As more people spend the day looking at game monitors, protecting your eyes from the blue light they emit has never been more important. If you have purchased a new PC screen in recent years, it is likely that there is a blue light filter built into your screen. Windows 10 has its own night mode, which you can also enable and disable. But would you go so far as to spend $ 200 on a special pair of glasses with a blue light filter? That’s what Razer’s new Anzu smartglasses are for, though they double as polarized sunglasses too, and come with a built-in microphone and speakers so you can take calls and listen to music. I swear I’m not making this up.
Announced overnight during the RazerStore Live event, Razer’s Anzu smartglasses represent their first foray into the world of glasses. Weighing just under 48g, they have blue light filter lenses installed outside the box that reduce screen brightness by 35%, according to Razer, but also come with 99% UVA / UVB polarized sunglasses lenses that you can switch and when you leave. You can also choose between circular or rectangular lenses, depending on your preference, and prescription versions will also be available thanks to the partnership with Lensabl.
The crazy thing, however, is that you can also talk and listen with these glasses on, as Razer has put a tiny omnidirectional microphone inside it and a pair of speakers inside Anzu so you can take calls and listen to music with them. They also support Bluetooth 5.1, and Razer says its “industry-leading 60ms latency” will ensure smooth, uninterrupted audio. The downside? They only have five hours of battery life and you will need to charge them to continue using them. This will not affect the protection offered by the lenses, of course, but they may not last for an entire invasion of Destiny 2, for example, if you want to use them to chat with your friends.
Anzu’s structure also has touch-sensitive arms that you can touch to skip, play or pause your music, answer calls and even use the phone’s voice assistant. It’s hard to say how audible Anzu’s ‘open ear’ sound will be to those around you, I admit, but if the hosts of RazerStore Live are real in the video up there, it looks (sorry) that you’ll be able to hear music without anyone knowing.
Maybe they believe more when you see (or should I hear?) Kind of business, but I don’t know. Even though the song claims to be true, $ 200 still seems like an excessive amount of money to spend on something that is already built into many game monitors as standard. Likewise, I am also the type of person who wears contact lenses precisely because I find my glasses extremely irritating, so actively choosing to put another pair on your face is just a big old NOPE.
Maybe I am alone in this thought, so I open it for you. Would you pay $ 200 for Razer Anzu glasses?