At IFA 2025 I had the chance to demo Rokid’s new glasses – creatively labelled the Rokid Glasses. I was impressed.
I reported on these smart glasses at the end of August, and got to experience their HUD and smart features first hand in a roughly 15 minute live demo.
To catch you up, these specs boast similar tech to the Meta Ray-Ban and HSTN smart glasses we’ve come to know and love – I’m talking in-built speakers, a 12MP camera, and an AI smart assistant that can help with tasks.
Where these glasses mix things up over Meta is they rely on ChatGPT instead of Meta AI, and more importantly they include a pair of waveguide lens displays.
This allows the specs to overlay your vision with a green HUD that displays text and simple icons when the glasses are relaying information to you (like when you’re using their translate or prompter features).
I found this HUD was very effective. I could focus on the text when I was trying to chat with someone speaking a different language, but could easily shift my vision to focus on my surroundings – and in the Rokid app I could move the HUD to my preferred position.
I also loved how in-depth the AI could be when I asked it to tell me about something in my vision, or asked it a question about a topic.
I could see the vision Rokid was trying to achieve, and I had only two critiques from the demo. First, things could be a little sluggish – though I could reasonably chalk that up to dodgy convention centre wi-fi. Second, the audio wasn’t stellar compared to my open earbuds; I did only get a taste of a quick song, however.
For my full evaluation I’ll want to review these glasses at home, and wear them for a longer stretch of time to get a better feel for their capabilities.
Things are seriously heating up in the smart glasses space.
These Rokid Glasses impressed me and are up now on Kickstarter if you want to score a pair with a limited-time discount (ranging from 20 to 15% depending on which early bird deal you can snag).
In a week from this article’s publication date, we’ll have Meta Connect, where Meta is rumored to be showcasing its own next-gen smart glasses with a display. Meta’s next glasses will reportedly include a full-color display, but only for one eye.
Additionally, a report from The Information has teased the arrival of a pair of Amazon smart glasses that sound functionally identical to the Meta specs.
That’s to say they’ll supposedly boast a single display, alongside cameras and speakers.
Unfortunately Amazon’s glasses may feel late to the party, as they aren’t expected to land until late 2026 – maybe even 2027. That said, a model designed exclusively for Amazon workers could drop earlier in 2026.
In the meantime, we’ll have seen options from Rokid, very likely Meta, and hopefully several Android XR glasses – with Samsung’s first specs said to be showcased properly at an event later this month, and many others hopefully dropping over the next 12 months.
As an XR fan, I couldn’t be more delighted to see this space seriously heating up as new glasses spring up from all over. The only tricky part will be deciding when you should grab yourself a pair – as there’s a non-zero chance your specs could be supplanted by a rival a few weeks to a month after you purchase them.
For now, my advice is to wait until the end of September, as you’ll have had a chance to (hopefully) see what at least Rokid, Samsung and Meta are all promising.
You can also check back here for our thoughts and reviews as soon as we’re able to provide them.
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hamish.hector@futurenet.com (Hamish Hector)
