Over the past few 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’re well-equipped. Even Realities’ G2 smart glasses they are in the same boat. They’re premium-looking glasses with a neon-style head-up display that you can see in any lighting – but their functionality depends largely on their connection to a phone, which can be unreliable and frustrating.
Even Realities treat smart glasses differently than players like Meta. Their devices have a monochrome head-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 the design. The company wants to focus more on productivity than recording, so people around you don’t have to worry about filming.
The G2 is the second pair of smart glasses from Even Realities and is an improvement over the G1 that was released a few years ago. The G2 has a brighter 1,200-nit screen (vs. 1,000 nits on the G1), four microphones (vs. two), and a 75% larger screen area than its predecessor. The new display has a better 60Hz refresh rate compared to the 20Hz on the G1.
In the few months I’ve been using the G2, the phone connection has improved a lot. The glasses used to disconnect from the app so often that I almost gave up on them. But after a few software updates, this problem got better.
Glasses are aimed at people who are constantly in meetings, presentations and traveling to countries where different languages are spoken.
Design
Available in two frame designs, the glasses are very light at 35 grams. The frame is made of magnesium alloy, the temples (the arms that go over your ears) are made of titanium alloy. The glasses were comfortable to wear in terms of weight and fit.
Since I worked from home most of the time, I didn’t feel the need to wear them all day. However, the lenses have UV protection, so they’re still worth wearing outside to protect your eyes – smart features or not.
The company claims that under typical use, the G2’s battery can last up to two days on a single charge. The glasses are equipped with a protective case, which allows you to charge them up to seven times. I didn’t personally test the two-day claim, but the battery lasted long enough to put them back in the box without running out of juice.
This case is big – you can’t put it in your pocket – but it’s sturdy and the glasses fit comfortably inside.
Features and operation
Glasses act as your companion for accessing schedules, reminders and notes. They can be woken up by tapping root-based controls. If you double-tap the dashboard at the root, you’ll see a dashboard with information like your upcoming appointments, stocks, and top news.
The G2 can also display real-time phone notifications, but the pop-ups weren’t always reliable – and I didn’t use the feature much since my phone was generally accessible.
A long press on the temple control button opens a menu with several functions: notification panel, Translate, Chat, Teleprompt, to-do list and Navigation. Translate allows you to set the target language and chat with anyone. At the recent Global Connectivity Show (GCS) in China, I wore the glasses while talking to company representatives doing demos, and the translation was good enough for me to follow when someone was speaking Chinese. I tried it with other journalists who spoke different languages, including French and Spanish. (The downside of this feature is that the other person doesn’t know what you’re saying in your language unless they’re using the app.)
Navigation is a great feature that shows turn-by-turn directions on the title screen. The catch: it doesn’t work with Google or Apple Maps. Instead, you should even set your route through the Realities app. I tried several times when I went to cafes near my house. The directions appeared fine on the display, but the app kept getting the addresses wrong, so I can’t rely on it for places I don’t know how to get to. However, once the company fixes the accuracy issues, I could see cyclists or motorcycle riders finding it useful.
Conversate initially showed a live transcript of the conversation on the glasses, which felt pointless because you could easily record a meeting with an app or an external notebook. Later, the company added a “prep notes” feature that provides more context: you can manually add notes or documents before a meeting and let the AI refer to them during the conversation, or you can listen in real-time and pop short explanatory bubbles for concepts. For example, during an energy briefing, he showed me a bubble for “Green Hydrogen” and touching it produced a definition before my eyes. It was really helpful – although I wouldn’t have wanted a transcript or explanatory bubbles for every conversation.
At the center of all this is the built-in assistant, Even AI. As with any voice assistant, you say a wake word to activate it and ask questions or add items to your to-do list. He often misunderstood my to-do list requests, and the answers to general questions were often long paragraphs that flowed across the screen with no way to cut them off or skip ahead.
Another issue: even with four microphones, even the AI often failed to activate or mishear 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 management.
The G2’s screen was legible in most conditions, but in a bright room I had to manually adjust the brightness via the app. Even if the company hasn’t built in an automatic brightness sensor yet, I’d like to see manual brightness control built into the glasses themselves rather than requiring a phone app.
Do not put the R1 ring on it
It even launched a companion ring called the R1 alongside the G2. The idea is to control the glasses through the touch surface on the ring instead of the glasses themselves. But its price and functionality do not fully justify the cost.
The ring works well and I had no problems using it. But since the touch-sensitive temples on the glasses already do the same thing, I had a hard time finding the scenarios I really needed.
Plus, it even built health tracking into the ring – heart rate, calories, steps, sleep and SpO2 (blood oxygen level). Personally, if I want this form factor with health tracking, I’d rather opt for a dedicated ring like Oura or Ultrahuman. Second, if I already use a fitness tracker, I wouldn’t want to buy a ring where health is a secondary function for a ring designed to manage a bottle.
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 getting a controller ring for a lower price if it had a microphone that I could use to give commands to the AI assistant. By the way, I would skip the R1.
Where is the G2 even?
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 competing to create glasses with color screens. Only a handful of Chinese companies—like Rokid and Inmo—make glasses in the same neon display style.
The Even G2 is priced at $599 and packs solid hardware in a lightweight, good-looking frame. The company is also working to make the glasses more customizable by supporting third-party apps, though I haven’t found one compelling enough to make me reach for the glasses more often. They’re nice to have: they’re fun to explore if you like working with new hardware and don’t mind trying out third-party software.
The hardware itself is good, but outside of jobs that require constant interpreting or teleprompting, it’s hard to find a clear everyday use case for smart glasses like this.
It’s even a bet that skipping the camera and speakers is the right move for a productivity-focused device — and I disagree. But now there is a new company reached unicorn statusit needs to build more first-party software to make its glasses something people can actually access every day.
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