Last month I took a leap of faith and preordered a pair of Seleste smart glasses. For $99, plus $27 shipping, I was on the list for the next batch of 2000 pairs, due in mid-March.
Today I got the email I had been waiting for. My glasses have been shipped and should be with me on the 28th of March. Seleste is in Canada and I am in the United Kingdom, so that sounds reasonable. I also got a link to download the Seleste app (TestFlight required) and another to update my payment details for the subscription.
The subscription is £65 Canadian dollars, which is automatically converted to $50 U.S. dollars. The first payment is due one month after the glasses arrive.
The 29th of March is a holiday here, Good Friday, the start of the Easter weekend. Ig will also be the start of my journey as I take my first step into the future wearing my smart glasses. As they say, my future is about to get a whole lot brighter!
And what will be my answer, when they ask me “what can you see through those glasses?” I will reply “the future!”
The real answers will be chronicled in the comments, questions welcome.
Comments
I have a red bowl in my brain
I guess we both know now. Oddly, the air fryer is black in my mind now, so maybe these AI descriptions could help.
the Red bowl's story
The red bowl is from a microwaveable M&S pilau rice. Like a trollop I left it on the counter when I made dinner last night! Now Be My Eyes has shamed me to the entire world! Out of sight, out of mind...
hopefully mine come soon
I ordered a pair.
Figure I have nothing to lose with the 30 day money back guarantee.
I'm excited to try out all its features.
I will make a recording as soon as I get them if nobody has done one by then.
Thanks to all of you who have shared your experiences.
@ Bruce Harrell
It can describe peoples features, hand gestures, what type of clothing they’re wearing etc. etc. but as for attractiveness, attractiveness is up to interpretation. What one may find attractive, another will not. It can describe certain things to you, it’s up to you as to whether or not that’s attractive to you.
Facial expressions?
Thanks Stephen, but how does it do with facial expressions? Body language? In other words, what information do the glesses offer about another person's mood or emotions?
Visual Information
As much as much of the visual information out there might have become not really inportant in terms of living the daily life of a blind person, it is both interesting and useful to have this info especially if you deal with a lot of sighted people on a regular basis. And, there're details we miss, say, when we go to a new place such as a new room, which is obvious to everyone else. This was the greatest thing about BeMyEyes for me. And on a side-note, does anyone know if Seleste plans to offer a feature wherein you can save the picture of a person with a name, and whenever that person is detected again, it can tell you their name? Envission has that thing I guess.
Comparing cost of Envision glasses vs Seleste
So, after 8 years, Envision glasses costs £3500 plus £1600 for updates (@ £200 per year) = ££5,100
Seleste costs ££4,800 (@ £50 per month)
So, yes, you do have to pay nearly 9 years to equalize!
The subtle killer is the Envision annual £200 for software updates!
day 6 and I have gone the other way
Thank goodness for the 30 day trial...my attitude towards these glasses is swinging from one extreem to the other on a daily basis. That is why I am not saying to much on here, I don't want to come on and damn then one minute and then priae them to the skys the next.
I wil say it is getting harder to be posative, the more I learn and the longer I spend with the glasses.
The quesstion is this - we all know it wil happen one day, that day is closer than it has ever been, the pieces are all almost in place, someone just needs to put them all together in the right combination. Are these Seleste smart glasses it? And if not, will they be it soon and do I want to pay to be part of the journey?
We will all have to anser that queston for ourselves. I will tell you my anser in a couple of weeks time.
What is the return process?…
What is the return process? do you have to pay for return mailing to Canada?
I don't know, but...
if it happens I won't quibble over that. I'd even be happy to pay both ways.
But I haven't decided to return them.
In for the ride!
This version of the Seleste glasses is not it - and Shubh quite openly says so. I just reckon they are keen, dedicated and very open to learn from us. As I have posted before, £50 a month works out SO much cheaper than Envision glasses. And if someone else comes out with a better option, we can all cancel our Seleste subscriptions and continue the ride elsewhere
Does your phone know you in these glasses?
Mine doesn't, it has never unlokced, not once. I always have to enter my number.
Wow
Rayban meta and a few different glasses I tried worked seamlessly with FaceID. What is the difference between Seleste?
Face ID
Yes, I just unlocked while wearing Seleste. You could redo your face scan and include a version wearing Seleste?
On paper these glasses make no sense whatsoever
But on your face, then they are magick!
an explanation
They really aren't very good compared to Seeing AI and Be My AI on an iPhone. But the difference between pointing the iPhone in your hand and 'looking' at sometihng and hearing what it is - well that has a quality that seems to transcend all the logic in the world.
