them, so I was impressed. And now it’s been, what, three weeks?
Brian Fischler:
You called me after day eight, after day nine, after day ten. It was like a six a.m. wake up call, and you know I’m never up that early. But yeah, it’s been about three weeks. I got them end of January. Might have been a month now, and like I said, I bring my ear pods because again, these only do have three and a half hour battery life, but you’re not constantly using them. You might turn them on when you’re out and about to quickly check some text messages or to quickly check a notification. You know I’m the kind of notifications, and I love being able to just have them on and hear everything that’s going on around me.
Brian Fischler:
Now, with the ear pods, I normally had one in. That way, I could hear my surroundings. And I find that there’s less obtrusiveness, audio wise with these on. There’s actually no obtrusiveness. And you know, this allows you to be a full participant in conversations going around you. And the great thing is, I’ve been in taxi cabs having a conversation with the cab driver, and I’m following on BlindSquare GPS, and they have no clue that I’m following on BlindSquare GPS.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, so Brian, can you tell the listeners a little bit about how you use them? How do you function? What is the form factor? So, like, when you put them on and a phone call comes in, or say you want to skip to another podcast, or anything like that. What kind of functionality do you have with the Bose Frames?
Brian Fischler:
Sure, on the right side, you have just one button. It serves multiple functions. For example, if you want to use Siri, you would push it in for about two seconds, hold. You hear a little beep. Then it takes another two seconds and Siri comes up. And you can use Siri for whatever you’re using it for.
Brian Fischler:
That button, if you press it real quickly, if you’re playing audio it’ll resume the audio, it’ll pause the audio. I believe if you kind of hold it to the right, I haven’t really done it because I normally listen to the full episode of the podcast, I don’t really skip forward or backwards, but I think it’ll skip to the next song or to a previous song.
Brian Fischler:
It doesn’t have any volume adjustments. You do that through the phone. As I said, I lowered the phone call we’re on because the audio quality is that good that you don’t really need it at max capacity when you’re in a studio or having a phone call.
Brian Fischler:
Dictation works great. I have dictated through it. What I do is, I take the phone out, get into that form field. Do a two-fingered double tap, and just say what I want. I do notice it hears you pretty good. I mean, I think it’s probably just as good as the ear pods. You know, some people like myself, dictation doesn’t always seem to agree with, but I’ve been pretty happy with it.
Brian Fischler:
One thing I have noticed, say you get a phone call that comes in. If you do a two-fingered double tap on the phone, it seems to put the call on the phone where if you just press the button on the glasses, it’ll answer the phone to your glasses. So, I’m trying to get in the habit of answering them on the glasses.
Brian Fischler:
Most people, when I do answer a call and I have the glasses on, have no clue unless they’re standing right next to me, that I’m talking to them on the glasses and everything. And I’ve asked several people what they think of the audio quality, and they say it sounds great.
Jeff Thompson:
So I got a question for you. After a phone call is done and it is all hung up, does it go back to what you were doing?
Brian Fischler:
It does, yeah.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, good.
Brian Fischler:
I’ve been listening to a podcast and I’ve gotten a phone call. And the call’s ended, and it’s still connected to the … I believe even when I’ve answered a call, a two-fingered double tap on the phone, they stay connected although I’m on the physical phone. But once I hang up the call, I believe the podcast began playing back on the glasses, because I remember thinking, “Oh wow, that’s really cool.”
Brian Fischler:
One thing I’ve noticed, these seem to connect so much better and faster to the phone than the AirPods. I don’t know about you, but my AirPods sometimes have trouble connecting. I’ve got to actually go into Bluetooth and hit it.
Jeff Thompson:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Brian Fischler:
When you’re charging these, if you take them off the charger … And it’s a propriety charging cable, so if you do lose it, that’s the only thing that’ll stink, you’d probably have to reorder it through Bose. But if they’re charging, and you take it off the charge connector, they automatically connect to the glasses right away.
Brian Fischler:
Now, if you have them off, you have to hit the power button to turn it on. And the great thing about these glasses, to turn them off, you just take them off like you’re taking off a regular pair of sunglasses. Most people flip over their sunglasses. You flip these over for two seconds, automatically they disconnect from the iPhone, and you’re back to your iPhone. I’ve had, really, zero issues with these glasses, and I think Bose really hit it out of the park and got everything right. And we should mention, the rumor in March … Now, these glasses supposedly built into them, they have an augmented reality feature. And this is what they’re claiming when they launch this feature, it’s gonna be through a firmware update, which you’ll go into the app and install that update. And supposedly through Google Maps, you’ll be walking around and whatever you look at, it’ll announce what you’re looking at, which if that’s the case, then these things were the best purchase I’ve ever made.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, there you go. When you talked about the app, now that’s one thing that as we were talking over my 16 calls to check if you still like them, you’ve mentioned that the app has a few accessibility issues.
