The Rokid Glasses are a pair of smartglasses with a camera and displays
Ben Sin
I test a lot of smartglasses, and almost all of them have fallen into either one of two camps: they either have cameras but no screen, like the Ray-Ban Metas, or they have a screen, but no functional cameras, like the Frame glasses.
The rare glasses that did combine the two, like TCL’s RayNeo X2, or the Inmo Air 2, were relatively bulky and awkward looking.
Hangzhou-headquartered Rokid, which has been making AR headwear and eyewear since 2014, has found a way to put both cameras and screens into a pair of eyewear while keeping the bulkiness to a minimum. While the frame and glasses arms are still slightly thicker than a normal pair of glasses, they look normal enough to not attract attention.
Rokid Glasses on the faces of a friend and myself.
Ben Sin
The Rokid Glasses, which are on sale on Kickstarter at $599, is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1, and features a 12-megapixel forward-facing camera hidden in the upper left corner of the frame that can capture photo and video (there’s an LED light that lights up when the camera is in use)
The 12-megapixel camera is located on the left side of the frame next to the lenses.
Ben Sin
Photos and videos captured by the glasses are good for a lens this small. They’re definitely serviceable for quick point-of-view type videos and photos, but obviously can’t compare to any flagship phone cameras.
Photos captured by the Rokid Glasses
Ben Sin
There’s also a pair of MicroOLED displays embedded into the lens using waveguide technology: a small square prism in the lens projects green texts. The screen will mostly be used in collaboration with the camera and ChatGPT, to which the Rokid Glasses have access, to provide contextual information to the user.
For example, I can ask the glasses to translate text I’m looking at from one language to another. Or I can ask the glasses to identify a plant, or an item. In the images below, you can see the glasses were able to read Chinese handwritten text, and translate to English for me, as well as identify a shop is selling durian.
Rokid Glasses translating handwritten Chinese to English (left) and identifying a street scene in Hong Kong (right)
Ben Sin
I can also ask the glasses basic queries that do not involve using the camera, like converting currency, or provide instructions on how to cook pasta.
The glasses have built-in microphones and speakers, so I’m able to give the assistant verbal commands and hear its voice too.
The prisms in the lenses are noticeable if light hits it at certain angles, but most of the time it is not noticeable.
The prism displays
Ben SIn
I have tested other smartglasses that can do all of these things before, but as mentioned, they either come in a much bulkier package, or the AI was much less reliable because it was not running ChatGPT.
The Rokid Glasses are easily the best performing and most discreet looking of all the smartglasses yet. But the competition is going to heat up. Rumors say Meta is going to release a follow-up to its Ray-Ban Metas with an added screen later this year. I think the smartglasses industry is about to go mainstream.