Best Live-Captioning Smart Glasses (2026), WIRED tested

Unlike other glasses I’ve tested, eOne doesn’t sell any subscription plans; Everything is included out of the box.

The only downside I found with the G2 is that it’s largely devoid of offline features, so the glasses have to be connected to the internet to do anything. Considering the G2’s capabilities, this is a compromise I’m very happy to make.

Other captioning glasses I tested

There are a lot of capable captioning glasses available on the market, but they’re surprisingly similar in both looks and features. Although many are quite capable, none had the combination of power and affordability that I found with the Evens G2. Here are the details of everything else I tested.

Leon’s O2 is the value leader in this market, and even its prescription lenses ($90 to $299) are quite affordable. However, the hardware is heavy: 50 grams without the lenses, 60 grams with them. A single full charge gives you six to eight hours of operation; The case adds juice for up to 12 recharges.

I like the Leon interface, which offers captions, translation, “free talk” (two-way translation), and a teleprompter feature on its neat app. You get access to nine languages; Using Pro minutes increases this to 143. Leon sells its premium plans by the minute, not by the month, so you’ll need to remember to turn off this mode when you don’t need it. Pricing is $120 for 10 minutes, $1,200 for 50 minutes, and $6,000 for 200 minutes. No offline use is supported, and I often struggle to get the AI ​​summary to show in English instead of Chinese (regardless of recorded language).

You’re not looking at double: XRAI and Leion use the same manufacturer for their hardware, and the glasses weigh the same. Battery specifications are also the same, with up to eight hours on the frame and up to 96 hours when recharged with the case. XRAI claims its display is noticeably brighter than competitors, but I didn’t notice much of a difference in day-to-day use.

The features and user experience are nearly identical, although Leon’s teleprompter feature is not implemented in XRAI’s app, and it does not offer AI summaries of conversations. I didn’t find XRAI’s app to be as user-friendly as Leon’s version, especially when I was trying to switch between the admittedly full 300 language options. Only 20 of these are included without trying the Pro membership, which is sold both by the month and by the minute: $20/month gets you up to 600 advanced transcription minutes and 300 translation minutes; $40/month gets you 1,800 and 1,200 minutes respectively. On the plus side, XRAI has a rudimentary offline mode that works better than others. For prescription lenses, add $140 to $170.

AirCaps does not make its own prescription lenses. Instead, you’ll have to buy a pair of $39 “lens holders” and take them to an optician if you want prescription inserts. I was unable to test these with prescription lenses and ultimately had to try these instead of my regular glasses, which worked well enough for short-term testing. The frame weighs 53 grams without add-on lenses; The company couldn’t tell me how much extra weight the prescription lenses would add, but it’s safe to say that these are the heaviest and heaviest prescription glasses on the market. Despite the weight, they only have two to four hours of battery life, with 10 or so recharges packed into the bulk. Another option is to clip one of AirCaps’ rechargeable 13-gram Power Capsules ($79 for two) to an arm, which can provide 12 to 18 hours of extra juice.

The AirCaps feature list and interface probably makes it the simplest of all these devices, with only one button to start and stop recording. Transcription and translation are available free of charge in nine languages. For $20/month, you can add the Pro package, which offers better accuracy, access to over 60 languages, and the option to generate AI summaries on demand (though only if the recording is long enough). As a bonus: five hours of Pro features are free every month. Offline mode also works very well. The only bad news is that these heavy frames are not comfortable enough to wear for long periods of time.

The most expensive option on the market (up to $1,399 with prescription lenses!) weighs a relatively modest 40 grams (52 grams with lenses) and offers about four hours of battery life. There is no charging case; The glasses must be charged directly using the included USB-connected dongle.

Specs is extremely simple, offering transcription and translation features – with support for around 80 languages, which is impressive. I unfortunately found the prescription lenses shipped by Captify to be blurry at best, making captions comparatively difficult to read. And while the device supports offline transcription, performance was severely affected when disconnected from the Internet. I couldn’t get the translation to work at all when offline. For $15/month, you get access to better accuracy and speaker differentiation and AI summaries of conversations. Prescription lenses cost between $99 and $600.