Is anybody making smart glasses that are just a display? For me, the rest of the feature set verges on being anti-features. I'd much rather a very rudimentary display that my phone or another device could send relatively low bandwidth data to over bluetooth or some other protocol and build from there.
Having a camera or a mic on the glasses themselves seems like something I'd mostly want to avoid for privacy, and having a speaker just seems like gilding the lily when we already have a variety of headphones to choose from.
You can send low-resolution images to them via Bluetooth. I just figured out how to read button presses. There are speakers and a mic, but I haven't figured out how to use them yet (they don't show up as regular audio devices on Linux).
You'd need to write custom stuff to generate the images, but with a little imagemagick scripting I've had some pretty usable results.
Personally I want to see something that isn't dependant on a depleting level of stock, ideally something open source. Otherwise the development investment just doesn't seem worth it.
Note that Solos smart glass from one of other comments might be on eBay for $49 each, but they used to be $499 new. Even Realities G1 is $599. Vufine was way cheaper at $199, but it was wired only and it came with no software whatsoever.
Smart glasses inevitably cost in those ranges because the exotic displays used on them are costly to make and/or operate. Inkjet OLED on silicon or reflexive monochrome LCD with RGB sequential front lighting combined with a prism system or things of that nature.
IOW, those excessive feature sets isn't drawn from product concepts or user stories, they're drawn backwards from cumulative parts and engineering costs to justify MSRP. Same reasons as why almost all EVs are marketed as premium products, they can't make them cheaply so they're adding extra glitters in paint to justify price tags.
If anyone could make displays smaller than a pinky fingernail at $5 that can be driven with an Arduino... then there would be lots of smart glasses that are just Bluetooth picture frames.
This rings true to me -- it's hard to sell a $480 device that only displays images. Easier to sell a $500 device that is a $480 display + $20 of crappy software and sensors and speakers and compute so that buyers think they're getting their money's worth.
Not quite "smart glasses", but if you want "glasses that are just a display", the Lenovo Legion Glasses are pretty good and they look like normal aviators at first glance.
I have a pair and I've been experimenting a bit.
For iOS you can mirror display or use Stage Manager. For Android, at least with Samsung, DEX is pretty decent.
For audio, they're decent too, I like the convenience and comfort. The audio has good fidelity, but depth is mediocre (better than phone speakers though).
FWIW I say DEX is decent, having much of the same gripes as I do with Stage Manager. Dual screen, resizing windows, and full screen support is still a mixed bag on all mobile devices. It can be very frustrating at times. Application support on iOS and Android is about the same, which is disappointing. Supposedly iOS 26 fixes some of this, but I haven't tried the beta.
It’s wired and very finicky. Basically a 10 year old solution to this problem. I have on in my collection. It’s cool but not really useful or in same tier as the other products being mentioned.’
Viture similarly offers wired USB-c displayport, with myopia adjustment up to -5 diopters, and optional magnetic frame for custom prescriptions. They sell refurbs on eBay and have a Linux SDK. It's surprisingly functional as a mirrored monitor, without the additional software or hardware which adds platform-specific features like virtual monitors.
ever since reading the opening chapter of Charles Stross' Accelerando, this is what I've wanted.. an always present live information feed available on tap at any time.
To be honest most of my apps are web pages now. Even on my phone I do not use any more than the default apps. For what is missing I have written my own self-hosted pages.
I sometimes wonder why people "synchronize" anything, since everything is in my self-hosted instance.
It would be difficult to do head tracking without a camera and having it fixed in your view would limit what you could do with it and be distracting I think (depends on the use case/person though)
Because smart glasses, that flash a light and make a loud noise when taking a picture, are more invasive than phones literally everywhere? Or street billboards with built in cameras?
Or how about dash cams in cars? CCTV cameras on ATMs as you walk down the street?
"why would murder be illegal? people get killed all the time. are you going to outlaw cars because you can run over someone? murder laws make no sense."
The point is, smart glasses (which to be clear only take a picture when a button is pressed, just like any other camera people own) are not different than any other camera.
Also in the US there is no legal expectation of privacy on public streets. Plenty of public facing webcams are available for viewing.
Passing a law regulating the shape of a camera body is just stupid. Outlawing camera glasses makes less sense than outlawing camera flowers.
Reframe this to accommodate for the prevalence and general expectations of where cameras exist.
Many people walk around with a mobile device out, essentially carrying a device with (increasingly) close to a 360 camera view. Cameras are ubiquitous and targeting one niche device is a waste of time and effort.
Having a camera or a mic on the glasses themselves seems like something I'd mostly want to avoid for privacy, and having a speaker just seems like gilding the lily when we already have a variety of headphones to choose from.