These New A.I.-Powered Glasses Can Translate Speech in Real Time. We Tested Them Out.

Ready or not, artificial intelligence is here, and with it a host of wearable tech that promises to integrate itself into your life and make work, play, and even downtime more productive. Yet while many are just glorified Siri knockoffs, the $599 Even Realities G1 glasses deliver the goods.

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The sleek frames are designed specifically to help you navigate the world, with an impressive built-in display that projects text and simple graphics onto the lenses in a way that makes them appear to float above the objects you’re looking at. But what won us over is the real-time translation, a technology already available on your phone via any number of apps, though none allow you to maintain eye contact with the foreign-language speaker as their words, translated to English, hover over their head for easy reading. Out of a selection of purportedly A.I.-powered wearables we’ve tested recently, from fitness trackers to a motorcycle helmet, this was the one feature that truly felt like it was imported from the future.

But unlike Google’s aborted Glass project from over a decade ago, which raised endless privacy concerns thanks to its integrated camera and always-on microphone, the G1 has no cameras and only listens to your spoken commands when you hold a finger on the earpiece or, for some functions, when turned on in the app. “We believe data privacy is, and will continue to be, a major concern for A.I.-related devices—not just for the user, but also for those around them,” says Will Wang, founder and CEO of Even Realities. “By requiring an intentional action to activate the device, we provide a clear and transparent way of ensuring privacy for everyone.”

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The glasses stay unobtrusive in other ways, too, only displaying notifications or notes when you tilt your head up. You can also get directions, chat with the A.I. assistant, or use the glasses as a virtual teleprompter, with your notes scrolling along as you speak. The design is clean and modern, with a strong profile that stops short of screaming “Look at my smart glasses!” They also wear surprisingly lightly, with much of the weight balancing behind the ears. Prescription lenses are available, as are clip-on sunglasses.

It’s all very impressive, though the experience isn’t perfect. The A.I. assistant is slow, and while we appreciate the need to manually trigger the microphone, having to reach up and tap the glasses while you speak is cumbersome. The G1’s current feature set is also a bit limited, but Wang promises more to come: “We will keep pushing the boundaries of blending physical and digital in the most natural way.”

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