Brian Fischler:
That’s correct. They have this feature on the app, so when you get the glasses, the instructions claim to open the app and connect them to the phone via the app. Well, unfortunately, it has this light up feature where you have to … And it doesn’t work with voiceover where you’re supposed to just … It’s at the bottom half of the screen. And I guess a sighted person would tap on it and slide it up. And for some reason, they have not made that feature accessible.
Brian Fischler:
Well, I just went into Bluetooth and sure enough, there were the glasses. And I connected it the way you would connect any Bluetooth devices to your phone. Now my only concern, and I keep forgetting every time I’m around a sighted person, I probably have to make sure they’re connected through the app so when this firmware update comes out, I will be able to perform that update. That’s just my bad. I always forget to say, “Hey, take a look at this and everything.”
Brian Fischler:
But I think Bose is aware of the issues and hopefully, that’s something that they will be fixing. Because I have to think that they’re getting a lot of people contacting them about these glasses because of how well voiceover works with these glasses. And I’ve noticed very zero lag time, but I’ve never noticed a lot of lag time via Bluetooth. I’ve heard a lot of people complain about lag time. I’ve never on the AirPods or any of my Bluetooth devices really noticed a lot of lag.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, here’s a question. Can you check the battery level?
Brian Fischler:
Well, that’s a great thing. As soon as you turn them on, it tells you the battery level. I’m going to check the status bar on my phone right now. Yep, and sure enough, I had 86 percent battery power. And then I flicked to the left and it said, “Bluetooth, 80 percent.”
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, there you go.
Brian Fischler:
Connected on the locked screen, it’ll say, “Connected to Bose Frames.” I’ve noticed that before, it’s told me, “Connected to Bose Frames.” But like I said, anytime you put them on, it announced the battery power. They do charge fairly quickly. I have noticed that as well. But I can’t give you a time estimate on it. But I’ve been very satisfied with it, and I’ve yet to be out using them and run out of battery power, because I’m even beginning to wonder if it’s three and a half hours of music playing time, because I have noticed with some Bluetooth devices, it’ll tell you how much time it has. But with voiceover, I don’t think it’s draining as much, so you might even get more time if you’re not listening to audio and just using voiceover on these glasses.
Jeff Thompson:
Now, tell me this. Does it come with a case?
Brian Fischler:
It does. It comes with a nice hard carrying case, which my old sunglasses are now in. Because I’m one of those, I have light sensitivity issues, so I’m always wearing sunglasses. Plus, I find sunglasses as an extra protection layer to the eye if you have them on, so it does come with a nice hard carrying case that I just keep in my bag with my other pair of sunglasses.
Brian Fischler:
The only thing I don’t like as somebody with light sensitivity issues is, these glasses don’t fully cover the eye. They’re not the wraparound sunglasses. You could touch your eye with these glasses on and everything. So, there is a decent amount of room. If you have extreme light sensitivity issue, these might not be for you. But hopefully, Bose will come out with some other glasses since these just came out end of January.
Jeff Thompson:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Brian, you talked about the lenses. Are they a UV Lens? Are they real sunglasses? Do they feel like good sunglasses?
Brian Fischler:
Yeah, they feel like plastic sunglasses. I’ve been told they look like Oakley’s, so that’s good. I believe they are UV protected. I have not messed around. A friend of mine was thinking about picking up another pair and getting some specialty lenses with a tint on them put in there. I imagine if you do that though, then that, if this augmented reality feature ever does come to these glasses, that that will not work.
Brian Fischler:
We haven’t had too many bright sunny days here in New York recently, so I haven’t had any issues with my light sensitivity issues.
Jeff Thompson:
I just want to remind everybody that Brian is using the Bose Frames right now. The microphone is coming from the Bose Frames, and he’s listening to me through them. I think it’s working great. This is the best I’ve heard Bluetooth come across for podcast production. Not that you’d use them for that. But it just goes to show that you got a product here that people are gonna be leaning into.
Brian Fischler:
Yeah, and you sound fantastic as well. I mean, you still sound like you’re from Minnesota. I don’t think the glasses could get rid of that. But you sound crystal clear. That’s one thing, I’m not a hundred percent sure where the microphone is installed in these glasses. It wouldn’t surprise me if they had microphones in each side with that slot, because that’s how good the sound comes across on these glasses. I’ve had two friends pick them up, and they both love them as well.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, that’s really good. I like to feel a pair of sunglasses that actually feel like they’re some … I suppose with the batteries in there, it does have a little weight to it.
Brian Fischler:
No, they’re pretty light. I mean, you’d be amazed at how light they are. If you picked them up not knowing that these were Bose Frames, I don’t think you’d know that they had this audio feature built into it and everything. I don’t think you’d be aware of it. Obviously, you’d be like, “Well, what’s this button on the sunglasses?” And the buttons are underneath towards the top right, underneath the leg and everything.
Brian Fischler:
And I’ve worn them out several times to bars, restaurants, and nobody’s even said a word to me about them. Nobody’s said, “Hey, what’s with those weird looking sunglasses?” Or anything. And I have asked sighted people, “How do they look?” Like I said, people said they look like Oakley’s and everything.
