The term “smart glasses” can refer to many different things you can wear on your face, from augmented reality (AR) displays to live-streaming cameras to voice assistant-equipped headphones, all built into a pair of specs. We’ve been reviewing smart glasses for several years, and we’ve tested every pair on this list with well-trained eyes and ears. We particularly like the Viture Pro XR glasses, which connect with your phone or computer and project a personal display in front of your eyes. New models are hitting the market all the time, so check back often to see which ones are worth your attention. You can get a more in-depth look at each pair below by clicking through to our full reviews.
Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks
Best Video Smart Glasses
Viture Pro XR Glasses
- Bright and colorful picture
- Relatively wide field of view
- Doesn’t require prescription lens inserts
- Dimming privacy lenses
- Mixed reality features are underdeveloped
We’re still far from fully functional, self-contained augmented reality glasses that can scan your surroundings and provide live updates and contextual information based on what you’re looking at, but the Viture Pro XR Glasses let you at least enjoy a big, bright display projected in front of your eyes. Essentially, these glasses serve as a portable USB monitor. Plug them into any compatible device and see a 1080p picture for gaming or getting work done.
If you’re simply looking for a pair of smart glasses that replicate the experience of looking at a large monitor, the Viture Pro XR Glasses our top pick.
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Viture Pro XR Glasses Review
Widest Field of View
Rokid Max
- Bright picture
- Wide field of view
- Focus adjustment dials
- Comfortable
- Limited augmented reality
- Slightly goofy looking
The Rokid Max is one of our favorite pairs of AR glasses for two reasons. First, they have the widest field of view we’ve seen at 50 degrees, which means they offer the largest picture available. Second, they have separate focus adjustments for each eye just like the Viture smart glasses, so you can get a crisp picture even if you’re nearsighted without buying additional prescription lens inserts. These are the only smart glasses with a wider field of view than the Viture Pro, though the Viture is significantly brighter and more vivid.
These glasses serve as a great personal display for anyone, so long as you own a supported device (or the appropriate HDMI, Lightning, or non-DP USB-C adapter) and you’re not self-conscious about the design. The focus dials also support up to -6.00 prescriptions, a bit stronger than the -5.00 of the Viture Pro.
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Rokid Max Review
Best Dimmable Smart Sunglasses
Chamelo Music Shield
- Adjustable tint
- Good audio quality
- Light and comfortable
- Limited controls
- Mirrored lens makes tint adjustments hard to notice from the outside
- Frame can sometimes squeak
- Not available with prescription lenses
Chamelo makes glasses with adjustable lenses that you can dim or lighten as you want, and the Music Shield is its most sporty option. The big, flaming orange one-piece mirrored lens can be made transparent enough to use comfortably indoors or dark enough to protect your eyes on sunny days—and you can switch back and forth with a simple swipe. These glasses can also play audio from your phone, and they sound better than most competing models. They still don’t beat a decent pair of true wireless earphones in terms of audio quality, but we like the combination of features they offer.
The Music Shield glasses are ostensibly for active users. Their IPX4 rating means they are sweat-resistant, so you should be able to wear them for a jog in most weather. They’re a good choice if you want to listen to music or make calls on the go while still taking in the sounds of your environment.
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Chamelo Music Shield Review
Best Social Media Camera Glasses
Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses
- Greatly improved camera quality from last gen
- Stylish design
- Responsive, intuitive controls
- Clear sound quality
- Built-in voice assistant
- Difficult to frame shots
- No advanced camera features
- Limited bass, lots of audio leakage
Social media means sharing your point of view, and the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses let you do just that. These glasses have a 12MP camera to take photos, record video, or even live stream from your perspective. You can pop whatever you see right up on Instagram, or save it to your phone and upload it to your social network of choice. You can also make calls and listen to music on them, like the audio-focused Echo Frames, which do not have a camera.
This is a fun pair of smart glasses for anyone obsessed with sharing their experiences on social media, as long as you’re aware of their limitations. Their 12MP camera is a big upgrade from the last generation’s 5MP sensors, but these glasses still can’t compete with even a midrange smartphone camera in terms of picture quality, and their video clips top out at 60 seconds. They exhibit the typical sound quality issues of all audio glasses, and their built-in Meta voice assistant is much more limited than Amazon’s Alexa.
