I'm a gadget guy, everybody knows that. I like a good techy toy, so the fact that I hadn't had something like Bluetooth sunglasses before was actually surprising to some people.
Sangstre sent over their Haydn II, which you saw me unbox... well after a while of playing with the $140USD (on sale) 5035 model I'm ready to give you my opinion.
Essentially, it's not good. The only positive comment I can make on it is that they are polarized lenses, which are an absolute must for me.
The absolute core of the unit, why you'd buy it in the first place is its Bluetooth speaker. It is a speaker, but for music, it's really pales in comparison to just about any other BT speaker I've run up against.
It's tinny, there's no bass and just wouldn't be something I'd use or rely on. Maybe listening to the radio or a podcast. Even that tho', the audio lag between the headphones and playback was terrible. I tried different phones (iPhone 11 and different Pixels) to see if it was any better elsewhere. Nope.
It was nice that it seemed 'loud enough' for me, but a foot or so away someone else isn't really hearing it.
Navigating using the sunglasses you can double tap on logo on the arm of one side to play/pause, and of the other to skip.
You can even swipe forward/back to adjust the volume. That'd be cool, but I found the implementation of those gestures shaky at best. I might have gotten it to work as stated about half of the times I tried.
The frames are not too bad, they're bulky, but actually not that crazy bulky as you might, and I could almost use them speaker or no.
Where it goes from 'ugh' to 'nope' for me is the case.
Sure it's a bulky case, not something I'd be hauling around with me, but it's where it charges up its battery. Sounds good, however, to do that you have to ALWAYS remember the left arm gets folded in first, and it has to go in 'backwards' in my mind (you have to turn it around so lenses are close to the opening.
I could learn to adjust... all of this I could learn to live with - annoying, but as long as it's convenient I could live.
But...
As soon as you place it on the charger, it powers down and charges. As soon as you take them off the charger it'll power on and pair.
It doesn't stay on the charger.
Which means that as soon as you jostle it just slightly in the case when it's charging, it'll think it's being taken out and then powers on... while it's in the case. And connect to my phone and it'll be connected without me knowing (unless I can hear it saying "powering on").
And then it'll jostle itself back on charger and then power off. It's super sensitive for that. Worst of all there's no other way to turn off the sunglasses so that it may prevent that accidental waking up (or if you're walking around and left the case in your car but don't want to use them... you can't turn off the sunglasses, only just 'disconnect' manually from BT on your phone).
The little magnets that are in the case to hold it just aren't enough to keep them in place. You can even see in my video how one (and then eventually both) fell out.
Overall, it's not a great speaker with an even more inconvenient way to charge and interact with it. Even on sale, I wouldn't consider buying these.
That being said, the sunglasses are not bad.
https://www.sangstre.com/products/sangstre-%E2%85%B1-haydn-5035
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