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Google today finally got around to launching the smart glasses it's been promising us for nearly a year now. Obviously this isn't Google's first foray into smart glasses. Everyone watching this likely remembers the fiasco that was Google Glass, which happened over 12 years ago if you can believe it. since the unbridled success of Ray-Ban Meta glasses, Google feels it is finally time to get back into the game and this time it's calling them intelligent eyewear. So you have questions and I have answers. So let's look at the 10 things you need to know about Google's intelligent eyewear, starting with the brands and the pricing. Meta partnered with Essilor Luxottica, the company that makes Ray-Bans, to make it smart
glasses. Since Ray-Ban was already taken, Google went to two other iconic brands to make intelligent eyewear, Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Samsung was also involved in this endeavor, working with Google on the technical hardware. So basically intelligent eyewear has Google at the helm and doing the software, Samsung doing the tech, and then Warby Parker and Gentle Monster handling the designs. Let's start with Warby Parker. There are three different designs from them based on popular models the company has been making for a while now. They come in a bunch of different colors and you can customize most of the lenses with either
prescriptions, non-prescription clear lenses, or tinted glass for use as sunglasses. The least amount of money you'll pay for a set of these Warby Parker designs is $395. Gentle Monster is a much bolder brand than Warby Parker. They have six designs and all sorts of colors and styles, also with customizable lenses. Basically if you want a classic timeless look, go with Warby Parker. If you want to go wilder and more out there, go with Gentle Monster. Interestingly, the cheapest Gentle Monster intelligent eyewear will be $449, over $50 more than the cheapest Warby Parker model. So I guess if you want to spend as little as possible, go with Warby Parker.
Obviously though, there's more to these than just typical glasses. So let's get into the hardware. The styles might vary across these manufacturers, the core tech doesn't. Each intelligent eyewear design features a slidable on-off switch on the interior of the left stem. There's a physical button at the top of the right stem that you use for taking photos and videos. The outside of the right stem is a touch-sensitive controller. Underneath each stem is a speaker that fires audio into your ears, and there's a single 12-megapixel camera on the front right of the frame. Over here on the left is not a second camera.
I'll get to that later. All over the glasses in various places are microphones to listen for you to initiate Gemini as well as record spatial audio all around you when you're shooting the video. One thing that is not here is any display tech. These are audio-only smart glasses, so no heads-up display features will ever be a part of this experience. Google did confirm that it is making glasses with displays and even showed them off a bit at Google I/O in May, but they are not coming this year and Google isn't committing to anything at the moment. Anyway, as I said before, it doesn't matter which glasses you get from which brand. Every single one will have all these elements in the same place. So the user experience is identical across styles.
One thing to note here is that a lot of the tech of the glasses is in the stems. You can even see the tech on these Warby Parker stems which have a transparent design. Because all the tech lives in here, there's no way to adjust the stems. This means you really should try these on before buying them to make sure they fit well because if they don't, you'll need to return them and get a different size or a different style altogether. Warby Parker and Gentle Monster have stores all over the world, so try to go to one if you can. If you can't, you can always try your luck with the virtual try-on systems each brand has online.
Speaking of the tech in the stems, let's talk about battery life and charging. According to Google, each pair of glasses can last up to 9 hours on a single charge. Of course, the fine print there is that this will vary by use, configuration, settings, and other factors. So I would go ahead and assume that it'll be very rare for people to get the full 9 hours out of these glasses. When they do run out of juice, the included carrying case can charge them up. There are tiny pogo pins under the bridge that connect with charging elements when put into the case. The case has a battery inside that can recharge the glasses up to seven times. So, theoretically, even if you only were
to get three hours of battery life from the glasses because you're using them constantly, you'd still have enough battery power to get through an entire day without ever needing an outlet, assuming you don't wear them to sleep. Unfortunately, Google hasn't told me how long it takes to recharge the glasses or how long it takes to charge the case. However, both Warby Parker and Gentle Monster confirmed to me that there is one case style that works for all their glasses. In other words, if you get a pair of Warby Parker sunglasses and a pair of prescription glasses in a different Warby Parker style, one case will charge either pair. That's some nice compatibility and that brings me to the third thing we need to
talk about, phone compatibility. While there are certainly a lot of basic things you can do with the glasses on their own, like see better and block out the sun, to get the most out of them, you'll need to have them wirelessly connected to your smartphone. This is what will enable you to chat with Gemini, capture photos, listen to music, and literally everything else. There is not a lot of onboard processing on the glasses themselves, so your phone is an integral element. Given that Google and Samsung are in charge of the tech here, it should come as no surprise that these work with Pixel and Galaxy phones.
