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 ÂŁ65 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
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.
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?
@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.
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.
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.?
Celeste glasses
I ordered my glasses in December and got them in January. I was disappointed in 2 things. First... the voice that comes out of the right arm of the glasses. I don't know what I expected, but that voice, and the fact it only came out of 1 side, shocked me. Its tinny and monotone, something I would have expected back in the early 2000s. Second... for some reason, I was under the impression I could use them to make video calls to sighted friends and family. I feel like I saw this on a website as one of the listed benefits to these glasses. I remember showing it to a sighted friend, who also got that impression. So I ordered. And was disappointed. Enough so that I thought about returning them. But just yesterday, I put them on and stood at my window while they described the scenery outside. It was so much easier than holding my phone up to the window. Then I scanned the page of a book. It took a few tries, but I eventually got it to read, almost perfectly, 95 percent of the text on the page. When I've tried that with my phone, the results weren't nearly as good. So, even though I'm disappointed, there are still things I really enjoy about the glasses and I want to see and be a part of how this evolves. So I'm keeping them. But I'm also considering getting the Meta glasses.
Has anyone gotten shipping info
If you are supposed to receive your glasses in this batch, have you received your shipping info. I had the understanding that they were supposed to ship mid last week
no shipping info yet
I haven't received any shipping info yet.
I contacted the company last Wednesday and was told that they are expected to ship by the end of this week.
Hope that helps a little.
Recordings on the glasses
Hopefully soon, once this pain and trauma with having to maybe end my partner's life support in the ICU is over, I'll try to make a recording.
I will also be getting the Meta glasses as well... so maybe will talk about both at some point as well. I'll try for the end of this week / next weekend for the recording, that should be when the most of this is over. Sorry for the delay, I know I'd said I would a while back, but things have been pretty chaotic right now, LOL.
When it is done, I'll post links.
Echoing what Lottie said Porsche
Take care of your family and self most importantly. Smart gadgetS and other technologies can be put on the back burner for now. Wishing you all the best
Re: Portia
@Lottie,
Thank you for the well-wishes.
The most hardest part is going to the meeting to decide what the hospital is going to do, possibly.
I definitely appreciate your words.
Portia.
Thank you.
@SSWFTW,
Thank you as well. It is much appreciated.
Luckily, my partner and I live with my mother, so she was able to get her to the hospital, and will be taking me to the meeting this week.
I appreciate your words very much, and am thankful for the support I do have.
Portia.
Continuous mode
There was a demo on Double Tap recently where someone used the Celeste glasses to navigate a pavement (or sidewalk if you prefer). It took a photo every 9 seconds and then said where the obstacles were. I am pretty cynical about whether AI is trustworthy enough for this purpose, let alone how reliable my internet connection is. But it was a pretty mind-blowing demo.
Has anyone on here tried this feature? If so, what do you use it for and how are you finding it?
Ditto
Mr. Grieves, I heard the same Double Tap, and it got me interested, in either these smart glasses or the ones from Meta. I've got to get a pair, as if I need more new tech to learn.
Has anyone had contact?
I've heard that seleste have not been contactable over the summer? Is anyone here still a user?
I have to say, I haven't looked back since I returned mine....Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses are enough for me right now. bought outright six months ago, the only additional cost was a VPN and that has turned out to be a really useful life hack!