Smart glasses and augmented reality gadgets are considered the next big breakthrough for wearables – and the early iterations of many spectacles are already here.
Each has slightly different aims, but, in essence, a pair of smart glasses tends to focus on putting useful connected features in front of your eyes. And, as you’ll discover in our list of tested picks below, some are less obtrusive than others in achieving this.
Interestingly, smart glasses are also beginning to be developed by the industry’s tech giants, with glasses from Meta/Ray-Ban and Amazon already available.
Apple is also reportedly actively working towards the smart glasses form factor, with Vision Pro representing the first step on the journey.
However, for all the excitement, this is still a fairly unknown area of wearables. So, we’ve done our best to round up only the top options worth considering and knowing about.
Let’s dive into the best devices we’ve tried – and a few coming soon.
Quick overview: The best smart glasses we’ve tested
- Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses
- Solos AirGo 3
- Vuzix Blade 2
- Oppo Air Glass 3
- XREAL Air 2 Ultra
- Nuance Audio / Luxoticca
What are smart glasses?
When we talk about smart glasses, we generally mean eyewear that includes augmented reality technology.
This merges what you see in the real world with virtual information, and usually overlays this on one of the lenses. It could be as trivial as seeing a virtual Pikachu on your couch, or as practical as text from a menu being translated in front of your eye.
Often, these overlays recreate screens and features you’d find on your smartphone, like navigation for maps or flashing up notifications. However, some other smart glasses are a little more basic.
These early iterations of glasses focus on smart assistant support, music playback, or video capture – and don’t offer much advanced AR technology.
We’ll specify these below in our list of options.
Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses
The Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, a collaboration between the tech giant and luxury eyewear brand EssilorLuxxotica, took us a bit by surprise when they arrived in 2023.
We’ve tested things like Snap Spectacles, which offer the same kind of first-person video capturing, and been left slightly cold. These, though, were a joy to wear during testing.
They pack dual 5-megapixel cameras to capture and share first-person videos, while also including speakers and microphones to listen to music and handle phone calls.
A single tap records up to 30 seconds of video, while a tap and hold will snap a picture. There are also hand-free controls, letting you use the onboard microphones to say, “Hey, Facebook, take a video,” if you don’t want to reach up to your specs.
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When you’re recording or taking pictures, a small LED near the camera illuminates to indicate to those around you that you are in recording or snapping mode. On the listening front, the glasses feature two open-ear speakers to handle listening to audio playing from your phone or handling calls.
All that tech is wrapped up in some familiar Ray-Ban frames, including the iconic Wayfarer shown above, only adding 5g over a non-smart pair. There are 20 style variations in total, and they also support prescription lenses.
This is probably the best bit about them. They’re a luxury purchase at this stage, and the tech’s inherent privacy issues mean they’re not for every occasion, but you just can’t really argue with a pair of souped-up Ray-Ban Wayfarers.
No AR tech is on offer here, to be clear, but Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that the partnership is destined to yield AR specs in the future. Exciting.
- Check out our full Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses review
Solos AirGo 3
The Solos AirGo 3 offers several unique features for hands-free assistance. They include ChatGPT integration for quick questions, language translation, posture alerts, and basic fitness tracking.
The glasses are comfortable and have a respectable 10-hour battery life. However, the mediocre execution of the software in some areas means they’re not necessarily stand-out smart glasses just yet.
While the AirGo 3’s touch and capacitive controls make it easy to play music, adjust the volume, and access features like ChatGPT-powered ‘Chat Mode’, the software can sometimes be clunky.
Overall, the AirGo 3 is a good option for people looking for an alternative to Ray-Bans and Amazon Echo Frames. Yet, limited functionality beyond ChatGPT means they’re not close to replacing your phone or smartwatch.
Vuzix Blade 2
Buy now: vuzix.com | Price: $1,299.99
Vuzix remains one of the companies at the forefront of AR smart glasses, and the Blade 2 is a good distillation of its latest tech available to buy.
We think they’re the first pair of really useful commercial AR glasses that actually look like a pair of glasses. And while they’re obviously not as stylish as Ray-Bans, they’re also not quite as goggle-like and concept-like as others on this list, either.
The best way to describe them is that they’re a lot like the first generation of smartwatches. They’re a good first step at getting a lot of advanced tech in a decent package.
The latest version uses waveguide technology to project a full-color HD display over the right lens, with an 8-megapixel camera, 40GB internal memory, head tracking, stereo speakers, and Vuzix’s voice control support all in tow, as well.
When we first got to try the standard Vuzix Blade a few years ago, the Vuzix app store wasn’t exactly brimming with apps. Since then, some high-profile names have turned up. There’s now Netflix, Zoom, Amazon Alexa, and even support for DJI drones.
