When you walk up to someone wearing Halliday smart glasses, you might not realize that they're seeing smartphone notifications, real-time language translation, and advice from an AI assistant.
The only advantage is a small green dot on their eyeball.
Wearable startup Halliday unveiled smart glasses at CES 2025 that project a 3.5-inch circular display into your line of sight. The device that creates the display is called a DigiWindow, a small round module smaller than your pinky nail that sits inside the Halliday frame just above your right eye.
Close-up of DigiWindow. Image credit: Sean O'Kane
While most augmented reality glasses (at least the ones you see the demo of) project text or images onto the lenses of the glasses, Halliday's approach is a bit more direct. By pointing the DigiWindow directly at your eyes, Halliday avoids the need for expensive AR lenses, making these smart glasses cheaper than other AR prototypes (though by no means cheap) and looking great. It will get better. These glasses can also be used with prescription lenses without any problems.
Halliday plans to ship these glasses starting in March 2025. List price is $489, but you can pre-order the Halliday glasses this week for $369 as long as you pledge $9.90 to Wednesday's Kickstarter. At pre-order prices, Halliday's smart glasses are a bit more expensive than Ray-Ban's Meta.
Image credit: Sean O'Kane
When I tried on Halliday's smart glasses in a quiet corner of the Caesars Palace Casino in Las Vegas, the company's founder, Carter Hou, spoke to me in Mandarin.
As Hou spoke, English subtitles appeared on his right shoulder after just a second delay. The smart glasses facilitated bilingual conversations, so we went back and forth for a few minutes, him speaking in Chinese and me speaking in English.
Halliday glasses provide real-time language translation in 40 languages. Additionally, the glasses display phone notifications, a cheat sheet with notes (which could be useful for big meetings, interviews, or even final exams), and navigation directions. The glasses have a speaker on the arm that can play music or read messages, but the main selling point is the display.
The company also says it has a “proactive AI assistant” that can provide useful information about the conversations you're having in real time. But when I tried out the AI feature, Hou said it wasn't ready for testing yet.
Smart glasses are becoming the hottest form factor that uses AI. If you access text-based LLMs like ChatGPT or Gemini throughout the day, you'll find DigiWindow to be a useful display.
Digiwindow is on a slider and can be adjusted to fit your face. Image credit: Halliday
Halliday has not yet figured out how to arrange DigiWindow. DigiWindow must be placed snugly over your eye for proper viewing. The module can slide forward and backward a few centimeters and tilt up and down several degrees. However, due to the high bridge of my nose, I was unable to fit the DigiWindow completely in my line of sight and had to wear glasses that sit about halfway down my nose.
When asked if it was safe to shine Halliday's green light into his eyes, Hou said the glasses were completely safe and his eyes were fine for the 10 minutes he wore them. However, some people may feel a little uneasy about shining a light into their eyes from close range.
The company is also promoting a control ring that can be worn on the index finger. Slide your thumb up or down to operate the various functions of your glasses. Couldn't try it.
Halliday's smart glasses are slimmer and lighter than the Ray-Ban Meta, and they also don't have a front-facing camera. The advantage here is that they look very good, do not differ much from ordinary glasses, and have a classic design.
Image credit: Halliday
Smart glasses with cameras can raise eyebrows as strangers wonder, “Who is this creepy guy recording me?” But for others (including this reporter), the camera on smart glasses isn't a bug, it's the ability to take photos and videos without taking out your phone that ruins the moment.
Halliday's smart glasses offer an attractive version of smart glasses with a display that you can pre-order now, as opposed to prototypes from big tech companies that have no prospects for commercial release.
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