Smart glasses, if you haven’t been keeping track, have been around for quite a few years. Much of that hype can be attributed to one company, Meta, which has had some early success selling its Ray-Ban-branded AI glasses — enough success to push a pair of $800 display smart glasses, the Meta Ray-Ban Display. And it’s not just Ray-Bans; Meta has also significantly expanded its smart glasses universe with Oakley-branded specs, bringing its current smart glasses lineup to four different models – two types of Ray-Ban smart glasses and two types of Oakley (or, I think, five if you’re still counting stories).
But just because Meta is dominating the space with volume doesn’t mean it’s alone in its quest. Far from it, in fact. As the meta advances, the scope of its battle path is becoming larger and larger, and the definition of smart glasses is also expanding along with it. That definition, as we are learning, can vary greatly.
Meta’s vision is clear: Smart glasses, in his estimation, are all about cameras, computer vision, audio, and AI. While a screen also works through the Meta Ray-Ban Display, what are those four components All Meta’s smart glasses have a similarity. Meta believes that everyone wants to take photos and videos, and everyone wants to interface with its sometimes frustrating AI voice assistant. Other players in the smart glasses game aren’t so sure. For example, Even Realme recently launched its Even G2 smart glasses, which have a screen but no speakers or cameras. As a result, they are lighter and more glasses-like (alternatively, less Gadget-like) and it’s more attractive to anyone concerned about the privacy implications of walking around with a camera discreetly planted on your face.
That last part—privacy—is important. Of all the different hardware options, there is more philosophical debate going on. Even Realty has not shied away from distinguishing itself from the meta as a more privacy-focused alternative, but there is also an underlying throughline to ambient computing. The screen inside the Even G2 isn’t designed to strain your eyes; Its purpose is to blend in, allowing semi-discreet notifications, navigation, news updates, and more. Insiders will call these head-up display glasses or HUD glasses for short. And, of course, they’re also making waves in the world of smart glasses.
For example, the Inmo Air 3 smart glasses, which I tested, leans fully into AR. Instead of a HUD, they offer a full-on projection experience (as you’d get with smart glasses made by Xreal) that projects a large, invisible screen in front of your face. And the thing is, Inmo does not portray devices like the Air 3 as a virtual screen with which you stay at home and watch games or movies. Inmo imagines people will be wearing the Air 3 (like Meta’s Orion prototype). All day long. Every day. In some ways, the philosophy here is even more rigorous. Are smart glasses a background accessory? Are they ambient? Are they immersed? Even more existentially, are they a computer? Or are they just another Apple Watch in your face?
Even if the philosophies aren’t entirely different, makers of smart glasses don’t seem to agree on a template yet. Take the screen, for example. Meta, for its part, has focused on delivering the Meta Ray-Ban Display with a liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) screen that is lit by an LED light source. The result is a full-color display with a high maximum brightness of 5,000 nits. Sure it’s interesting, the technology, but also put smart glasses need So much color and shine? Probably not; Competitors like Rokid, for example, opt for a monochrome green display that’s micro LED and not as bright. It’s a simple, almost early CRT-computing-like screen, but it gets the job done.
As experimental as things are right now, that free spirit won’t last forever. A larger presence in the space sector, and their entry is likely to lead to some kind of consensus. For example, Apple is rumored to be creating its own pair of smart glasses, which could arrive next year or the year after that. It’s anyone’s guess what they’ll bring to the table, but the impact of this pair of Apple-made smart glasses is clear. Starting with deeper iPhone integration, a trend toward UI, and software like VisionOS, which is used inside its XR headsets (er, sorry, local computer), The Vision Pro is Apple’s chance to blow the doors wide open.
I say “a chance” here because the same could be said for the Vision Pro, which, as you probably know, hasn’t lived up to expectations. Nothing is guaranteed in AR/XR, even with a cachet as powerful as Apple’s. For now, companies are destined to throw AI and micro LEDs at the wall and see what sticks. So far, the results have been interesting, to say the least, and have even spawned strange controllers like Meta’s Neural Band and touch-sensitive smart ring. I admit that some of the results have led me to abandon gadgets altogether. I can only hope that one day, when smart glasses are finally figured out, made obsolete, or whatever their ultimate fate is, we can look back at all this chaos and, like phones, say, “Hey, this was fun.”
<a href