When Bose introduced the Frames, $250 sunglasses with built-in speakers, we weren’t quite sure what to make of them—and to be honest, we still aren’t. But they have since been followed by the $180 Amazon Echo Frames and the $200 Razer Anzu Smart Glasses, so clearly there is some sort of market out there for audio glasses. If you want to get in on this budding trend for a lot less money, the $49.99 JLab JBuds Frames are wireless clip-on speakers that fit on your existing pair of glasses or sunglasses, so you can wear whatever you want. As you might imagine from small, inexpensive speakers clipped onto your glasses, there’s not much audio fidelity to discuss here. We think most people who wear glasses will ultimately prefer a pair of wireless earphones, but the JBuds Frames are a relatively inexpensive investment if you’re curious to give audio glasses a try.
A Unique Design
The JBuds Frames are small black oblong plastic speakers that grip onto the temples of your glasses and sit just in front of your ear. JLab includes four tiny silicone fit sleeves that are intended to secure the fit depending on the width and shape of your glasses’ temples. Those with thick frames might find they don’t need the silicone sleeves at all. While I managed to get a secure fit, I feel that the speakers weigh my glasses down a bit—not in the sense that they press against my nose painfully, but that they might slide off my face if I lean forward too far.
On the top panel of each speaker, there’s a single control button. Pressing it once powers the speakers up and gets them ready to pair with your mobile device; we had no issues pairing with an iPhone and were streaming audio in no time. Internally, each enclosure houses a 16mm driver.
Once paired, the left speaker’s button handles volume down, track backward, EQ, and your mobile device’s voice assistant through a variety of presses. On the right speaker, the same button handles volume up, play/pause, track forward, and call management. Both speakers power down when the buttons are held for three seconds. Memorizing the controls can be a bit difficult, and it’s pretty easy to accidentally skip a track when you mean to adjust the volume, but the buttons seem to respond well enough.
The speakers have no charging case. Instead, there’s a single Y cable that charges both by connecting to charging contacts on each speaker’s side panel (the other end of the cable terminates in USB-A). The only other included accessory is a drawstring pouch to house everything.
JLab estimates the JBud Frame’s battery life to be roughly eight hours on a full charge, but your results will vary with your volume levels.
JBuds Frames Audio Performance
On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” the JBuds Frames try their best to recreate bass depth, and they manage to push out some degree of lows, but it’s the highs we hear mostly.
There’s a design issue here that makes providing precise testing results impossible: My glasses are different from your glasses, most likely, and then even if they are they same, we might not place our speakers in the same spot on the temples. Sure, there’s a diagram to go by, but this is a scenario in which being off by a hair can make a major difference in audio performance. Now consider that the same is true from one ear to the other. Ultimately, it’s nearly impossible to ensure true balance between your two ears, so one ear will always receive a little more audio than the other, which throws off the mix.
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This all adds up to audio for the Frames not really sounding terribly good. As I mentioned, the speaker does manage to push out some bass depth without distorting, which is impressive, but the predominant sound is bright and tinny. Cycling through the various EQ modes does little to improve the audio experience—yes, things sound different, but rarely do they sound better.
On tracks that don’t have much deep bass, like Bill Callahan’s “Drover,” the JBuds Frames sound thin and brittle. Sliding the speakers up and down the temples of my glasses, I was able to get various different sound signatures and various levels of comfort—the closer they get to my ears, the harder they are to wear. Ideally, the speakers should sit just in front of your ears, as closely as possible. But even in this scenario, on tracks like this, the speakers sound bright, tinny, and thin.
I did enjoy listening to a Yankees game on the YES app. These aren’t actual headphones of course, but the stereo ear-to-ear effects and audience sounds were effective enough, so if you want a pair of speakers to clip onto your shades to listen to sports broadcasts at the beach, you could do worse. But the JBuds Frames aren’t really offering a high-fidelity experience, and it’s hard to argue that what they provide is more valuable or useful than wireless headphones or earphones.
The mics in the speakers provided decent clarity in testing, but there was also a touch of feedback mixed in, which makes sense: These are speakers projecting audio outward, so if you have the volume high enough, you’ll create a feedback loop. So although the mic offers decent clarity, it would be wise to keep volume levels low when taking calls. The feedback was never intense, but feedback doesn’t need to be loud to be annoying.
An Affordable Alternative to Dedicated Audio Glasses
Wearing headphones isn’t much of a burden, even if you wear glasses. The audio quality that clip-on speakers sacrifice without creating an in-ear seal or having any real bass depth is going to be a deal breaker for most users, unless you plan to listen to mostly sports broadcasts and podcasts. But I’m willing to concede that maybe the problem here is me—perhaps I just don’t get the concept. Maybe the idea of clipping wireless speakers onto your glasses or shades sounds like a great idea to you, and the good news is, it doesn’t have to break the bank. The $250 Bost Frames Tempo sound significantly better, but they also cost five times the amount of the JBuds Frames. So if the concept appeals to you and you don’t need top-notch audio quality, these little speakers work as advertised.
