Smart glasses without a camera? Even Reality Bets production beats filming everyone else

Over the past few years, many tech executives have told us that glasses could be the next big interface for consumer hardware. And yet, today’s smart glasses rely heavily on phones, even if they have good hardware. Even Reality’s G2 smart glasses are in the same boat. They’re a premium-looking pair of glasses with a neon-style head-up that you can see in any light – but their functionality is largely dependent on their connection to the phone, which can** be unreliable and frustrating.

Even Reality is taking a different approach to smart glasses than players like Meta. Their devices have a monochrome head-up display that shows text and information in green, giving the appearance of a neon board.

There are no cameras or speakers, and that’s by design. The company wants to focus on production instead of recording, so people around you don’t have to worry about being recorded.

The G2 is the second line of smart glasses from Even Realities and an improvement over the G1 released a few years ago. The G2 has a bright 1,200-nit display (vs. 1,000 nits on the G1), four mics (vs. two), and a display area 75% larger than its predecessor. The new display also has an improved 60Hz refresh rate, compared to 20Hz on the G1.

In the few months I’ve used the G2, communication with the phone has gotten much better. At first, the glasses would disconnect from the app so often that I almost gave up on them. But after a few app updates, that problem got better.

Mirrors are aimed at people who may be in meetings, making presentations, and traveling to countries where different languages ​​are spoken.

Design

The glasses, which come in two frame designs, are very light at 35 grams. The frame is made of magnesium alloy, and the temples (the arms that go over your ears) are made of titanium alloy. In terms of weight and fit, the glasses were comfortable to wear.

However, since I work from home most of the time, I didn’t need to wear them all day. That said, the lenses have built-in UV protection, so they’re still suitable for outdoor wear just for protection – smart features or not.

The company says that, based on typical use, the G2’s battery can last two days on a single charge. These glasses come with a protective case that can be recharged up to seven times before turning itself off. I personally didn’t test the two-day claim, but the battery lasted long enough to charge me back to the case without running out of juice.

That case is big – you can’t shove it in a pocket – but it’s sturdy, and the glasses fit well.

Features and functionality

Mirrors work as your own for schedules, reminders, and access to notes. You can wake them up by tapping the stem-based controls. If you double tap on the control pad in the trunk, you will see a dashboard with information like your upcoming meetings, stocks, and top news.

The G2 can also display real-time phone notifications, but the hacks weren’t always reliable — and since my phone is often accessible anyway, I didn’t find much use for the feature.

Long pressing the temple controller opens a menu with several features: notification tray, Translate, Chat, Teleprompt, to-do list, and Navigate. Translation allows you to set the target language and chat with anyone. At the recent Global Connect (GCS) show in China, I wore glasses while talking to company executives doing demos, and the translation was perfect for me to follow along when someone spoke Chinese. I tried with other journalists who spoke different languages, including French and Spanish. (The downside of this feature is that the other person doesn’t know what you’re saying in your language unless they’re also using the app.)

Navigate is a great feature that shows turn-by-turn directions on the head-up display. The catch: it doesn’t work with Google or Apple Maps. Instead, you must set your route through the Even Realities app. I tried a few times going to cafes near my house. The directions came out fine on the display, but the app keeps getting the addresses wrong, so I can’t rely on it for places I don’t know how to get to. However, I have seen cyclists or motorcyclists find it useful once the company has fixed the accuracy issues.

The chat, at first, just showed a live recording of the chat on the glasses, which felt awkward since you couldn’t easily record the meeting with an app or external notepad. Later, the company added a “preparatory notes” feature that reveals more context: you can add notes or documents manually before the meeting and let the AI ​​refer to them during the conversation, or let it listen in real time and display short explanatory bubbles of ideas as they appear. For example, during a lecture on energy, he showed me a “Green Hydrogen” bubble, and tapping it revealed the meaning before my eyes. That was really helpful – although I don’t want text or explanatory bubbles for every conversation I have.

Among all this there is a built-in assistant, Even AI. Like any voice assistant, you say the wake-up voice to turn it on and ask questions or add items to your to-do list. It often misunderstood my requests for a to-do list, and for common questions, the answers were often long paragraphs spread across the screen without interrupting or skipping ahead.

Another issue: despite having four microphones, even the AI ​​often failed to activate, or mishear me, when I was outside. Ambient sound in India could have played a role, but I would still expect a modern gadget to have better sound handling.

The G2’s screen was readable under most conditions, but in a bright room I had to manually adjust the brightness through the app. Even if the company hasn’t built an automatic light sensor yet, I’d like to see a manual light control built into the glasses themselves, rather than requiring a phone app.

Don’t wear the R1 ring

It even introduced a companion ring called the R1 which is compatible with the G2. The idea is to control the glasses by touching the area on the ring instead of the touch controls for the glasses. But its price and performance don’t really justify the cost.

The ring works well, and I had no problems using it. But I struggled to find situations where I really needed it, as the touch-sensitive temples on the glasses already do the same job.

On top of that, Ize built health tracking into the ring – heart rate, calories, steps, sleep, and SpO2 (blood oxygen level). Personally, I’d rather get a dedicated ring like Oura or Ultrahuman if I want that form factor with health tracking. Second, if I’m already using a fitness tracker, I don’t want to buy a ring where health is an auxiliary function of a ring meant to control the glass.

All this functionality brings the price of the ring up to $249, which is cheap. If I used my smart glasses more, I would consider buying a controller ring at a lower price if it also had a microphone, which I could use to issue commands to the AI ​​assistant. As it is, I can skip R1.

Where does the Even G2 stand?

Smart glasses are coming out fast. Camera-mounted, screenless models like the Meta Ray-Bans are popular, but Meta, Snap, and other competitors are racing to create glasses with colored screens, too. Only a few Chinese companies – such as Rokid and Inmo – make glasses with this neon-display style.

The Even G2 costs $599 and delivers solid hardware in a light, sleek frame. The company is also working to make the glasses more customizable by supporting third-party apps, though I haven’t found any app compelling enough to make me reach for the glasses more often. They’re a nice thing to have: they’re fun to check out if you like playing with new hardware and don’t mind trying out third-party apps.

The hardware itself is great, but outside of tasks that require constant interpreting or teleprompting, it’s hard to find a clear everyday use case for smart glasses like these.

I’m betting that skipping the camera and speakers is the right move for a productivity-focused device – and I’m not against that. But now that the company has just reached unicorn status, it needs to build first-party software to make glasses something people reach for every day.