Brian Fischler:
So yeah, I’ve been very happy with them. And you know me, I’m quite critical of product. And Bose really knocked it out of the park with the price range as well. You know, a lot of Bose products I find are a little overpriced. These, I think they’re well worth the money. And if you are a fan of using Bluetooth technology and hearing your audio, I couldn’t recommend these highly enough.
Brian Fischler:
In fact, if you were deciding between the Bose Frames and AirPods, I would suggest you get the Bose Frames. Especially if you’re out and about a lot and you like using GPS navigation apps, and being able to hear everything that’s going on around you.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, that’s really great. So, you wear your sunglasses at night.
Brian Fischler:
I do wear my sunglasses at night. Corey Hart and I have that in common. We had a lot of ’80’s reference here.
Jeff Thompson:
I know, I thought Corey was gonna call and say, “Hey, where’s my sunglasses?”
Brian Fischler:
So, yeah, we have to pay him every time we mention his name, but I will be wearing these at CSUN as well, so if you are at CSUN and you want to check them out, just find me. I’ll be the blind guy with the guide dog.
Jeff Thompson:
Ah, that guy.
Brian Fischler:
Yeah.
Jeff Thompson:
The blind guy with the sunglasses.
Brian Fischler:
The blind guy with the sunglasses and the guide dog.
Jeff Thompson:
That’d be Brian Fischler.
Brian Fischler:
Yeah.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, that’s really great, Brian. I’m glad we could capture this, because some people have been talking about them on other podcasts. And you’ve put it through the ringers now. You’ve been out on the streets with them. You’ve been cabbing, subways, everything. And you wear them during the daytime because that’s your go to headset right now.
Brian Fischler:
Yeah, something that I did interesting with them, I was as you know, roasted for my birthday. And I had made some notes about some people and some things I would potentially want to say. When you’re addressing a room and you have an AirPod in, you kind of lose where you can’t fully hear everything. I was addressing the room and I was just flipping through with my thumb on my iPhone, and I was able to hear the notes I’d made. So that was kind of cool.
Brian Fischler:
In fact, I had a friend of mine that just did a presentation, and he had to memorize an hour’s worth of material. Actually, you know him, Ed Plumacher. And I said, “Oh, it’s too bad you didn’t have my AirPods. You could have put one in.” And he says, “Well, they didn’t really want anything in our ears.”
Brian Fischler:
I said, “Well, it’s too bad you didn’t have the Bose Frames because you could have just worn these and then, you know, just flicked through your notes and anything.” And I think they’re a great tool. And like I said, I can’t say enough about them.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, that’s great. Well, Brian, thanks a lot for telling our listeners about the Bose Frames. I’m excited about them. I’m kind of leaning that way. I do have a set of AirPods, and I’ve done some magical catches. The Yankees would hire me if they would see some of these, when you bump something and you know it’s falling, and you just kind of hug yourself so it doesn’t fall down further. That’s the vulnerability about AirPods. And like you said, sometimes I have to put one in. It doesn’t connect. I open up the case, and then it connects. And put the other one in. It’s not perfect.
Brian Fischler:
A juggling act.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah.
Brian Fischler:
I know there are a lot of people that don’t like the feel of the AirPods. Amazingly, the AirPods fit perfectly well in my ears, so I must be that weird person that has the perfect ear shape for them. I’m gonna try. I doubt you’ll be able to hear this, but you’re not hearing voiceover at all now, are you?
Jeff Thompson:
No.
Brian Fischler:
Yeah, so I don’t think you’d be able to pick that up. I was just flicking through the phone. So, I don’t know how they do that. You know, how it’s great that people on the other end can’t hear voiceover when you’re on a call, but …
Jeff Thompson:
Well, it’s 2019. It’s Bose. It just works. So, on the app, you’re able to use everything that you need to do. And you’re good to go.
Brian Fischler:
I have not opened the app since I got them. So maybe I’ll have to dive in further and see. I have not noticed nothing, because I individually update all my apps. In fact, almost every waking hour is spent updating apps on my iPhone or reading push notifications. These things, like I said, I’ve said it a million times. They’re fantastic.
Jeff Thompson:
So that moment you put them on, the first time you put them on, you said, “Nice.”
Brian Fischler:
I said, “These things are smooth. I’m a cool cat.”
Jeff Thompson:
That’s cool, because I’ve seen some apparatuses, you know, like the sunglasses with the big nose and the mustache. They’re not always comfortable.
Brian Fischler:
No, no, and they make you stand out in a crowd.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, but you blend right in with your Bose Frames. So, it’s nice to know that Bose did a good job.
Brian Fischler:
When people laugh at me, I’d like to think they’re laughing at me for the way I look, not my sunglasses.
Jeff Thompson:
There you go. All right, well, Brian, thanks a lot. I’m sure our listeners are gonna like this. The Bose Frames, check them out on Google as Brian said. Thanks for listening. And we’ll see you next time. Bye bye.
[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.
Jeff Thompson:
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Or send us an e-mail at:
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