Smart glasses company Solos has long focused on audio-only smart glasses. On Tuesday, it announced two new pairs of glasses, one of which has a camera, but you can buy a separate accessory to hide the camera for privacy.
SolosThe new smart glasses are the audio-only AirGo A6 and the second iteration of its camera-enabled glasses, the AirGo V2 Solos. The latter was first announced last year with the aim of directly “overshadow Meta.” These $299 glasses do just about everything you’d expect from Meta’s new $299 glasses Meta smart glassesincluding capturing photos and videos, playing music, and interacting with an AI-powered assistant that can see what you see. They can be fitted with corrective lenses and have a battery life of 10 to 12 hours.
The AirGo V2 glasses can also be paired with a new Privacy Kit, a set of clip-on accessories that allow wearers to control what their camera glasses can access. The clip-on privacy shield prevents cameras from seeing and recording the world, allowing you to continue wearing the glasses in audio-only mode. There’s also a clip-on polarized lens, and the full modular options kit costs $79.
Selling a privacy kit as a clip-on accessory may not be the most effective way to allay concerns about people running around with small, discreet cameras on their faces. Having to buy a separate item, then clip it on and off every time you want to use or disable the camera, is a lot of extra steps that will likely keep people from worrying about privacy. Additionally, there’s nothing to stop bad actors from removing clip-on blockers later in an interaction, such as after participating in an event that prohibits camera recording.
Courtesy of Solos Smartglasses
Solos’ first camera-compatible glasses, the Solos AirGo Vision, were released in 2024. WIRED placed them in the “Don’t Bother” section of our Best smart glasses gallery, citing decent design choices, although held back by poor media capture quality, frustrating touch controls, and a power-hungry app that asks for too many permissions. Overall, the glasses didn’t quite meet the standard set by Meta with its popular smart glasses.
Meta has been the dominant force in the smart glasses market, but other major companies are trying to fill the gaps. Google and Samsung have a partnership to develop Google’s Android XR platform, with new glasses arriving later this year from eyewear brands. Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Apple is also reportedly building its own smart glasses.
Some smaller companies are adjusting their target markets to counter Meta, like Even the realities and his glasses without camera. Solos’ renewed emphasis on privacy comes after a period of widespread criticism of Meta’s glasses. The devices have been called scary »perverted glasses» and were criticized after the company silently added facial recognition code to his glasses, then quickly I took it off after public outcry following a WIRED report. Meta hasn’t done himself any favors since then, announcing last week that he would start loading for features in its smart glasses that were previously free.
Meta acknowledged that there is a market for audio-only smart glasses, as CTO Andrew Bosworth indicated. said during a private question-and-answer session with the media that he believes there is “certainly market demand for this product.” But Meta hasn’t given up his advanced camera glasses just yet. It may very well make audio-only glasses in the future. In the meantime, companies like Solos are eager to capture this market.
