Thought HTC was dead? It just launched a surprisingly compelling Ray-Ban Meta rival
TL;DR HTC's Vive division has announced a new pair of smart glasses called Eagle.
These glasses come with a design similar to Ray-Ban Meta glasses but with better specifications and more colors.
Unfortunately, HTC is limiting sales to Taiwan, unlike other Vive headsets that also sell globally.
HTC has long given up on phones (except it hasn't completely and still sells entry-level phones in certain markets). But its Vive division has continued to work on AR, VR, and XR headsets. It was this perseverance that likely inspired Google to acquire parts of Vive earlier this year, including rights to use its intellectual property in XR. Fast forward to today, when HTC is announcing a new pair of smart glasses to rival Ray-Ban Meta glasses.
The HTC Vive Eagle is the first pair of smart glasses from the company, which has previously focused on consumer-grade and enterprise VR and XR headsets. These also come in a wayfarer shape similar to the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, but what sets the Vive Eagle apart is its translucent body and multiple color options, such as red, gray, black, and brown.
HTC Vive
Screenshot
Like the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, HTC's smart glasses come with a built-in camera on the left side of the frame so you can capture and flaunt your first-person view. On the right side, there is an LED that flashes to indicate that you're recording. You can engage one of the buttons on the temples to capture a 12MP photo or a video with a 1512 x 2016 resolution at 30fps. The other button is useful for invoking HTC's AI assistant, which derives its intelligence either from ChatGPT or Google Gemini. The buttons can also be used to capture sounds (using one of the four microphones) or images for context, and help you with the answers.
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The processed requests are either spoken into your ears, through the two Bose speakers placed in each of the temple arms, or displayed via the app on your phone. However, there is no screen in the lenses. HTC adds that the data is stored securely with encryption and anonymization and is not shared or used to train AI models.
The lenses on the front are made by Zeiss and come with a UV protection layer, so you can use the glasses even in the case of bright sun. The glasses are also have an IP54 rating, with a more promising dust-protection than the Ray-Ban Meta glasses. However, neither of these is truly water-resistant, and you should avoid using them closer to water.
Furthermore, the HTC Vive Eagle gets a 235mAh battery, about 50% bigger than the Ray-Ban Meta. HTC claims the glasses can last up to four and a half hours with continuous music playback through the speakers and up to 36 hours in standby. The glasses also support fast charging, with a claim of a 50% charge in just 10 minutes. Inside, we find a Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 chipset with 64GB of internal storage.
Even though HTC's smart glasses appear better in specifications compared to their counterparts from Meta, they are limited by availability. For now, HTC only plans to sell these glasses in Taiwan, where they are up for pre-orders for 15,600 New Taiwan dollars (~$520). HTC hasn't revealed plans to sell the glasses in other regions even though it sells other Vive-branded VR and XR headsets in the US.
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