Even Realities G2 smart glasses show the limits of speaker- and camera-free frames

Even Realities Even G2 Smart Glasses: 30-second Review It's a weird time for smart glasses.

After a moment in the sun (as sunglasses!) where companies like Meta sold millions of frames to willing customers seeking on-their-face intelligence and the ability to life-log with ever-present, eyebrow-level cameras, the worm has turned.

Now people refer to smart glasses with cameras as " pervert glasses ".

Even Realities Even G2 smart display glasses (Even Realities G2) would seem to be the antidote to those concerns.

The relatively stylish specs live up to the smart expectations by connecting you to phone-based AI and delivering useful information to your eyes where and when you need it, but without the concerning cameras.

In some ways, Even Realities' approach is rather quaint.

Instead of Augmented Reality, you get binocular, monochromatic waveguide displays that offer eye-level access to notifications, notes, translations, news, even a teleprompter, that only you can see.

The imagery is sharp, but not rich.

It's glanceable info that could be handy in a pinch, but is also stuff you can easily ignore.

Even Realities G2 glasses pictured with the included charging case and optional R1 smart ring on its charging base. (Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future) These are smart lenses in the narrowest sense.

They have four mics for listening, but no speakers.

The microphones let you summon the AI (Even AI), which lives on the Even Realities iPhone app, but with no speakers, Even can't talk back to you.

Even AI's responses appear before you as text on the waveguide screens.

The AI is not quite good enough to fully control the glasses, but that's where the gestures come in.