Solos challenges Meta’s Ray-Bans with $299 ChatGPT smart glasses

Solos’ camera-equipped smart glasses have arrived to provide some much-needed competition against Meta’s Ray-Bans. The AirGo Vision is available now starting at $299 — the same price as the Ray-Ban Meta eyewear tech — and features integration with OpenAI’s GPT-4o AI model to identify and answer questions about the people, objects, and text seen by the camera.

That allows the AirGo Vision to do things like translate text into different languages, provide directions to nearby locations or landmarks, and give the wearer more information about what they’re looking at. Solos says the glasses can also be integrated with other AI models like Google Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude, something the company previously teased when it announced the AirGo Vision in June.

Like the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, the AirGo Vision camera can capture photos on demand. A swappable frame system means that you can wear the glasses with or without the camera — the battery and touch sensors used to control the device are housed in the frame’s USB-C chargeable hinges, providing an audio-only option when paired with the standard, no-camera-included AirGo frames.

“One thing we promised to deliver on was allowing consumers to have control of their experience with AI and smart technology, particularly with privacy options in mind,” Solos co-founder Kenneth Fan said in the announcement. “That’s why we developed frames that can easily be changed to decide when and where a camera may be appropriate without sacrificing any of the fun features.”

Solos says the Vision comes “with the option to purchase the frame only for $149 or bundle a camera frame with a regular frame for enhanced privacy, priced at $349.” It’s available in seven colors and two frame styles: Krypton 1, which sports a large square design with prominent nose pads, and the slimmer Krypton 2.