With the Blade 2 running on Android 11 OS and support for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi, as well, everything is just that little bit smoother.
XREAL Air 2 Ultra
Price: $699/£699
XREAL – the artist formerly known as Nreal – is churning out smart glasses like nobody’s business, and we had the chance to try the Air 2 Ultra at CES 2024.
Unlike older iterations of its glasses, which essentially boiled down to offering users 100-inch screens to watch content on or play video games, the wired Air 2 Ultra is a bit more in the mold of Apple’s Vision Pro.
That means the emphasis is more clearly on spatial computing here, with excellent clarity in the world you’ve chosen to launch from the company’s Nebula platform, and hand tracking that worked better than we expected.
The Air 2 Ultra offers motion tracking with six degrees of freedom thanks to built-in sensors in the frame, a 52-degree FOV, and HD for each eye (bust out at a decent 500 nits).
Oppo Air Glass 3
Release date: TBC
After launching the initial concept in 2021, we’ve since had the chance to test the second and third generations of Oppo’s smart glasses at MWC in Barcelona.
In terms of design, we don’t think it gets much better. The Oppo Air Glass 3 looks like a proper pair of specs, and though they are a bit too big and heavy, they could certainly pass for normal eyewear.
The visuals in your vision are now much bigger and brighter, too, and the experience of apps was as comfortable as we’ve found on a pair of smart specs.
This is mostly due to the waveguide on the lens placing the on-screen, full-color graphics in the center of your vision, with the FOV much larger than previous concepts.
The visuals do block your vision of course, and it’s quite an odd experience to be speaking to someone, and have them partially obscured by on-screen information.
We may even see a full launch this year – but don’t get your hopes up.
Nuance Audio / Luxoticca
Release date: Late 2024
Another one we demoed at CES 2024 was Nuance Audio’s collaborative effort with EssilorLuxoticca, the Ray-Ban owner.
These are quite different from the rest on this list. Instead of focusing on delivering content, or acting as a spatial computer, they use beamforming technology to help the hard of hearing.
Essentially a hearing aid on your face, the smart glasses can identify the person you’re talking to and amplify their voice.
It’s particularly aimed at those with mild or moderate hearing loss. The kind that can make conversations hard to follow in crowded environments.
The idea is that these are unobtrusive in the way a traditional hearing aid isn’t, and they don’t require being fitted by an audiologist.
They’re still scheduled to land this year. However, at least at the time of writing, a 2024 release appears increasingly unlikely. We’ll update this entry when we receive an update.
Upcoming smart glasses
As we mentioned up top, this is a very experimental area of the tech industry, and the smart glasses market is still proving to be quite small.
It all means that brands are mostly still just toying with concepts, slowly progressing their technology, and trying to gauge interest. As such, plenty of glasses aren’t ready for store shelves (or are kept under close guard by brands).
This section covers official concepts essentially paving the way for a more developed consumer product to arrive over the next few years, plus available ones we’re yet to test.
Snap Spectacles ’24
Availability: Not for general sale
Snap recently unveiled its latest Spectacles AR glasses, Spectacles ’24. They appear to represent a significant upgrade from previous developer models, featuring a see-through design, standalone functionality, and a new operating system, Snap OS.
Thanks to their built-in processors and sensors, Spectacles ’24 allows users to see the real world while interacting with AR content. They also operate independently of the user’s phone.
Snap OS enables natural hand and voice interactions, and users can even share AR experiences with friends in real time.
Currently only available to developers as part of the Spectacles Developer Program, this pair won’t be released to consumers. Instead, as with 2021’s Snap Specs AR, they’re part of an effort to further the technology.
There’s nothing close to a fixed date regarding Snap’s next consumer release, so stay tuned for more updates in 2025.
Brilliant Labs Frame
Price: $349
The Brilliant Labs Frame are AI-powered smart glasses that may be the most lightweight on the market. Weighing 39 grams and promising advanced features, they’re a pair we’re eager to test out over the coming months.
One of the standout features of the Frame is its multimodal input. This ensures users can interact with the glasses using voice commands, hand gestures, or even eye movements. The glasses also come with an AI assistant called Noa, capable of fluid, two-way conversations. Noa can provide users with information, answer questions, and make recommendations.
Another interesting feature of the Frame is its Wild Card Mode. This mode allows the glasses to deliver historical facts, news updates, and recommendations to the user based on their current context. For example, if the user stands near a famous landmark, the glasses could provide information about its history.
The Frame is also open-source, meaning developers can build their own apps for the glasses.