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Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses Review
Best Stealthy AR Glasses
XReal Air 2
- Light, comfortable fit
- Bright and colorful picture
- Wide field of view
- No built-in myopia focus dials
- Prescription lens inserts are pricey
The XReal Air 2 is a capable pair of AR video glasses, especially if you don’t wear corrective lenses. They’re also the most stealthy and fashion-conscious. The red version is eye-catching and unique for this category, and the black version is unassuming with a flat matte finish. Either way, they don’t give the impression of smart glasses at all. You can also spruce them up with optional sticker sets that change the outward-facing surfaces to one of six other colors.
This is a strong choice for anyone who wants a pair of AR glasses that will either go unnoticed or stand out with a pop of bright color. For $449, you can upgrade to the Air 2 Pro, which adds a lens-darkening feature similar to the Viture Pro XR. The Air 2 line isn’t for nearsighted users, though; the glasses don’t have focus dials like the Rokid Max or the Viture Pro XR, and prescription lens inserts from Frame of Choice, while well-made and functional, are pricey at an extra $149.
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XReal Air 2 Review
Best Audio Glasses for Alexa Users
Amazon Echo Frames (3rd Gen)
- Look and feel just like regular glasses
- Built-in hands-free Alexa
- Well-balanced mids and highs
- Nonexistent bass response
- Case doesn’t support charging
- Expensive
Audio glasses effectively fit headphones into their frame, aiming tiny drivers to project sound at your ears without actually fitting anything into or over them. Combined with beamforming microphones, they let you make phone calls and control voice assistants entirely through your glasses. The Echo Frames are Amazon’s take on the category, and as you might expect from the name, they let you use Alexa. The microphones are crisp, too, though it’s a shame the audio quality isn’t that good.
There’s a simple acoustic reality (or an engineering challenge, if you’re more optimistic) that a tiny driver with a significant air gap between it and the ear cannot produce anything resembling bass, producing sound that’s bright and hollow. The Echo Frames don’t break the mold, but for voice-related tasks that don’t need bass, like making calls or using Alexa, they work quite well. As a more style-minded option, Amazon also offers the special edition Carrera Smart Glasses with the same features and electronics as the Echo Frames, with sunglass or blue-light-filtering lenses. Just keep in mind that the Echo Buds With ANC also offer hands-free Alexa, along with active noise cancellation and much better sound quality, for about half the price of the Echo Frames.
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Amazon Echo Frames (3rd Gen) Review
Best for ChatGPT Superfans
Nautica Smart Eyewear Powered by Lucyd
- Stylish, durable design
- More than 12 hours of battery life per charge
- Affordable
- Unintuitive ChatGPT controls
- ChatGPT integration not available on Android
- Flat, leaky audio quality
Like the Echo Frames, the Nautica Smart Eyewear Powered by Lucyd feature built-in microphones and speakers that let you listen to music, take calls, and talk to your phone’s digital assistant. They have a more rugged build, longer battery life, and cost less than the Echo Frames, but what really sets them apart from the competition is ChatGPT integration. When paired with an iOS device, you can use the glasses to invoke the AI for answers through the built-in speakers and via text in the Lucyd app.
If you like the idea of wearing ChatGPT on your face, go with the Nautica Smart Eyewear Powered by Lucyd over the Echo Frames. ChatGPT integration only works on iOS as of this writing (sorry, Android users), and it’s clunky enough that you’re usually better off accessing the AI through your phone. Moreover, Nautica’s speakers suffer from the same limitations as those on Amazon’s smart glasses, so those concerned with audio quality should skip both and opt for a pair of earphones such as the Echo Buds.
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Nautica Smart Eyewear Powered by Lucyd Review
Buying Guide: The Best Smart Glasses for 2024
What Are Smart Glasses?
Smart glasses include any eyewear that contains electronic components and can do anything beyond correcting your vision or protecting your eyes. As you can imagine, that covers a wide array of devices that can do completely different things.
We can sort smart glasses down to a few specific types, with some overlap between them. Audio smart glasses have speakers built into the frame, allowing them to function as headphones. Augmented reality smart glasses use tiny projectors and lenses to display a picture as if there were a screen in front of your eyes. Social media-focused smart glasses feature built-in cameras to let you capture photos and videos, and even live stream.
