Jason Hiner/ZDNET
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Even Realities unveiled its new smart glasses with several surprises and key upgrades to advance the product. The biggest surprise was that not only did the company unveil the Even G2 Display Smart Glasses but it also announced the Even R1 Smart Ring that doubles as a control device for the glasses.
I’ve been testing both the Even G2 and the Even R1 since the end of October, when Even Realities hosted a small press event in New York to demo both products for journalists.
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Still, since not all of the features have been fully polished or made functional yet, I would call this article my first impressions story rather than a full product review.
And I won’t bury the lead here.
I’ve tried all the smart glasses
I consider the Even G2 the most comfortable and most fashionable set of smart glasses I’ve tried. I’ve tried virtually all the leading products, including all the models from Meta. And because of the focus on privacy in the Even G2 — with no cameras or speakers — they are also the only smart glasses I’d be comfortable wearing at all times of the day.
Priced at the same level as the first-generation product at $599, the Even G2 glasses remain a product that’s priced more like a premium pair of eyeglasses than a tech gadget.
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The main feature of the Even Reality glasses is a bright, monochrome green screen display in both eyes that enables several key features, including live translation, phone notifications, step-by-step navigation, quick notes, AI-based conversation enhancement, and a basic AI chatbot.
Even Realities
But, by far, the best and most polished feature on these glasses is the teleprompter. It allows you to easily upload scripts from standard text files and uses AI to track your progress while speaking the script, automatically advancing the text. It works incredibly well.
Even G1 smart glasses recap
Against all odds, Even Realities had a viral hit with its Even G1 smart glasses released in 2024. These were especially championed by YouTubers, influencers, and content creators, who loved the glasses almost exclusively because of the teleprompter feature.
And beyond the YouTubers, the first-generation Even Realities glasses were made famous by prominent public figures who unabashedly used them while giving public talks. That included government ministers from France and UAE, on-air TV hosts, people giving TED Talks, and CEOs RJ Scaringe of Rivian and Palmer Luckey of Anduril.
I used the teleprompter feature on the Even G1 glasses to deliver my opening remarks before the AI keynote discussions that I hosted at Mobile World Congress 2025 in Las Vegas. And on the day before publishing this article, I used the teleprompter on the Even G2 glasses to deliver my remarks during the opening keynote of SpiceWorld 2025 in Austin, Texas. The feature worked flawlessly in both cases.
I wore the Even G1 glasses and used the teleprompter feature to deliver my opening remarks for an AI keynote at MWC 2025 Las Vegas on October 15, 2025.
GSMA / Mobile World Congress
To be fair, not all of the features of the Even Realties glasses are as polished as the teleprompter. Many reviewers of the first-generation glasses criticized the software experience as buggy, unintuitive at times, and not always easy to navigate. I used the Even G1 glasses for several months in 2025, and I found the assessment to be pretty accurate.
It could be difficult to find things in menus; some of the features, such as Navigation, felt unfinished, and the 8-bit style of the interface didn’t always make this feel like a cutting-edge product.
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That said, my overall impression of the Even G1 glasses was very positive. I enjoyed wearing them more than any other smart glasses I’ve tried, largely due to the look and feel of the product. Since they are comfortable, stylish, and do not have cameras pointed out at the world, they don’t make you feel (justifiably) self-conscious about wearing them in any setting.
So, how about the Even G2 glasses?
Testing Even G2 smart glasses
The biggest and most significant upgrade is to the display itself — it’s 75% larger and approximately 30% brighter, which unlocks a number of capabilities and improvements. Most notably to me was the teleprompter, of course. A few weeks apart, I used the teleprompter feature onstage for keynote remarks using the Even G1 and the Even G2. The Even G2 display was even clearer to see and follow — which gave me a little more freedom to move around more naturally while using the glasses on stage.
I wore the Even G2 glasses and used the teleprompter feature to deliver my remarks during the opening keynote session of SpiceWorld on November 11, 2025.
Spiceworks
The larger display also makes the Navigation feature better (and Even has upgraded the software experience as well). The bigger display comes in handy for the language translation feature as well, since the translation only appears as text on screen, since the glasses don’t have speakers.
Even Realities also launched a new feature called Conversate in the G2 glasses. This allows you to turn on the AI during a real-world conversation, so the glasses can follow what’s being said, and display information on important terms and topics being discussed, and potentially summarize the conversation afterward. This is similar to a new feature called Live AI on the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses.
