There are three smart glass variants you can buy today: video glasses like the RayNeo Air models or Rokid Max 2 use Micro-OLED tech to project a large screen up to 200 inches, camera glasses like the Ray-Ban Meta and Rokid AI Glasses Style let you shoot photos and videos without reaching for your phone, and the latest category of glasses include LED waveguides that show heads-up notifications.
While I use the Rokid AI Glasses Style and Meta’s Oakley Vanguard regularly, I’m most interested in glasses with waveguides. Even Realities’ G2 is my favorite smart glasses of 2026, and its built-in waveguides along with unique navigation — via a smart ring — give it a lot of inherent advantages.
There’s a new entrant in this category, and it’s one that has a lot of potential. MemoMind is a new sub-brand by XGIMI — the Chinese projector brand behind the likes of the Horizon 20 Max and MoGo portable models — and it’s aimed at delivering stylish glasses with built-in waveguides and no cameras.
I tested the MemoMind One, the camera-free smart glasses with dual Micro-LED waveguides, built-in audio, and AI integration (obviously). MemoMind plans to release other models later in the year, but it’s now crowdsourcing the One, and if you like the look of the glasses, you can shell out $399 (a $200 discount) and await delivery sometime in August 2026. If you need prescription lenses, you’ll need to pay $499, which is a 43% discount from the $879 tentative retail price. You can also get customized designs, with those starting at $449.
MemoMind is selling the One in three different styles: Nomad, Gotham, and Archive. I liked the look of the latter, and that’s the model I’ve been using. I like the fit and finish better than the Even Realities G2, and they’re comfortable to wear. Unlike camera glasses, the MemoMind One is designed to be worn all day, and at 46g, they’re light enough to not be noticeable. The Even Realities G2 is even lighter at 37g, but it doesn’t last as long as the MemoMind One, and the sound quality isn’t anywhere as good.
The glasses do a good job mirroring notifications, and you can cycle through the other widgets: calendar, news, to-do lists, and an idea board that lets you dictate notes on the go. It has two features I like: audio recording, and real-time translations.
There’s navigation as well, and you’ll need to plug in the destination within the MemoMind app to surface turn-by-turn navigation. The only issue in this area is that it only works with walking and cycling.
The MemoMind One uses dual Micro-LED waveguides to project an image five meters in front of you, and I had no issues with readability even while outdoors. MemoMind says the projection goes up to 2000 nits, and the monochrome waveguide is easy to interact with. The projection gets brighter than the G2; I had issues viewing turn-by-turn navigation while using the G2 outdoors in Las Vegas, but that hasn’t been a problem on the MemoMind One — even in India’s harsh summer, I was able to view the waveguide projection outdoors.
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Oh, and there’s built-in sound as well, and it’s among the best of any smart glasses I used yet. The sound is tuned by Harman, and the glasses are ideal to listen to podcasts when you’re doing chores around the house. They’re good with music as well, and there isn’t much in the way of sound leakage. MemoMind has dedicated glasses coming out that just include the speakers if you don’t want the waveguides.
The waveguide tech in itself is interesting, but if you think the green projection is a bit basic, you’ll want to wait until next year — we should get full-color waveguide projection sometime in 2027.
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What I also like is that MemoMind doesn’t gate key features behind a paywall. The basics, including AI translation, audio transcribing, navigation, calendar, subtitles, Memo AI, and idea notes will stay free, and there is a Memo+ tier that costs $19 a month that has a better AI engine, Moments (a customized illustrated journal), and to-do lists. Honestly, there’s no reason to pay the additional fee if you just want the basics.
There’s no doubt that the Even Realities G2 has more polished software. That said, MemoMind One shows a lot of promise, particularly for a product that’s still in beta. I’ll revisit the glasses closer to launch and see how they hold up, but MemoMind has already addressed a lot of the gremlins via software updates, and that is likely to continue over the coming months.
If anything, the biggest issue with the MemoMind One isn’t the glasses itself, but the charging case. The case is small and easily portable, but it doesn’t charge the glasses — there’s a dedicated cable to do so. This wouldn’t have been annoying in and of itself, but there’s no room to put the cable inside the case (it just holds the glasses), and so you’ll need to store the cable elsewhere. I just don’t get why MemoMind couldn’t have made a slightly bigger case to accommodate the cable, or include a case that charges the glasses automatically, like the Even Realities G2.
MemoMind ostensibly saved a few dollars in manufacturing costs by not including a charging case — just like the Rokid AI Glasses Style — and I want to see this shortcoming rectified with the next release. As it stands, it’s easy to lose the charging cable, and it bothers me that I can’t just put it in the case.
On the whole though, the MemoMind One is an exciting alternative to the Even Realities G2. I like the design better, and the built-in sound is much more detailed. The waveguides get brighter in outdoor use, the battery lasts longer, and you get a decent set of features out of the box.
The biggest advantage is the pricing; you can get the MemoMind One for as low as $399 now, and that’s hard to beat considering the hardware on offer. The G2 and other waveguide-toting smart glasses start at $599, so if you’re interested in camera-free smart glasses, the MemoMind One gets my recommendation.