Smart Glasses Without a Camera: A Billion-Dollar Startup Bets That Privacy Is the Advantage

While everyone races to put a camera on your face, one startup bets on the opposite. Even Realities has unveiled its G2 smart glasses - no camera, no speakers, just a display that shows you text in front of your eyes. The company has just become a "unicorn" with an estimated value of one billion dollars after a 150-million investment led by China's Meituan and Tencent. The bet is clear: productivity instead of filming everyone around you.

Technically, the glasses weigh just 35 grams, have a monochrome display with greenish text visible in any light, four microphones and a battery that lasts up to two days. They cost 599 dollars (about 555 euros). They handle scheduling, reminders, live translation between languages, step-by-step navigation and come with a built-in voice assistant. In a word - a small computer on your nose, but one that films no one. And that's exactly the point.

The difference from Meta and its Ray-Ban glasses with a camera isn't accidental - it's the whole story. When you wear glasses with a camera, everyone around you becomes a potential recording without being asked. Even Realities deliberately dropped the camera and says: privacy is a feature, not an oversight. In a world where every device wants to watch and listen to you, glasses that promise not to record you sound almost rebellious. The question is whether the buyer wants a work tool or a toy for content.

For the European user, this is more interesting than it looks. While EU regulators wrestle with glasses that record everything, a device without a camera sidesteps most of the privacy debate up front. Whether the market will reward restraint or demand more remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: not every technological advance has to mean more cameras. Sometimes the smartest move is to take it away.