For these new and upgraded features in the Even G2 glasses, I’d like to use them more and allow Even Realities to do a few software updates before I weigh in on the usefulness of the features other than the teleprompter.
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But the G2 glasses themselves are light (36g compared to 52g for Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 and 69g for Meta Ray-Ban Display), the battery easily gets through 1-2 days on a single charge (compared to 2-8 hours for the various Meta products), and they can take a wide range of prescription lenses from -12 to +12 (compared to -4 to +4 for Meta Ray-Ban Display).
With the G2, Even Realities kept the two main styles — one round and one square — but added an additional green color to its gray and brown colors from the G1 lineup. The company also made a slight variation to the original round-style glasses by giving the top of the circle a flatter edge, which makes the G2 style even a little more unique.
The Even G2 Display Smart Glasses come in two styles and three colors.
Even Realities
How the R1 Smart Ring fits in
The other major question regarding this new product centers on the companion R1 Smart Ring. Even Realities has the right idea for what it’s trying to achieve here — providing an easier, more full-featured, and more discreet way to navigate a heads-up display — but the execution still needs some work.
The ring is meant to be worn on your index finger on either hand, and then you use your thumb to tap, double-tap, and swipe up and down to navigate the interface on the glasses.
Even Realities also unveiled its R1 Smart Ring.
Jason Hiner/ZDNET
It took me a while to get used to the gestures for swiping around the G2 glasses using the R1 ring, and it got pretty frustrating at times. I also had a lot of accidental swipes that activated the glasses when I didn’t mean to, and executed actions that I didn’t intend.
You can use the G2 glasses without the R1 ring and use the touch pads at the end of the arms on the glasses instead. But I understand what Even Realities is trying to do, because when the ring works well, it is a more subtle and more powerful way to navigate. Still, when I used the G2 glasses to deliver an on-stage presentation with the teleprompter feature, I put the ring in my pocket so that I wouldn’t have any accidental swipes or interface mishaps.
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Also, the R1 isn’t just an interface device for the glasses. It also functions as a smart ring to track your health and activity, similar to smart rings from Oura, Samsung, and others. And the new G2 visual interface includes easy access to your health metrics.
However, in my testing, the smart ring health features were still fairly buggy, and so I’ll wait for Even Realities to finish up and polish off the software before I make a determination on how well it’s implemented. That said, I do have some confidence that the company can do this well, as the founder and CEO, Will Wang, previously worked on the Apple Watch team.
I’m really looking forward to seeing how the R1’s function evolves over time with software updates and refinements.
The R1 Smart Ring costs $249 in addition to the $599 for the Even G2 glasses, so the pair will cost $848 — This is more expensive than the $799 Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, which come with a Neural Band and a full-color display in one eye. However, if you purchase the R1 with the G2 at launch, then you get the ring for 50% off, or $125 off, and that puts the total cost of the pair at $725 at launch.
I tried out the new new green Even G2 glasses at a demo in New York on Oct 29, 2025.
Christopher Cieri/Cieri Photography LLC
Even Realities vs. Meta
And that brings us to the David-and-Goliath factor. Meta is currently the runaway market-leader in the smart glasses space with 70% market share. Meta is a global company with over 75,000 employees and a $1.5 trillion market cap. Even Realities has about 200 employees and Wang told me that it’s largely split between two locations, with the technology team in China and the glasses design team in Switzerland.
Nevertheless, Wang embraces the underdog role. He told me that he believes Even Realities can be the disruptor in the smart glasses market by being narrowly focused, having such a strong perspective on privacy, and designing its own glasses with style at the forefront.
My Even G2 buying advice
When it comes to buying advice, I recommend two types of buyers for the G2 — and since a number of features are still being polished, this recommendation may expand over time. However, for now, I’d recommend the Even G2 to individuals who frequently give presentations, public speeches, and other polished remarks, and would appreciate having a teleprompter that accompanies them anywhere, in any setting.
This remains the best and most refined feature in the Even 2 Display Smart Glasses. For these buyers, I’d recommend getting the G2 without the R1 Smart Ring for now.
The other type of buyer I’d recommend is someone who wants to have an AI chatbot at the ready at all times but who’s also deeply concerned with privacy and doesn’t want to — or can’t — wear glasses with cameras on them in many of the settings they move in throughout the day. For these buyers, I do recommend also adding the R1 Smart Ring because it is very discreet and I’m confident the usability will improve over time.
Ultimately, the style, comfort, battery life, and lack of cameras make the Even G2 glasses the only smart glasses I see as practical for wearing all day long, for now.
