Brilliant Labs has launched their AI smart glass frame with a special AI virtual assistant—the world’s first wearable tech product featuring a multimodal AI
The most promising AI smart glass frame come from a brand you have never heard of.
No, this is not Meta or Xreal. The Frame by Brilliant Labs is touted as the world’s first glasses with an integrated multimodal AI assistant.
Singapore-based consumer electronics company Brilliant Labs is announcing the launch of Frame today, what the company calls the world’s first glasses with an integrated multimodal AI assistant. Suppose your definition of smart glasses includes placing visual overlays in your environment and seeing text floating as you wander about. In that case, the Frame—not the dozens of screen-mirroring glasses—is the one you’ve been waiting for.
Frame, much like the Humane AI Pin and Rabbit R1, lets you navigate and interact with the physical world through multimodal, generative AI agents. You can ask the always-on AI assistant, “Noa,” questions about what’s in front of you, how many calories you’re about to consume, or what’s written on that foreign signage, and it’ll find the most appropriate AI model to answer, from GPT-4V for visual-based queries, to Stable Diffusion model for image generation, to Perplexity AI for search.
AI smart glass frame: Search what you see
The Perplexity integration is arguably the most notable AI partnership of the Frame, with its search capabilities rivaling Google and being able to generate fast and reliable results. “On a more technical level, we’ve tried a lot of stuff, and there’s just no one as fast. Speed matters when you’re in that moment and only have a few seconds to know about something before moving to the next thing,” Bobak Tavangar, CEO of Brilliant Labs, tells me.
The form factor of the Frame is based on retro, “off-beat style” glasses, as Bobak calls it, that the late Steve Jobs, John Lennon, and Gandhi wore. “This (technology) is so new and unfamiliar, so we tried to reference something that looks familiar but at the same time has a lot of lineage to our shared pop culture.” Hidden within the lenses is a projector that can beam out text and images to roughly 20 degrees diagonal of field of view. It’s more than sufficient to display around the AI output use case and feels like an iPad Pro at arm’s length, I’m told. See below for a first look at the Frame glasses.
It’s difficult not to draw comparisons between the Frame and the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses; both wearables are purposed to put an AI assistant on your face, available at all times. But there’s one thing the Frame isn’t doing, and you may or may not like it: It won’t capture and store images and videos. There’s only one front-facing sensor on the Frame, and as soon as it captures what’s in front of you when answering visual-based questions, like “What would you recommend on this menu for vegans?”, the data gets discarded shortly after.
However, like the Meta Ray-Ban, the Frame is powered by your smartphone and operates on the cellular or Wi-Fi network that it’s connected to, meaning the AI wearable is not intended to replace your phone. That also means that the glasses will be just that, a fashion accessory and nothing more when you’re on the subway or in an area with very, very poor signal.
If there’s one thing that Bobak wants to leave readers with, it’s his belief in creating a device that’s open-source and hackable (in the better sense). “It’s essential for developers, hackers, artists, mad scientists to sink their teeth into this technology and really understand their implications, for all of us, collectively,” he tells me.
The Frame is available for preorder today and retails for $349, with shipments beginning in April. Brilliant Labs has also partnered with AddOptics to provide “precision bonded” prescription lenses for those who need them.
Reportedly, Frame glasses are backed by AR company Niantic Labs, which is known for Pokemon Go. The Frame glasses are currently available for preorders at $349. OpenAI and Perplexity AI also back the company. The high-tech pair of glasses will be shipped in April, and users may get free AI service with some limits on daily cap requests. Reportedly, the makers have plans to announce a paid AI plan at a later stage.
What are AI smart glass frame?
The glasses come in three shades – black, white, and transparent and they also work with prescription lenses. It features a micro OLED Panel for showcasing virtual reality. The nosepiece comes with a minute camera. On the other hand, the earpieces seem like coins, which are essentially just batteries.
Mister Power (left) is the pear-shaped charging device for Frame
The batteries on the Frame glasses offer all-day battery life. When it comes to charging, the glasses recharge using an orange device, Mister Power, that resembles the shape of the nose. The device comes with a USB-C cable.
These unique glasses from Brilliant Labs can translate languages and answer queries with the help of AI. Much similar to Humane AI’s AI Pin, the Frame Glasses can also tell you the amount of calories in a food item.
Former Apple executive Bobak Tavangar heads Brilliant Labs. In his statement, the CEO said, “Frame truly offers a new paradigm in the way humans interface with the digital world, and with each other.”
When it comes to the looks of Frame, the glasses draw inspiration from the spectacles once worn by legends Mahatma Gandhi, Steve Jobs, and John Lennon. It is stylish, lightweight, and mostly resembles the conventional round eyeglasses.
A new kind of AI assistant
Frame comes equipped with an always-on AI assistant known as Noa, which is similar to Jarvis from the “Iron Man” series. According to the company, Frame not only transforms our perception of the world but also redefines our interactions with physical environments. According to Tavangar, Noa is a new kind of AI virtual assistant as it empowers users to engage more with the world around them.
Noa reportedly adapts to the user’s interactions and evolves into a unique personality. The virtual assistant is capable of more than summarising pages and translating text into foreign languages. The device’s in-built multimodal generative AI allows it to manage multiple AI systems for fulfilling advanced tasks.
“Our hope is that Frame enables people to connect with each other in entirely new ways, and opens up new experiences in everyday life, the workplace, the classroom, and more. This is the unique promise of bringing generative AI in front of the human eye,” he said.
The AI glasses come with an integrated multimodal generative AI system that is capable of running GPT-4, Stability AI, and Whisper AI model all at the same time. Meanwhile, Noa works on real-world visual processing, real-time speech recognition and translation, and novel image generation. According to the company, Frame’s multimodality allows numerous AI models to collaborate, offering limitless possibilities in everyday life.