Viture Pro XR (Credit: Will Greenwald)
There are some rarer types of smart glasses as well, like Chamelo’s Music Shield and Dusk glasses. They use liquid crystal lenses to provide an adjustable tint, switching from transparent to sunglasses with a tap or through an app. Some AR glasses like the Viture Pro and the XReal Air 2 Pro use a similar technology with less precise control. Their displays make them bulkier and less suitable for casually walking around.
While they have strong connections to computers and video games, blue-light-blocking glasses aren’t actually smart glasses. They don’t have any electronics inside and simply rely on lens coatings to reduce the amount of blue light exposure to reduce eye strain. They can be soothing but are not smart in the vein we’re talking about here.
The Best Smart Glasses for Music and Calls
Audio tech is arguably the backbone of all smart glasses because it’s available on most models. Audio-equipped smart glasses are headphones in glasses form, usually with small earphone-like drivers built into the temples that are angled to project sound into your ears. Paired with beam-forming microphones, they not only let you listen to music, but make phone calls and use voice assistants.
This is how the Echo Frames project sound (Credit: Amazon)
Their sound quality is limited due to the nature of acoustics and how sound travels, which is why we’ve yet to find any solely audio-focused smart glasses all that compelling. Because there’s a significant air gap between the drivers and the ears, bass is virtually nonexistent for these glasses. The mids and highs might come through well enough, but as we witnessed on the Bose Frames Tempo and the Razer Anzu, you don’t get much in the way of lower frequencies. You also don’t get much privacy because sound can leak.
Given how expensive most smart glasses are, we prefer when they offer useful features beyond just audio. If audio is your main concern, you’re better off with a pair of true wireless earphones and a regular pair of glasses.
The Best Camera-Equipped Smart Glasses
Social media is all about sharing, and for most shutterbugs, that means keeping your phone out with the camera app open. Camera smart glasses let you shoot, record, and stream whatever you see and hear without grabbing your phone. The idea first hit with the oddball Snapchat Spectacles, which went through three iterations but are currently dormant. Meta has picked up the slack, first with the Facebook and Instagram-friendly Facebook Ray-Ban Stories, and now with the Meta Ray-Ban Smart Glasses.
Photo taken with Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses (Credit: Andrew Gebhart)
These glasses have audio and video features, so you can use them as headphones. It’s the camera aspect that really makes them appealing, though.
The Best AR Glasses
Augmented reality is technology that can project images over your surroundings, letting you see computer-generated information overlaid on the real world, like a personal hologram. It’s a promising, futuristic concept that is still in development and requires a multitude of components like micro-displays, motion sensors, cameras, and processors to all work together. We’ve seen AR work in limited cases on phone screens in everything from Google Lens to Pokemon Go, and we’ve seen ambitious head-mounted displays like the Microsoft HoloLens offer early implementations of the full AR experience.
Current AR and XR (extended reality, mixed reality, or anything in the blurry ground between AR and VR) glasses are something of a misnomer. They use tiny projectors and lenses to display a picture in front of you, and with the help of some shaky mobile apps or optional accessories, they can even use built-in motion sensors to fix a screen in a physical location relative to you that stays put even if you move your head.
Recommended by Our Editors
Here’s the caveat: Without cameras or the ability to analyze your surroundings, they don’t provide true augmented reality. They can’t automatically display information based on what’s around you. Instead, they just act as a head-mounted screen.
Still, they’re useful if you can become accustomed to them. They work just like USB-C monitors, so you can plug them into almost any laptop, some Android phones, the iPhone 15, and (with an adapter) most devices that can output video over HDMI.
AR view through the Meta Quest 3 (Credit: Meta/Will Greenwald)
Fully functional augmented reality displays are slowly becoming common in commercial, educational, and industrial settings, but these headsets usually cost several thousand dollars and have limited software suites intended for specific tasks. We’re still far away from AR smart glasses that can, say, recognize a cafe you’re staring at and pop up its customer reviews. In the meantime, if you’d like a taste of true AR with apps and games you can actually use, the Meta Quest 3 is your best bet. It’s a fully enclosed headset (meaning you shouldn’t try to use it in public), but its color pass-through cameras let you see around you well enough to toss images and 3D models around a room.
Apple doesn’t make smart glasses, but its Vision Pro is the most advanced AR/VR headset available, with support for eye-tracking, hand-tracking, voice control, and seamless mobile app integration, all in one streamlined package. Like the Meta Quest 3, though, you shouldn’t wear it outside of the house, and at $3,499, the Vision Pro is out of reach for most people.
