I tried Rokid’s new smart glasses with a display, and Meta has nothing to worry about. yet.
Smart glasses are an exciting idea right now. In theory, they’re a new gadget that does lots of the stuff that our phones do, but in an always-there form factor. They can take pictures, make calls, translate menus, and—if the tech and the investment get there—they might slap a screen right onto eyeballs for notifications, navigation, and maybe even augmented reality à la Pokémon Go.
I say “in theory” because just because smart glasses can do all of those things on paper doesn’t mean they can do them well, and if they can’t do them well… they may as well not do them at all. We’re still in the early stages of the grand ascension of smart glasses as a device category, but a brave few are venturing to do it all right now, and one of those few (at least in the U.S.) is a company based in China called Rokid (pronounced rock-id).
I got a chance to try Rokid’s plainly named Rokid Glasses, and while there was a lot that intrigued me, I can say for certain that the kinks are still being worked out. One thing that these smart glasses have that big-time entrants from the likes of Meta and its Ray-Bans don’t have is a screen. That screen is a very simple dual-micro LED display that only shows things in a very Matrix-style green. I got to use the Rokid Glasses for 15 minutes and was surprised at how sharp the screen was, even if the display functions were fairly basic. And look, you can see the screen from outside the glasses. And that’s good because sharpness is crucial for some of the things that make the Rokid Glasses unique.
One of those distinct capabilities is a teleprompter feature that displays a presentation in front of your eyes, so you can read along and not sound like a total moron during your big keynote. A thing that I found very cool is the fact that the Rokid Glasses actually use the onboard microphone to listen to your words and scroll the prompter in stride with the words.