And all the logic really does say don't go anywhere near these glasses for at least another two or three versions. they are slow, painfully slow, the speaker is utter crap, I use it through my phone - I can't bring myself to wear another headset with them. The scene description is as accurate as any other GPT4 class model - as in who knows! The text reading is OK, OK but very slow. But again, there is something about holding something in your hand, looking at it and 'reading' it.
And they don't do much else, no calls, no nav, no music, texts or anything else at all. But, after all that, I don't think I can send them back...even though I have to pay the best part of forty quid a month to keep them.
L
remember, this is not a review.
@Lottie
I think I know what you mean. This form factor is incredibly convenient.
It's maybe similar to how I am with the Meta Ray-bans. Could I have used my iPhone for all the little videos I've been taking? Sure? Would I have enjoyed it as much? No way. Would I have bothered? Well, possibly not. But it does sort-of defy logic.
I think some tech just clicks and feels nice to use. Sometimes it's obvious why but sometimes it's just a feeling. I had a similar thing with the Hable One. Did I need it? Certainly not? Could I bring myself to send it back at the end of the trial? For some reason, no.
I think a lot of it is how much effort it is to use. It's not a massive amount to open my iPhone, find the right app, go to the right setting, take a photo, wait a bit etc. But it's still enough that I might not bother unless I really need to. Maybe we are just spoilt with all the tech that is out there now.
Anyway please keep all the updates coming - I'm enjoying finding out all these little details. I'll keep holding off for now but maybe one day.
Mr G, thanks for your feedback
It really is weird isn't it. As I said, they make no sense, I wrote a 900 word letter to the guy, explaining everyhting that was wrong wiht them. then I decided to read my post!
I think we do just get used to not having information. I am going to make myself use them, even if I don't need to!
demonstration?
Is there anyone here willing to record a few demonstrations? not a walk-through but something that would give us a real worldview of how fast/slow they are and the quality of description you get.
@Lottie
I like to think that we are moving slowly away from being able to do things we need to do, to being able to do things just for the hell of it.
I know you can with the iPhone, but wha I mean is if you have something that's simple and enjoyable to use, you might use it just because you can as opposed to solving a specific problem with it.
Going back to the Metas - in the past my wife would sometimes ask me to take a photo and I'd groan and grumble and fumble around with my phone and take it, and it's good it helps you get things into the centre, but I will inevitably forget which of the physical buttons is a shortcut for taking the photo and I'll be swiping around all over the screen trying to find the take photo button. And it's fine, and it's amazing I have this tech that lets me do this so well without being able to see what I am doing.
But on the other hand, I can just ask the M guy to send the photo directly to my wife and it's done in a second. And now I'm more efficient at taking the photo than she is. OK it might not be perfect but it's usually good enough and I think I am finding that quite empowering. Whereas on the iPhone, yes I can do it but it usually takes me a bit longer than I would if I could see.
Anyway no doubt I'm going off on a tangent and this is nothing like your experience, but I'm really glad you are enjoying the Celestes so much. All power to us in the long-term.
A few thoughts
I've been reading the discussion, together with similar topics, and it prompted me to order the glasses, unfortunately I decided on March 1, just a bit late for the first round.
But a few thoughts about the recent discussions, and what made me sign up.
I read recently that it is not as detailed as Seeing AI or BeMYAI. I honestly wonder if it is actually not a good thing, when sitting at home going through old pictures, I want as much detail as possible. For that matter, I theoretically zoom on different parts of the picture and have it described in small parts, thus in great detail.
But walking on the street, I need quick and useful info.
Regarding the fact that you can use the phone though it may take a bit longer to get the info, it is true, and I was trying to assess why I am not doing it then. And ultimately I feel that sometimes it is a deal breaker when I need two hands. When I am out and about, I have one, the other holds the dog or the cane. And it makes it so slow or complicated to use the phone that I would rather plan ahead and eliminate it as much as possible. This is why I decided on the glasses, if it could give me an audio or one-handed solution it would make a huge difference. Yes, there is Siri, but currently it don't work with the workflow I would need.
But I will leave it there, the rest would be speculation which wouldn't make sense without holding the glasses, if it won't be too late, I will definitely create a review.
well done us:I was a bit worried TBH
My unreview is a bit weird, I admit that. I was a bit worried that I wasn't black-and-enough, but the first few comments are OK. I think Mr G has hit on someting, it is what I was thinking earlier this week, but wasn't able to articulate as well as he has.
