In recent years, many tech executives have told us that glasses could be the next big interface for consumer hardware. And yet, today’s smart glasses rely heavily on phones, even if they have good hardware. even the realities G2 Smart Glasses they are in the same boat. They’re a high-quality pair of glasses, with a neon-style heads-up display that you can see in any lighting — but their functionality relies heavily on their phone connectivity, which can be unreliable and frustrating.
Even Realities take a different approach to smart glasses than players like Meta. Their devices feature a monochrome heads-up display that displays text and information in green, giving it the look of a neon sign.
There are no cameras or speakers, and that’s by design. The company wants to focus on productivity rather than recording, so people around you don’t have to worry about video recording.
The G2 is the second pair of smart glasses from Even Realities and an improvement over the G1 released a few years ago. The G2 has a brighter 1,200 nit display (vs. 1,000 nits on the G1), four microphones (vs. two) and 75% more screen area than its predecessor. The new screen also has a better 60Hz refresh rate, compared to 20Hz on the G1.
In the few months I’ve been using the G2, connectivity with the phone has improved tremendously. Early on, the glasses disconnected from the app so often that I almost gave up. But after a few app updates, this issue got better.
The glasses are aimed at people who may be constantly in meetings, giving presentations and traveling to countries where different languages are spoken.
Plan
Available in two frame designs, the glasses are very light at 35 grams. The frame is made of magnesium alloy and the temples (the arms that go over your ears) are made of titanium alloy. In terms of weight and fit, the glasses were comfortable.
But since I work from home most of the time, I didn’t really feel the need to wear them all day. That said, the lenses have built-in UV protection, so they’re worth wearing outside just for eye protection — smart features or not.
The company claims that, based on typical usage, the G2’s battery can last up to two days on a single charge. The glasses come with a protective case that can recharge them up to seven times before they need to be connected on their own. I didn’t personally test the two-day claim, but my battery lasted long enough to put them back in the case without running out of juice.
This case is big — you can’t fit it in a pocket — but it’s compact and the glasses fit comfortably.
Features and operation
Glasses act as your companion for schedules, reminders and access to notes. You can wake them up by tapping on the stem-based controls. If you double-tap the control pad on the stem, you’ll see a dashboard with information like your upcoming meetings, stocks, and top news.
The G2 can also display real-time phone notifications, but the pop-ups weren’t always reliable — and since my phone is usually nearby anyway, I didn’t find much use for the feature.
Pressing and holding the temple control opens a menu with several functions: notification tray, Translate, Chat, Remote Prompt, to-do list and Navigation. Translate lets you set a target language and chat with anyone. At the recent Global Connect Show (GCS) in China, I wore the glasses while talking to company representatives who were demoing, and the translation was good enough to follow when someone spoke Chinese. I also tested it with other journalists who spoke different languages, including French and Spanish. (The downside to this feature is that the other person doesn’t know what you’re saying in your language unless they’re also using the app.)
Navigation is an interesting feature that displays turn-by-turn directions on the heads-up display. The catch: It doesn’t work with Google or Apple Maps. Instead, you must set your route through the Even Realities app. I tried it a few times while walking to coffee shops near my house. The directions were fine on the screen, but the app kept getting the addresses wrong, so I can’t rely on it for places I don’t already know how to get to. However, I could see cyclists or motorcycle riders finding it useful once the company fixes the accuracy issues.
Conversate, at first, just showed a live transcript of the conversation on the glasses, which was pointless since you can just as easily record a meeting with an app or an external notepad. Later, the company added a “prep notes” feature that shows more content: You can manually add notes or documents before a meeting and let the AI cite them during the conversation, or let it listen in real time and pop up short explanatory bubbles for concepts as they come up. For example, during an energy briefing, he showed me a bubble for “Green Hydrogen” and pressing it brought up a definition right in front of my eyes. This was really helpful — although I wouldn’t want a transcript or explanatory bubbles for every conversation I have.
At the heart of it all is the built-in assistant, Even AI. As with any voice assistant, you say a wake word to wake it up and ask questions or add items to your to-do list. It often misunderstood my to-do list requests, and for general questions, the answers were often long paragraphs broadcast across the screen with no way to pause or skip.
Another issue: Despite having four microphones, even the AI often failed to activate or misheard me when I was outside. Ambient noise in India could have played a role, but I would still expect a modern gadget to have better noise handling.
The G2’s screen was easy to read in most conditions, but in a bright room I had to adjust the brightness manually through the app. Even if the company hasn’t built an automatic brightness sensor yet, I’d like to see a manual brightness control built into the glasses themselves, rather than requiring the phone app.
Don’t put the R1 ring on it
It even introduced a companion ring called the R1 alongside the G2. The idea is to control the glasses via a touchpad on the ring instead of the glasses’ touch controls. But its price and functionality don’t quite justify the cost.
The ring works well and I had no problems using it. But I struggled to find scenarios where I really needed it, since the touch-sensitive temples on the glasses already do the same job.
In addition, Even has integrated health monitoring into the ring — heart rate, calories, steps, sleep and SpO2 (blood oxygen level). Personally, I’d rather go for a dedicated ring like Oura or Ultrahuman if I wanted that form factor with health tracking. Second, if I’m already using a gym, I wouldn’t want to buy a ring where health is a utility function for a ring meant to control glasses.
All this functionality brings the price of the ring to $249, which is not cheap. If I used my smart glasses a lot, I would consider buying a controller ring at a lower price if it also had a microphone, which I could use to issue commands to the AI assistant. As it stands, I’ll skip R1.
Where is Even G2 located?
Smart glasses are coming out fast. Camera-equipped, screenless models like the Meta Ray-Bans are popular, but Meta, Snap and other competitors are also struggling to make glasses with color screens. Only a few Chinese companies – such as Rokid and Inmo – make glasses with this same style of neon display.
The Even G2 costs $599 and offers solid hardware in a light, beautiful frame. The company is also working to make the glasses more customizable by supporting third-party apps, though I didn’t find any apps compelling enough to make me grab the glasses more often. It’s a nice offering — fun to explore if you like tinkering with new hardware and don’t mind trying out third-party apps.
The hardware itself is good, but outside of tasks that require constant translation or teleprompting, it’s hard to find a clean everyday case for smart glasses like these.
The bet is that skipping the camera and speakers is the right move for a productivity-focused device — and I don’t disagree with that direction. But now that the company has reached unicorn status, it needs to build more first-party software to make the glasses something people actually look for every day.
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