There’s one big question looming over anyone who considers smart glasses tech right now: Do you want to wear something with tech on your face? And, for how long? The decision when it comes to display-enabled tethered glasses and wireless glasses is pretty different.
Display glasses vs. camera and audio glasses
Tethered glasses are really more like eye headphones that you’re perching on your face over your eyes. Although they have somewhat see-through lenses, they’re not made for all-day wear. You’ll put them on for movies, playing games or doing work, and then take them off. The commitment level might be a couple of hours a day at most.
Meanwhile, wireless smart glasses aim to be true everyday glasses. They’ll likely replace your existing glasses, become an additional pair or maybe act as smart sunglasses. But if you’re doing that, keep in mind you’ll need to outfit them with your prescription… or, get used to the limited battery life of wireless glasses. Meta Ray-Bans last several hours on a charge, depending on how they’re used. After that, they need to be recharged in their case, so you’ll need to wear another pair of glasses or just accept wearing a pair with a dead battery.
Live AI, Meta’s newest Ray-Bans feature, can keep a constant camera feed on the world. I tested it out.
AI and its limits
You’ll also want to consider what you’ll use the glasses for, and what devices or AI services you use. Wireless audio and video glasses like Ray-Bans need a phone app to pair and use with, but they can also act as basic Bluetooth headphones with any audio source. However, Meta Ray-Bans are limited to Meta AI as the functioning onboard AI service, with a few hook-ins to apps like Apple Music, Spotify, Calm and Facebook’s core platforms. You’re living in Meta’s world.
Google’s next wave of devices should be more flexible, tapping into Gemini AI and more Google apps and services. But we still don’t know the limits of those glasses and headsets, either.
AI-enabled glasses can often use AI and the onboard camera for a number of assistive purposes like live translation or describing an environment in detail. For those with vision loss or assistive needs, AI glasses are starting to become an exciting and helpful type of device, but companies like Meta — and Google next year — need to keep introducing new features to help. Meta’s AI functions on glasses aren’t as flexible as the AI apps on phones and computers — you can’t necessarily add documents and personal information into it in the same way you can with other services. At least, not yet.
Display glasses have limits, too
Display-enabled tethered glasses use USB-C to connect to gadgets that can output video via USB-C, like phones, laptops, tablets and even handheld game consoles. But they don’t all work the same. Phones can sometimes have app incompatibilities, preventing copyrighted videos from playing in rare instances (like Disney+ on iPhones). Steam Decks and Windows game handhelds work with tethered display glasses, but the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 don’t, and need proprietary and bulky battery pack “mini docks” sold separately to send a signal through. Some glasses-makers like Xreal are building more custom chipsets in-glasses to pin displays in space or customize display size, while others lean on extra software only available on laptops or certain devices to perform extra tricks.
You probably should wait
If this all sounds like a bit of a Wild West landscape, that’s because it is. Glasses right now remind me of the wrist wearable scene before the Apple Watch and Android watches arrived: It was experimental, inconsistent, sometimes brilliant and sometimes frustrating. Expect glasses to evolve quickly over the next few years, meaning your choice to buy in now is not guaranteed to be a perfect solution down the road.
There are other options coming that are likely worth waiting for. Luma’s high-end Beast glasses coming this fall should offer excellent wide viewing areas and improved, anti-reflective prism lenses that will compete with the Xreal One Pro. Google is expected to release its own line of AI glasses with Warby Parker and other brands next year, offering a true competitor to Meta’s glasses line. And Meta is expected to have new glasses this fall, possibly a high-end line with a display and a gesture-registering neural input wristband, and there could be updated Ray-Bans, too.
