All These Smart Glasses and Nothing to Do

I’ve got a problem. And it’s not just that I have one face and about fifteen pairs of smart glasses stacked up around my office.

Right now, I’m wearing the Even Realities G2. On my desk sit two pairs from Rokid. The Meta Ray-Ban Display is charging next to the Neural Wristband. In the closet, there are six pairs of $50 smart sunnies that a Walmart rep sent me in a fit of enthusiasm—sitting alongside Xreal, RayNeo, Lucyd, and an ancient pair of Razer Anzu. Later today, I’m calling my optician to see if the new Ray-Ban Meta Optics can handle my prescription.

I’m drowning in smart eyewear. And more is coming.

Here’s the thing: the hardware has gotten genuinely impressive. The G2 is lighter than I expected. The Rokid glasses have decent AR overlays. The Meta Ray-Bans nail the audio and camera integration. But every time I put them on, I hit the same wall: what am I supposed to do with these?

Notifications on my face? I’ve got a watch for that. Turn-by-turn directions floating in my periphery? My phone does that fine, and I don’t have to look like a cyborg. Camera glasses? Sure, I can snap a photo hands-free, but I’ve yet to find a moment where that beats pulling out my phone.

The AR stuff is where it gets interesting—and where it falls apart. Rokid’s spatial computing is neat, but the field of view is still tiny. The Even Realities G2 does this thing where it projects a screen that follows your gaze, but after twenty minutes, I just wanted to look at the world without a digital overlay. Meta’s approach is more conservative, and honestly, more usable: audio, camera, basic info. But “usable” isn’t the same as “essential.”

The Neural Wristband is a different beast. It’s not glasses, but it’s part of the ecosystem. Gesture control without touching anything is cool in theory, but in practice, I keep accidentally triggering things when I move my hands naturally. It’s like the early days of touchscreens—promising, but not ready for prime time.

What frustrates me most is that nobody seems to be asking the hard questions. The industry is racing to ship hardware, but the software and use cases feel like an afterthought. “Smart glasses” is a category looking for a killer app, and so far, the best we’ve got is “look at this cool thing I recorded” and “here’s a map on your face.”

I’m not saying it’s hopeless. The fact that these things are getting lighter, cheaper, and more comfortable is a good sign. The Meta Ray-Bans sold well enough that other companies are taking notice. But until someone figures out what I’m supposed to actually do with these things all day, I’m going to keep a pair in my bag—and leave the other fourteen at home.