ZDNET's key takeaways The Amazon Echo Frames (3rd Gen) are a natural way for glasses wearers to control their smart home, and they're available now for $269.
The latest model features a lighter build, longer battery life, improved speakers, and new controls that will take some getting used to.
While Alexa in your ears is no ChatGPT voice assistant, it's capable enough to answer general questions and complete most smart home tasks. View now at Amazon
The Amazon Echo Frames are on sale ahead of Amazon Prime Day for $129 -- a 57% discount. You can also get a pair bundled with an Echo Spot for the same price.
Also: The 55+ best Prime Day deals so far
The headline for this article could've gone many ways -- I wore Amazon's Echo Frames at an airport, and the TSA didn't stop me or These smart glasses let me take calls hands-free -- but I settled with the comparison angle because one of the easiest ways to talk about smart glasses is by comparing them to the standard.
Also: I tested the best AR and MR glasses: Here's how the Meta Ray-Bans stack up
With these being the company's third generation of Echo Frames, Amazon's made mostly iterative updates -- the build is lighter, the battery lasts longer, and there's supposedly more bass -- while staying true to the glasses' original purpose: Giving you a direct (and natural) communication path with Amazon's popular voice assistant, Alexa.
Naturally, you can do other things with the glasses, too, as I'll detail in my two-week account of wearing the Echo Frames below.
In the hierarchy of smart glasses, you can think of the Echo Frames as the entry-level pair, ideal for users who want something discrete but with just enough technology to scratch that consumer itch. I've worn a few too many pairs of smart glasses over the past year, and these from Amazon may be the most normal-looking of them all. That's a good thing, as I learned during my flight to CES in early January.
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