The race for regular-looking display-enabled smart glasses is on. Suddenly, a ton of companies are throwing ideas out there, including Google and Samsung, with glasses in development for next year. While Meta has Display glasses now, they don't work with my prescription yet.
But the Even G2 glasses do. These $599 small-frame glasses by Even Realities also work with a separately $249 fitness ring, the R1, that doubles as a remote control for the glasses.
Even Realities had a previous pair of smart glasses with displays, the Even G1, that I never got a chance to test out. The thin-frame look is so shockingly normal that it's hard to tell they're smart glasses. The new G2 model, available now, features a similarly compact frame and includes additional software enhancements, including a conversation-following mode that attempts to listen in and help define topics on the fly.
Weird? Most absolutely.
Wearing the glasses for a bit during a prerelease demo with Even Realities' founders, I appreciated the large display area the glasses offer. It's only monochrome green, but the twin micro-LED projectors do a good job of creating a large, readable heads-up display that's definitely larger than Ray-Ban Display's single-eye display (with higher resolution and color). It's also 3D, to some extent. The menus pop out at differing depths.
While I can see a little patch on each lens where the diffractive waveguide catches the side-projected displays, you can't see any glow through the glasses, and it's generally hard to even see that anything's on your lens at all. Meta's Ray-Ban Display glasses do a better job at being nearly invisible, but Even Realities' approach is close behind.
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Round glasses aren't my thing, but I'm impressed by how compact Even G2 fit on my face. Scott Stein/CNET
Aiming to be everyday
Where these glasses excel is in their wide range of prescription support, up to +12.00/-12.00, meaning my eyes would be well-supported. Don't worry, I'm getting a prescription pair to test and review soon.
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