From TechRadar · · 1m 30s
Smart glasses that listen but never watch
RayNeo's iO drops the camera and adds a recap feature that replays your day back to you, and that trade is not a simple win.
In brief
RayNeo's iO drops the camera and adds a recap feature that replays your day back to you, and that trade is not a simple win. Taking the camera off smart glasses solves the obvious privacy problem, but an assistant that listens all day just asks the same question more quietly. Originally reported by TechRadar.
Glasses with no camera
RayNeo's iO leaves out the thing every rival puts front and centre. No lens in the frame, so there is nothing pointed at the people around you.
The camera is the problem
Face-mounted cameras are why smart glasses keep getting side-eye in bars and on trains. Removing one is the cheapest way to make a pair feel socially wearable.
A recap of your day
The headline feature echoes the Recap function Apple is bringing to the Watch: the glasses gather what happened and hand it back to you as a summary.
Not tied to one assistant
RayNeo's version is AI-agnostic, so the recap does not lock you into a single company's assistant the way Apple's does.
Meta set the template
Meta's Ray-Ban line made camera glasses the default idea of what smart eyewear is. RayNeo is betting the audio-only version is the one people actually keep wearing.
Useful or unnerving
A device that quietly assembles your day is genuinely handy and quietly unsettling at once, and the verdict lands somewhere between the two.
“I'm not sure if I love or hate it”
What it means
Taking the camera off smart glasses solves the obvious privacy problem, but an assistant that listens all day just asks the same question more quietly.
