It seems like everyone is trying to get you to buy a face computer these days. Meta has seemingly endless pairs; Google and Samsung are on the verge of getting in on the action; Apple might be interested. That’s not even counting the array of popular big brands like Rokid and Alibaba that are looking to replicate the success of Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses overseas.
Despite all that high-profile attention, there’s one thing I didn’t have on my bingo card, and that’s smart glasses sweeping wireless earbuds into the trend. But, expected or not, here we are. The sudden interest in smart glasses is creating a whole new category: open-ear headphones/earbuds with a camera on them. Quite a few pairs have already popped up. Take the X1 from a company called Auriview, for example, which bills itself as an “AI bone conduction headset.” This gadget, which you wear on your head, resembles bone-conducting earphones that you’d use for running or other exercises. The difference is that a 4K camera is sandwiched on the side, enabling computer vision similar to that of popular AI glasses made by Meta, as well as the ability to record video and take pictures. © Auriview According to Auriview, the X1 is a bit of a tank, allowing up to 30 hours of continuous music playback. The Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 AI glasses, for comparison, have a maximum of eight hours of battery life, but that length plummets when continuous use like audio playback is taken into account.