We are on the cusp of interacting with the visual world because we want to, not because we have to. This is a bit like how I love being able to do 'Caturday on Mastoodon. I use AI to look at the images, but I also create my own images based on how my two monsters make me feel that day!
I feel a wee bit vindicated by my decision to become a blind visual aartists lat year!
Need glasses
I am a girl with an eye for neat gadgets. Always have been. So, are these virtual reality, glasses or what? Is this I guess a partially sided kind of app or glasses that you can use. I’m total, so I guess I won’t be able to use them, but I’ve always heard stories about how they could make a pair of glasses so that even a totally blind person can take in visual information. And I watch too much science fiction. Thing is, I’m very interested in these glasses. Keep us posted.
@MissThea you can use them.
they're glasses that allow you to read text, describe what's around you and stuff like that.
Honestly the website is quite bare-bones at the moment, in other words; it doesn't have much on it when it comes to what these glasses can do.
There's a youtube channel but it could be a lot more professional, the guy, Shub,, shows off the glasses a little bit but no where near my standards of what i'd call a professional level.
The product is 'bare bones' TOH
That's the truth, the product is nowhere near as developed as even the website/Youtube channel suggest. You should in no way whatsoever compare them to the glasses from Envision. all they do is scene description and read text. All the stuff about calls and nav and people is nonsense. They are not a 1.0 product, they are a year away.
They are magic!
Be very careful before you decide
At least two people on the Seleste list are convinced we are in a beta program. they might be, one of them has just told me off about it, so they seem pretty sure.
I don't think we are, from what the founder of Seleste says above, but at this point I don't really know what is going on.
I would have to sa to anyone thinking of buying these glasses, be careful.
The nav stuff will come later.
Shub has told me that that stuff will come in the next hardware update.
I'm more interested in the glide as I've said so should really leave this topic alone but you know me,, I can't resist answering questions.
a question about slogans
I just had the 'nothing about us without us' slogan quoted to me. Is there anything in that about us paying for it so it is about us? Wouldn't that mean that it would only be about those of us who can pay? do poor disabled people not count?
Slogans
Just remember, slogans serve the purpose of replacing thinking with chanting, even if it's mental chanting.
They might mean.
That you guys who can must make changes when you can, who knows, you could ask the person, if they're worth asking that is.
Cold feet
Enjoying the thread, but as someone who has ordered but is yet to receive the glasses, I must admit I’m getting cold feet.
Me too, Dave
Hearing that they are slow and the quality of the descriptions, are not as good as be my AI makes me much less excited.
Then email shub.
He'll give you a refund, he did for me.
to be clear
These glasses do two things, scene description and scan text. You start/stop these features by pressing a button on the glasses.
By default, a robot voice comes out of a speaker on one of the arms.
There is an AI assistant, but I'm not really sure about that. It seems to be able to answer general knowledge questions, but I'm still testing.
If you switch output to the phone, you get the nice voice and an AI processing sound. You are going to be hearing that sound a lot. Every time it takes another photograph for the scene description or text scanning, it sends the image to the cloude. It feels like it takes a very long time. robs longer than it really does, but if it is only 3 seconds a go, I'd be amazed.
I am told you can use Airpods and hear the output through them and have access to everyting you usually have, but then you are wearing Airpods and glasses!
This sounds less than positive , so I have to add - the glasses make no sense on paper, but on your face they are magic!
As I have said, you can do all this for free, right now, on an iPhone. but you have to hold it and point it, 'looking' at something and hearing what it is is kind of cool! But is it worth $50 a month? Ask me in two weeks.
Well...
@lottie, if you check the top tech tidbits email you'll see another pair of glasses with Seeing AI on them but that's all I'll say so I don't go that off topic.
I read through that earlier, but the glasses didn't stand out
Or do you mean the ARX thing/
ARX has Seeing AI.
But it’s not for iPhone and is connected via a cable to an android phone. Doesn’t seem ideal to me.
Oh no.
It's connected by a cable? Why would someone do that?
I am returning the glasses
Witin 30 days and expect to recieve a full refund of both the initial purchase and the first month's subscription.
I don't intend to go into all the details, but it is fair to say that the product fell short of my expectations, even after I made sure they were reasonable.
@lottie hold up.
Have you contacted shub about this? I think you get the first month for free and unless you contact him; I doubt you'll get the $100 back.
Really? I was sure...
that they were on a 30-day money back deal. I know they have just charge me for the first month...so who knows! So much of the reality of this situation is different to what I thought I knew! A lot of the people I have been talking to are convinced they are part of a beta program, I thought I'd bought a 1.0 product.
