ZDNET’s key takeaways
- The Ally Solos smart glasses are on pre-sale now for $499.
- They use several AI models to read or translate text, describe the user’s surroundings, and recognize faces.
- The regular price of $699 is significantly more than competing smart glasses.
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Last year, we saw earbuds that can act as hearing aids with the AirPods Pro 2, and now, we’re seeing smart glasses specifically for the vision-impaired.
Envision, a company that creates technology with an accessibility angle, just released a pair of smart glasses called the Ally Solos Glasses, designed to handle tasks for blind and vision-impaired users. The glasses can read text, describe your environment, and even perform web searches for the user — all through audio cues delivered through the built-in speakers.
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The Ally Solos glasses are built using the same frame as the AirGo Vision glasses, a product released late last year equipped with multi-modal AI and a ChatGPT-powered voice assistant.
Much of the technology looks similar, with 2K resolution camera sensors on the frames to process visual information and connectivity via the Ally app on iOS and Android.
The new Ally Solos glasses have upgraded AI capabilities, however. They have their own AI assistant powered by a combination of different AI models, including Llama, ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Perplexity.
The glasses stand out for their impressive battery life claims — Ally says they will provide 16 hours of active use — a number at the top end of what competing smart glasses products can offer. In addition, Ally says they’ll fully charge in 90 minutes or less using the USB-C-chargeable ear stems.
So, how does the user interact with these glasses? The idea is to allow the glasses’ cameras to “see for you,” prompting them to read menus, describe the environment, or even recognize people or objects through spoken commands.
Although explicitly designed for low-vision individuals, the glasses also have features anyone could use, like translation capabilities or document scanning and capture by invoking the cameras.
And yes, there is a subscription cost involved. Right now, the glasses are on pre-sale for $499, down from the regular price of $699, and come with one free year of the Ally Pro subscription. For customers who purchase today, the glasses are expected to ship in October 2025.
Also: I spent a weekend with Meta’s new Oakley smart glasses – they beat my Ray-Bans in every way
The price of the glasses is certainly a consideration here, since competing glasses like the Meta Ray-Bans go for less at around $300, and even the brand-new Meta Oakley special edition smart glasses are priced at $499.
Also, the Ally Solos frames are not quite as slick as the aforementioned frames. They’re available in three colorways — Shiny Black, Dark Crystal Grey, and Shiny Clear Brown — and in a “Regular” and a “Large” size.
Still, the accessibility angle is more complete here, with a purposeful feature set powered by what appears to be a very robust AI framework.