However, they also work with iPhones, which was a bit surprising to hear. You'll need to have an iPhone 13 or later for these to work. Now, one would likely assume that if these work with Pixel and Galaxy phones, then they must also work with pretty much any Android phone. However, that is not the case. Google told us that Intelligent Eyewear only works with these phone models. Unfortunately, this leaves out a lot of people as there's no support for Motorola, Oppo, Honor, Xiaomi, and a dozen other Android brands. This will make sense later when I discuss availability, so stick around for that. But now, you've heard me talk about the
camera a few times, so let's dig into that. To control the 12-megapixel shooter on these glasses, you press the physical button once to [clears throat] take a photo or long press it to start a video. In either case, everything is recorded in portrait orientation only. Videos come in at 2K with HDR support. Now, you might be wondering how such a tiny camera and such a small piece of hardware can do that. Well, that's because most of the processing happens on your phone. The way Google explained it to me is that the glasses capture a slew of raw data when you press the camera button, but they don't really do anything with it. Instead, that gets handed off to the phone, which then
handles the processing. This makes a lot of sense as you already need to have your phone wirelessly connected to the glasses anyway, and your phone can process photos much better than the glasses can. The camera isn't only used for capturing photos and videos. You can also use it to show Gemini what's going on around you. Gemini is controlled with the touchpad on the outside of the right stem. A long press queries Gemini, but you can also just say the typical hey G command. A tap and a swipe back stops Gemini. The important thing to know here though is that Gemini never accesses the camera unless you tell it to. During my demo, I said something like, hey G, what is this
thing? And Gemini responded back saying that it didn't know what I was referring to. Google then explained to me that I need to tell it to look, so I should have said, hey G, look at this thing and tell me what it is. This is a good feature if you ask me because it means Gemini won't just start looking at the world through your glasses without you making a specific request for it. This touches on privacy, which I'll talk a lot more about soon. When you do have Gemini looking at the world, it can do a lot of things you already do with your phone, like translating things, adding events to your calendar that you see on posters and billboards, or just giving you information. It's basically like having Google Lens on your face all the time,
which I'll leave to you to decide if that's something you want. Before I get into dissecting the security and privacy implications of this product category, let's talk about the speakers. By default, you don't need to have anything in your ears to hear the glasses as the downward firing speakers handle that for you. I used the glasses on busy street in Manhattan and could hear everything just fine. So they're actually pretty good. I found them to be of similar quality to open earbuds. There are four supported audio services at launch. YouTube Music, obviously, Spotify, Apple Music, and for audiobooks, Audible. But honestly, I wouldn't use these glasses for music much just because the audio isn't as
good as a real set of earbuds. But music isn't the only thing that will be coming through the speakers. Google Translate operates in real time for over 70 languages, allowing you to understand what someone is saying to you even if they don't speak your language. That won't help you speak back, of course, but this can be really helpful for simple things like ordering a meal. Google Maps can also speak navigation directions to you. Phone calls are also supported and you can ask Gemini to do all sorts of things like set reminders, tell you the weather, give you a news report, or just have a general conversation with Gemini live.
On Android, you'll also be able to communicate with apps. At launch, Android users will be able to check in on the status of their Uber ride. iPhone users won't have this feature until later though. Let me touch on accessibility really quick and then let's talk privacy and data security. Google has big dreams about how this product category could greatly improve the lives of visually impaired folks. For example, there's a new guided vision feature that provides conversational audio description of what's happening around you in the real world. This can help identify color differences or read fine print.
Additionally, an integration with an app called Aira lets users stream their camera feed directly to a human interpreter for live support. This is really cool and I applaud Google for focusing on the altruistic things they could do with this technology. But what about privacy? Well, let's talk about that. Remember how I said there's only one camera on the glasses? Opposite the camera is an outward-facing LED indicator that lights up bright white while during recording. The glasses are equipped with sensors designed to completely prevent video or photo capture if that indicator light is covered or tampered with. Theoretically, this should make it very obvious to anyone around you that you are recording
something. Of course, Meta had the same thing and people figured out a way around the limitation, so time will tell if the same thing happens with Google's intelligent eyewear. Another thing to note here is that the glasses automatically redact bystanders' faces before processing visuals, and all stored or transmitted data is fully encrypted. So, that might set you at ease a bit. But that brings me to the ninth thing on this list, data protection. When I talked to Google about intelligent eyewear, the company told me it is taking data protection very seriously. For example, anything you film or photograph with your glasses camera is never saved to your Gemini
history, and Google will never use any of that data to train AI models or target ads. In other words, Google is treating what happens with your glasses much differently than it treats what happens with your browser or even your smartphone. I know a lot of people watching this won't trust Google on this, but I will point out that Google has made a bunch of promises about how it won't use your health data collected from smartwatches. And to my knowledge, Google has kept that promise for years and years now. So, I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt here. That all being said, Google does have a way to make you, the user, part of its responsibility pledge, which brings me
to the last thing on this list, what to expect on day one. Preorders for all the intelligent eyewear designs are open now, and direct retail availability starts on December 10th. Remember that the cheapest pair is $395 from Warby Parker, so these aren't something you'll just randomly decide to grab one day, at least not in this economy. Oh, and also keep in mind that these are only available in the United States and South Korea, at least for now. That's likely why phone support is limited to Pixels, Galaxy phones, and iPhones because that's all the majority of people use in the US and Korea. Still, it is disappointing how limited this launch actually is. One final thing to note here is that when you take the glasses
out of the box for the first time, you will need an 18 plus Google account to activate them, and you must agree to responsible use policies that ban recording in sensitive places. So yeah, like I said, Google is putting some of the onus of privacy protection on you. If you were to do something nefarious with these glasses, Google can say that you agreed not to do that. So the blame is on you, not them. Just something to keep in mind. Anyway, jump down in the comments and let us know what you think about intelligent eyewear and whether or not you're going to grab a pair. See you all later.