Whatever happens, the glasses are back in the box and the app has been deleted. I will not be using them again and I will not be paying them anymore money.
Let's see what happens.
My Response
Hey Lottie,
I just sent you an email, you will get the $150 back.
There's definitely a lot we still need to improve, our big focus is to get scan text working within 1 second in the two weeks.
I like our business model where if you don't think the glasses are for you, you can just refund them and get all your money back (other than the 20$ shipping). So I would say try it out and see if they're for you!
We're lucky in that we've had on average a 93% retention rate on our subscription
Also none of our videos on our youtube channel are faked, so you can take a look at that to understand what the glasses can do.
I think we're more descriptive than Be my AI/seeingAI but we need to work on speeding up our time to get a response which is what we're focused on now.
Smooth as silk return
No issues at all. Great customer service all the way through. My only issues where with the product.
Added:
I just noticed the above reply, to me, I didn't see that before I sent this message.
I'm hanging in for a while.
I'm going to hang in for a while as I'm finding the glasses are working a little better with last week's update. I do think Shubh has the right focus for further development, which is to speed things up.
I know that lots of folks are talking about the project as though it's beta, but I don't feel that way. I find that the glasses do what the company says they'll do, so I feel like more of an early adopter than a tester.
That being said, I do expect progress to be swift and meaningful, because I need these to improve productivity, not to place additional demands on my time. So far, I think that Seleste takes that seriously.
I hope to be back here soon with good news about how this product is improving.
That's great about the refund.
Well done Shub, I'm so happy with your responses.
Adding my thoughts for what they're worth
I've had these for a couple of weeks now and while I agree there are limitations, the processing speed being the main issue, overall I think they're worth it and I won't be returning. I have a pair of Envision glasses through Access To Work as well and I still think the Seleste glasses are better despite the fact that the Envisions have more functions.
For starters these look better. The Envisions really look like a special pair of glasses with a camera , these are very subtle.
The audio is much better when routed through the phone, you can only change the speed of the speech when routed through the phone and the voice quality is much better so I do this. I recently bought the Bose Ultra open earbuds, so I can walk around with the open earbuds on, Google maps and Seleste running and it's a powerful combination. As we know, Google Maps will get you close but not to the right door, so Seleste then comes into play when reading door signs as you walk, which is so much easier than what I have been doing, holding the phone up with Seeing AI running to read the door signs. I've been testing the AI and asking questions and it has performed pretty well. This is a work in progress, I did wonder if I jumped the gun by getting them now while they are still in beta and improving but I'm excited to see how they do improve, while I'm finding uses for them already. Around the house I'm generally still going with Seeing AI as it is faster, but the option of hands free information while out and about is preferable.
Shipping in the next few days still excited
A little bit less so admittedly. I've been excited that the meta wayfare glasses now are able to use the AI in Canada. I definitely intend to give this a fair shot but am more on the side that I'll have to return them. I was wondering, if anyone cares to, and has used both sets of glasses, what is your opinion.
I wish we would've gotten one or two demonstrations of the glasses by impartial individuals. That we haven't seen this makes me think these glasses must not be as functional as shown on their YouTube channel.
i'm excited for mine as well.
Mine should ship in a few days too.
I was wondering about a direct comparison of both.
I realize the ray-bans are faster, but i'm curious about scene description, text reading and colour identification.
I will do my best to make a small demo of the seleste glasses when I get mine, unless someone beats me to it.
I am also really considering a pair of ray-bans now that AI is available in Canada.
I'd appreciate any advice smart glasses users can give.
Thanks in advance!
I've got the meta ray-bans …
I've got the meta ray-bans and will say that meta AI isn't as robust and won't read long passages. It is fast, by comparison though, and good for picking out a couple of pieces of information rather than a deluge.
My thought is, the meta ray-bans are probably better for out and about usage as the response time is more in keeping with getting important information quickly, but the Seleste glasses might serve better at home when reading documents.
One thing I'll also add, as the ray-bans are open speakers, they are hard to hear when on a busy road. I've tried using them with my airpods pro 2, but the meta ai doesn't route through them, which is a frustration, so maybe that is a win for Seleste.
What I'm interested to know is, could Seleste create a subscription based service that uses a whatsapp intagration and a live video feed on the meta ray-bans? We could then, call in, to it when we want the Seleste special sauce but can then use meta's fast, accurate yet short on details ai for other purposes.
Comparing different wearables in the market?
Those among us who have tried all the different options out there, can we have a comparison based on different parameters like accuracy, response time, functionality, practical use, etc.?