Samsung smart glasses: First official look revealed
▼ Summary
– Samsung’s upcoming smart glasses, developed with Google, Gentle Monster, and Warby Parker, feature two new designs and a 9-hour battery life, launching this fall.
– The glasses are lightweight and resemble normal frames, with speaker and microphone grilles, a camera, and a recording LED.
– They use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 chip and offer up to nine hours of use per charge, with a case providing seven additional charges.
– AI features, powered by Google Gemini or Samsung’s Bixby, include message summaries, live translation, navigation, and camera-based analysis.
– The glasses include a recording LED that blocks capture if obscured, but Samsung acknowledges privacy concerns as an industry-wide issue.
Samsung has finally offered a first look at its upcoming smart glasses, unveiling two fresh designs and the initial specifications, including a notable nine-hour battery life. Developed in partnership with Google, along with eyewear brands Gentle Monster and Warby Parker, the glasses are slated for a fall release.
Google and Samsung have hinted at these new glasses for months, showcasing the first two designs at I/O in May. Now, two additional frames have appeared. Both maintain a predictably boxy shape: a new squared-off black pair from Gentle Monster and a more rounded, red-brown option from Warby Parker. Jaein Choi, executive vice president overseeing Samsung’s mobile experience division, told CNBC that “more designs” are still on the way.
This event marked the first opportunity to see any of the four frames up close, though Samsung did not allow me to try them on or even hold them to my face. All are impressively light, barely heavier than thick-rimmed acrylic glasses I used to wear, and only slightly larger. Speaker and microphone grilles are discreetly placed along the stems, a single button sits on the right side, a power switch is tucked inside on the left, and a camera with a recording LED is mounted on the front. Much like Meta’s collaborations with Ray-Ban and Oakley, these glasses look like ordinary eyewear most people would willingly wear, privacy concerns aside.
The smart glasses will run on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 chip, the same processor powering Meta’s latest smart glasses. Samsung claims a single charge will last up to nine hours, with the charging case providing seven additional charges.
Users can operate the glasses with either Google Gemini or Samsung’s Bixby. The AI features sound familiar: message summaries, live translation, navigation guidance, and analysis or description of what the cameras capture.
Like Meta’s glasses, a recording LED activates when the camera is capturing video. Choi told Bloomberg that, similar to Meta’s approach, the glasses will prevent recording if the LED is blocked or obscured. That measure has not stopped Meta’s glasses from being labeled “pervert glasses,” so it remains to be seen whether Samsung and Google have other solutions for what Choi called “an industry-shared problem.”
Samsung has not yet revealed a firm release date or price, but Choi described the product as “premium.”
(Source: The Verge)
