Smart glasses like Meta’s stable of eyewear products are built around being able to take photos, record what you say or shoot video, for instance. But Even Realities’ products are deliberately camera- and speaker-free, to provide a respectful approach.
I talked to Even Realities CEO Will Wang about the Even G2 glasses, the company’s latest release.
Design And Display: The Invisible HUD
The Even G2 glasses look pretty much like regular specs, until you see the batteries which sit behind your ears (though much of the time, people won’t). What makes them smart is a display which is invisible to others but floats in front of the wearer’s vision.
It’s a green screen that’s particularly adept at text, showing news updates or translating what’s being spoken to you in real time. If you’re making a presentation, it can scroll through your script in response to you speaking it.
The Philosophy Of Camera-Free Wearables
I asked Wang what was behind the company’s thinking in avoiding speakers and cameras.
“A lot of companies in the smart glasses category chase complexity, adding cameras and sensors to their products, which ultimately pulls you out of the moment. At Even Realities, we want to deliver a product that fits into your everyday life rather than distracting from it,” he said.
There is a learning curve when wearing Even G2, but it’s straightforward. Wang went on to explain the privacy angle.
“We are respectful when it comes to privacy, as our audience consists of entrepreneurs, politicians, professors, or doctors; all dealing with confidential and sensitive conversations, and walking into rooms where trust is key. For Even Realities, that is not a limitation, it’s about recognizing true customer needs and adding value appropriately,” he explained.
“At Even Realities, privacy isn’t a last-minute addition,” he went on. “It’s part of a set of decisions made from day one. We don’t store personal data from our users or train AI models with customer information. The data we gather is purely to enhance the user experience and product, for example, health data from our R1 smart ring and transcripts from our G2 function Conversate.”
Conversate And The Even R1 Smart Ring
Conversate, by the way, is a feature that can record, transcribe and summarize meetings as well as showing you the notes you prepped before a meeting. The R1 ring is a secondary way to control what’s on the G2 screen.
Other companies might still be tempted to gather data. I’ll give Wang the final word on this: “I recognize this could be beneficial from a personalization standpoint, but the technology just isn’t there yet — there’s no additional benefit for the customer for us to store data, so we don’t.
