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When I was a kid, I always looked forward to seeing what new gadgets Q would cook up in the latest 007 James Bond movie. From Geiger counter wristwatches to folding sniper rifles, exploding pens, and even X-ray glasses, there’s no shortage of fantastic devices that the Bond universe has cooked up.
Every gadget has its roots in the era it came from, so it makes sense that the 5-star-rated 007 First Light video game that just came out in May 2026 would use smart glasses as one of its gadgets. The partnership between Even Realities and IO Interactive came at the perfect time, as I was already using the company’s new G2 glasses for a few weeks when I found out.
Even Realities G2 sports dual monochrome displays (one in each lens), the most minimalist frames you’ll find on any pair of smart glasses today, and up to 2-day battery life. To make things even cooler, the G2 is designed to pair with Even Realities R1, the company’s first smart ring, enabling health monitoring and glasses gesture control by just touching the ring. It already feels like a 007 gadget, and that’s made even more legitimate by seeing James Bond wear them.
The all-day wearable smart glasses
Most smart glasses suffer from two main problems: weight and battery life. Take my beloved Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2’s, for example. While Ray-Ban Metas are arguably the most popular smart glasses on the market, no one is buying them for their battery life. No matter which Meta glasses I use, I can’t get more than a few hours’ use out of them, and that number drops substantially if you use the camera.
Then, there’s weight to consider. My reading glasses weigh 32g, while Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta HSTN smart glasses weigh between 48g and 52g, depending on the size and style you choose. The higher-end Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses with a display in the right lens bring that up to a whopping 69g.
Even Realities G2 is only 37g, despite having a display in each lens, a pair of batteries, and a microphone for commands. The battery lasts well over a day in my use, and the charging case makes it easy to quickly top up if I need to. They’re also substantially thinner and more svelte-looking than any of Meta’s glasses, and that’s all down to a very specific design constraint Even Realities worked under.
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I spoke with Will Wang, Founder and CEO of Even Realities, ahead of the G2’s launch, specifically about the company’s design ethos. “How do you define a good pair of glasses?” Wang asked me during the interview. The obvious answer is that they’ve got to look good and be comfortable; otherwise, I’m not going to want to wear them.
“To make a good pair of smart glasses, we knew we had to look at the traditional glasses category and see how we evolve from that.”
On top of those two categories, smart glasses need good enough battery life to keep you from worrying about charging them. Smartwatches went through this pain point for years until a true 24-hour+ watch debuted, but the first ones to achieve that goal did so by including only “necessary” features and leaving out the battery-draining ones.
Likewise, Even Realities glasses — both the G1 and G2 — ship without any kind of onboard speakers or cameras. It’s the polar opposite of what companies like Meta and Google are trying to achieve with the “AI glasses” product category, and it just might be the winning combination for a different crowd of people.
Regarding glasses with cameras, Wang was adamant that they posed a privacy problem. “To me, at this stage of how society is or how regulation is in place, I think it’s a big ‘no,'” Wang says, noting that there’s far too little concern being paid to glasses with cameras onboard because they’re not obvious enough.
“It’s really different from a VR device because, you know, as a VR device, everybody knows that you are wearing it, and you’re not wearing it outdoors all the time, right?” Wang noted, “You can have all the cameras you want to capture the room for spatial tracking [on a VR headset]” without it being a visible privacy problem.
But smart glasses are different.
“You really need to respect your own privacy as well as people around you, right?” Wang is far from alone on this front, too. Cruiselines and even the U.S. Air Force have banned those types of glasses, and Wang clearly doesn’t want Even Realities to get mixed up in those kinds of headlines.
And don’t worry, no one can see the displays on the glasses when they’re looking at you. The waveguide optics are designed to shine light towards the wearer. If someone sticks their face up to your glasses from the outside, they can see a mirrored version of the display, but if someone is this close to you already, you might have other things to worry about.
Apps that make it feel like a gadget
While there are no cameras or speakers on Even Realities glasses, they do have a single microphone that can be used to interact with Even Realities’ own (limited) AI assistant or selectively with Perplexity via a setting on the Even Realities app on your phone.
You can also use the microphone to translate a conversation live, something other smart glasses do, and the translation will appear right on your glasses’ lens displays. It’s crazy cool, and the various scaling and comfort-level options on the green monochrome display make reading easier and more comfortable than I’ve found with Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses.
The displays can be set to three different distance levels and also adjusted vertically to best fit your vision. The display will light up any time a notification comes in, if you tilt your head up enough, or if you double-tap either the touchpads at the end of each temple or the Even Realities R1 smart ring on your index finger.
A smart ring a spy would love
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This smart ring is another unique point that sets Even Realities G2 apart from the pack and, again, makes this pair feel more like a James Bond gadget. One side of the R1 ring features a touchpad you can swipe or tap to navigate the glasses’ on-screen menus. A single tap acts as a click or touch, while a double-tap navigates backward. Having the pad on one side ensures that lefties and righties can wear it comfortably on their index finger and only interact with their thumb.
On top of genius navigation via a very unobtrusive smart ring, Even Realities G2 supports web apps that both Even Realities and the community have made. At the time of writing, there are hundreds of apps available for the glasses, ranging from weight-lifting counters to speedometer dashboards, calculators, virtual pets, birdsong identifier apps, and even ePub readers. Yes, you can read a whole book on it, and it’s surprisingly comfortable since it’s right in your line of sight.
In essence, these glasses are a smartwatch for your face. Pairing it with the R1 ring will also track heart rate, body temperature, sleep cycles, and all the usual stuff you’d expect from something like an Oura Ring. Since I don’t like wearing watches most of the day (I only wear them while working out), this concept appeals to me greatly.
Your next smartphone companion?
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As with anything, it’s not a perfect experience, but I can see most of my concerns being addressed quickly through feedback. I’d love a more customizable dashboard, as I don’t care to read news regularly on my glasses; it’s just too much regular information for my taste.
I’d also love to be able to launch apps from the glasses a little more easily than with the current implementation. Right now, launching them from the Even Realities phone app is the quickest way (and sometimes the only way, depending on the app), partially defeating the purpose of having apps on your glasses in the first place. Lastly, better messaging reply capabilities are a must, especially if I’m replacing a smart watch with these glasses.
Get those in place, and I can see myself offsetting a significant amount of my daily phone checking and tinkering to my Even Realities glasses in no time. Until then, I’ll be toying around with all the new apps on the glasses in my downtime and enjoying every minute of it. Even Realities G2 is available from the Even Realities website for $599 and ships in two different styles.