Even Realities G1 Smart Glasses Review: Superb Display, But Slow Info | WIRED

Nov 04, 2024

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6/10

I’ve been wearing the Even Realities G1 glasses for four months, and while many people have commented on my new frames, only two friends asked if my glasses were “smart.” For someone who wore Google Glass in public and lived to tell the tale, this technological anonymity is high praise indeed. They look like glasses you might actually want to wear, and they don’t draw unnecessary attention to your (OK, my) face.

But as Clark Kent accessed his superpowers after taking off his spectacles, inversely, this mild-mannered reporter benefits from real-time language translation, access to AI, turn-by-turn navigation, and a personal assistant, all by keeping his glasses on.

Most smart glasses, like the Ray-Ban Meta, rely on Bluetooth audio, but the G1 features a small but brilliantly effective heads-up display called the Holistic Adaptive Optical System, or HAOS. Look carefully at the lenses and you’ll see a faint rectangle in each eye. This is where a micro-LED optical engine projector displays crisp, green digital text (640 x 200 pixels). Glance up (choose the angle via the app) and a seemingly two-foot-wide text homepage appears to float around five feet in front of you. Considering all this, it’s astonishingly clever given how light and, well, normal the frames feel.

The digitally surfaced lens is actually two bonded lenses but manages to be no thicker or heavier than a standard design. Prescription lenses cost $129 extra and, aside from the occasional glimpse of the projector screen in bright sunshine, works as well as any glasses I’ve ever owned.

Nestled on the end of each arm you’ll find two rubbery nodules. These contain the battery, buttons, and antennae that exchange real-time data with your phone over Bluetooth. They’re marginally heavier than standard glasses, but because the weight is kept away from the nose, they feel good. The frames are made from solid magnesium and have a cool matte finish, with the temples coated in silicon for added grip. Add in screwless hinges and a classic oval shape, and you’ve got a stylish proposition even before you charge them up.

The charging case is equally well designed and holds enough power to recharge the glasses 2.5 times. The 60-mAh battery in the glasses has enough power for 1.5 days.

So, they’re nice glasses—but what do they actually do?

The idea of the G1 is not to replace your smartphone but rather to offer a pared-back interface that gives you help and information when you need it, then vanishes when you don’t.

After installing the app and syncing the glasses, when you glance up you will see a screen with the date, time, battery level, and upcoming diary dates (assuming you’ve given permissions). You can also receive messages and alerts from social and messaging apps. You can’t respond to any messages, though, which seems both odd and a shame given the onboard microphones and the transcription software used.

The right side of the main display is for QuickNotes. If you pinch the small box on the right arm, a note will flash up saying “Quick Note Recording.” When you speak, your words will be saved and displayed on the screen when you next look up. If you mention a date, time, or place, the AI assistant will add it to your diary. It’s great if you are a fan of voice notes. I’m not, but as someone who meets new people all the time but remains terrible at remembering names, I loved being able to have names, and even job titles, on display, for my eyes only.

Open up the Translate box on the Even Realities app, choose from one of 13 languages (including Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean), decide what language you’d like things translated into (in this case English), and press Engage. If someone then speaks to you in that language, the G1 glasses will listen, translate, and write the words on your HUD.

Annoyingly, however, it’s no Babelfish. With one-on-one conversations it worked OK, and I enjoyed understanding my wife’s rusty Spanish. Similarly, I had success rewatching Squid Game without subtitles. But without someone wearing their own pair and translating my English, it is one-way traffic.

Even Realities G1

Rating: 6/10

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It’s clever, and the text easy to read, but it is frustrating. This is one example where a camera is needed for translating menus, road signs, and documents in real time without holding a phone.

I’ve been testing the beta version, but being able to see turn-by-turn GPS without my phone is a treat. Search for your location in the app, hit Go, and you’re rewarded with a turn signal, direction to next turn, time to destination, and a mini map of your entire route. Again, there’s no audio, so no prompts, but it’s great when walking or cycling.

But, like the translation, it’s not perfect. For starters, the directions and map fill your vision at all times rather than when you glance up. This is hopefully something that can be tweaked, because it is needlessly distracting. I also think users should be able to decide what they see. I’d happily have just the direction arrow, distance to the next turn, and street name. Clean, simple, and effective.

The search engine is also lacking, with my local post office apparently being 43 miles away, not just down the road—but, again, hopefully these are beta bugs.

The most useful and polished feature here transforms your glasses into a subtle autocue. Add a script or text via the app, and it appears on the projector screen, and when you start talking the microphone follows along, bolding the words in real time. This way you know where you’ve got to, which makes it easy to go off on a tangent, answer questions, and generally be a better presenter, without losing your place.

There are only four lines of text on screen at a time, but the scrolling is smooth and easy to follow—and because the text is positioned in front of your eyes, it doesn’t look like you’re reading.

Hold down the left control box and “Even AI is Listening” pops up in your eyeline. Ask the Perplexity-powered service anything, and it will bring up the answer. If it’s a long answer you can scroll down by tapping the same button.

As a British journalist writing for an American website, I have loved being able to ask my glasses to convert centimeters to feet and inches. It’s quick, and easier than opening a new tab on my laptop and typing. It’s also got huge potential if deployed in a pub quiz. I wouldn't dream of cheating to win this week’s £25 bonus music trivia round, but, for the record, the G1 did know that actor Kathleen Beller is married to Thomas Dolby.

Even Realities G1

Rating: 6/10

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Yet once again, while it shows promise, it's not without issue. Of all the features, this mode needs to be the most responsive—for on-the-hoof questions—but it can be painfully slow on both loading and replying to the question. It’s also far too slow if you have a follow-up question, with a long lag before you can ask again.

As a specs-wearing tech journalist, I want the Even Realities G1 smart glasses to succeed. The projector technology is seriously impressive, and the frames look good. It is a product I am happy to wear, but the features need fine-tuning in order to justify the price.

It’s not as problematic as the terrible Humane AI Pin, but I did get frustrated by the glasses’ lack of responsiveness. If you’re designing something to replace aspects of your smartphone, it needs to be quick and frictionless. This is doubly true if you’re also asking the user to wear the product all the time.

I'm also surprised by the lack of integration between features. The onboard mics are the prime example here: You can speak to the glasses to ask the AI questions and create notes, and the mics are also used in translation—but you can't verbally ask the G1s to give you directions, for that you still need your phone. That’s just plain confusing.

I hope the beta bugs can be sorted and subsequent software updates will smooth things out, because Even has created a foundation to make the G1 the smartest of the smart glasses.

Even Realities G1

Rating: 6/10

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