HTC and its Vive division were at the forefront of VR, with the HTC Vive among the first VR headsets to hit the market back in 2016 – and it looks like the company wants to keep that momentum up going into the fast-growing smart glasses market with its new HTC Vive Eagle specs.
It’s the first time HTC has released a pair of smart glasses, after dabbling with not only VR headsets but mixed reality headsets with the likes of the Vive Pro 2 and Vive XR Elite – but the inspiration was clear.
At a glance, the Vive Eagle could be mistaken for a pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses; both sport the same wayfarer-style design, with a semi-translucent body and front-mounted cameras. Both are also available in a number of colour options, with HTC’s red, grey, black and brown competing with Meta’s black, blue, and brown – the latter two of which are also semi-transparent.
The built-in 12MP camera, found on the left side of the frame, allows you to capture both photos and videos from a first-person point of view – one of the biggest draws of Meta’s alternative, especially for content creators. And, in a bid to ensure privacy, there’s an LED on the right side that flashes whenever you record or take a photo.
A button on the top of the right arm not only provides a tactile way to activate the camera, but it doubles up as a way to activate HTC’s competing AI assistant.
Unlike Meta’s specs that utilise the company’s own Meta AI to answer questions and queries, HTC’s alternative uses a combination of ChatGPT and Google Gemini. The button can also be used to capture sounds or images for context when speaking to the AI assistant.
As you might expect, results are delivered via two Bose-branded speakers – one in each of the arms – or via the companion app on your phone.
Where the Vive Eagle stand out compared to Meta’s alternative is in the battery department. The Vive specs sport a 235mAh battery, an increase of around 50% compared to the Ray-Ban Meta. Considering battery life is one of the biggest complaints from users, it could give HTC the upper hand here.
HTC claims the glasses can last for around four and a half hours with continuous music playback and up to 36 hours in standby. Just as importantly, the glasses also support fast charging tech, with claims that you can get a 50% charge from just 10 minutes of charging.
Other specs include a healthy 64GB of built-in storage, Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 smarts and boosted IP54 dust and water resistance than Meta’s alternative – though neither are truly waterproof.
The catch? It’ll be tough to find them, unless you’re living in Taiwan. HTC has launched pre-orders for the smart glasses in the region, with no plans to release the glasses in other areas despite other Vive-branded XR and VR headsets being widely available in the UK, US and Europe.
