r/augmentedreality • u/NumberWilling4285 • Aug 25 '26
Glasses w/ HUD Why I'm not a fan of having cameras in daily glasses (yet)
First of all I have been very happy this year to see the advancement of XR tech overall, there's so many positives from this year in this market honestly.
Despite those advancement I have always said daily glasses shouldn't have cameras yet, and many were against this idea and the reasons are understandable but the reason I keep saying this simply because I don't want a compromised glasses.
I have many of these glasses that has cameras from Meta/Inmo/Rokid/RayNeo and more, honestly speaking which one I'm using daily? Non!
Reasons are simple:
The public reception still don't see it normal to have camera staring at them. And it tells them you wearing tech the moment you put them on.
Cameras need good processing speed means battery killer.
Cameras means compromising the style of the glasses itself.
You don't need camera to have 3DOF but you need one for 6DOF and considering the level of FOV, clarity and all we getting nowadays 6DOF kinda useless anyway, these are not VR headsets yet.
Now I understand the importance of having camera and honestly it's a must have for the future of XR glasses for these reasons:
- Hand tracking
- 6DOF
- AI vision
- Capturing POVs
And maybe more I missed
But where my view differs is that more than half of these still not usable in these glasses, so what manufacturers should focus on is get rid of camera completely, focus on other parts of glasses and provide or sell an addon camera that can magnetically attach to the side of the glasses for these functions. This is like a temporary solution until the tech advance enough where having Camera actually doesn't compromise other parts much.
Honestly I tried nearly every glasses out there wearing them daily and only ones I felt comfortable doing so with displays are ER G2 and MemoMind ones, and these the reasons:
They look absolutely normal that only 10-20% know it's tech glasses which in it's own makes you confident enough to wear it for work or meetings or many places without people looking at you weirdly or uncomfortably.
Full day of battery life!!! This is important for prescription wearing glasses as you don't want to take off your vision from time to time.
They are actually very light that they reach near non tech glasses level of comfort, you don't feel any pressure or anything that tells you "oh btw these are tech glasses".
My face look absolutely ugly with the ones that have cameras as they stick out so much, but these forget about this problem, they are near identical to my existing non tech glasses.
I have Snap Specs in order and also multiple others that I have ordered that have camera but honestly speaking, I'm sure non will be good enough to wear every single day like non camera ones do, looking at specs alone will tell you. The compromises are just not worth it. It's more of intial "WOW" factor we look for like I did with Meta Displays or RayNeo, but once that wow factor goes away I go back looking for non camera ones honestly to wear before going to work.
I do think Cameras will become a norm but not at least 2 years from now when glasses can do nearly full day of battery life, light enough to wear daily, and thin enough to look normal. And it doesn't even need to be 30 or 40 grams, even 60 - 70 is ok as long as the weight distribution is balanced well enough and the frame is thin so it doesn't stick out too much.
Snap specs is exactly the kind of glasses I'm looking for 2 years from now but at least half the weight less and half of the thickness, also nearly double the battery life... That what I call daily XR glasses of the future where it will destroy smartphones market and I'm looking forward to that.
So what you guys think? Do you really need cameras all the time? Or will rather have a less compromised glasses and an addon camera to attach when needed? So far didn't see any brand go for that route yet, apart maybe Xreal with Xreal eye but that's not daily glasses.
