No camera, no augmented reality, just your texts, reminders, captions and translations floating right in front of you. Here’s my honest take after a year with MIRA’s AI glasses.
Perfect for sending to someone who won't read a whole article.
I’m an early adopter. If a gadget promises to make tech fit into life a little better, I usually want to try it. But I’ve always been uneasy about smart glasses with cameras on them. Walking around with a camera on your face, pointed at everyone you talk to, feels a little creepy to me.
So when I found smart glasses with no camera at all, I bought a pair. I’ve been wearing MIRA glasses for about a year now, and here’s what living with them is really like.
Think of MIRA glasses as a visual version of earbuds. Like earbuds, they connect to your phone, handle calls, and keep things private. The difference is that instead of only hearing your alerts, you can see them: texts, reminders, captions and translations show up as little green words floating in front of your eyes.
Let’s set expectations, because “smart glasses” means a lot of different things right now.
They’re built sturdy and they’re light, about 39 grams. You can order them with your prescription, so they can be your everyday glasses.
The display sits straight ahead, slightly up. After a little practice, you learn to tilt your head so the text floats just above whatever you’re looking at. When something pops up, you just glance up a touch. That beats another pair of camera-free glasses I tried, which put a tiny screen in the upper corner. I was constantly looking up and to the side, it gave me a headache, and it looks awkward when you’re talking to someone.
Is it invisible to everyone else? Mostly. People can sometimes see a faint rectangle on the lens, and in a dark room they might catch a glimpse of green text. You may get a curious look or two. Nobody can tell what’s actually on there.
Notifications without picking up your phone. This alone is worth it to me. I can sit in a meeting and see a text or a reminder pop up without pulling out my phone or interrupting anyone. They also work as a hands-free headset for phone calls. All of that is included, with no subscription.
Private closed captions for real life. The microphones are sensitive and pick up speech well, and the words show up on the lens as people talk. For anyone who’s hard of hearing, this is a genuine breakthrough. Your own subtitles, for every conversation.
Live translation. MIRA says it understands more than 60 languages, and it shows the translation right on the lens. You can watch a foreign film with your own private subtitles. I’ve used it in restaurants when the staff were chatting in another language. Now I know what they’re saying, and maybe what not to order.
Make your own skills. I speak another language, but I don’t get to use it often, so I forget things like how to conjugate a verb. I set up a skill that listens to the conversation, and when I press the response button, it shows me a suggested reply in that language. It’s fast: if I pause like I’m thinking for just a moment, the suggestion is already there. (Like any AI, it can occasionally be wrong. Here’s why AI makes things up.)
Notes and memory. In a meeting, it can listen and give you a summary afterward. In the phone app, you can ask it to recap your day, take notes, or remind you what someone said earlier. Your home view on the glasses shows the time, battery, the local temperature, and whether listening is on. I don’t leave listening on all day, but some people do.
When I first got these, the features were pretty limited. Over the past year, the company has done a fantastic job of listening to customers and adding what we asked for. Messages, calendar, and caller ID now show up right in front of you.
My favorite example: early on, the developers didn’t want to add a wake word, and there was a lot of back and forth about it in the early adopter groups. They listened. Now you can say “Mira” and talk to it like an assistant.
And here’s the part that impresses the tech nerd in me: MIRA can connect to Claude, Anthropic’s AI. Say “Mira,” ask your question out loud, and it can pass it to Claude and show you the answer. That’s a remarkable amount of brainpower in your field of view, with no typing at all.
Battery life. MIRA lists 10 hours. My pair gets about four. A little more if I’m mostly using them for notifications, and sometimes less with heavy translation or note taking. They definitely won’t last all day for me. The good news: a full charge takes about 40 minutes. It still interrupts the flow.
The charger turns them back on. When the glasses are connected to your phone over Bluetooth, they take over your phone’s audio. That’s great when you’re wearing them. But plugging them in to charge turns them back on. So you set them on the charger, walk to another room, and your phone is still sending audio to glasses you’re not wearing. I’ve tried to use dictation or talk to someone on a call and they couldn’t hear me. I really wish charging didn’t power them up.
The ring is twitchy. MIRA sent me a control ring about six months after the glasses. It’s meant for swiping up and down and clicking, but it’s very sensitive. After recent updates, even moving my finger slightly moves things on the screen. For now, I’ve chosen not to wear it.
No camera is a big privacy win. MIRA also says audio is never recorded, stored, shared or sold, and that only text transcripts are kept. Still, these glasses are designed to listen. If you’re captioning or taking notes, it’s polite to let the people around you know. I keep listening off unless I need it.
I paid for mine myself, as an early adopter, at a lower price than today’s. As I write this, MIRA lists them at $649, or $749 with prescription lenses, with the control ring included. They work with iPhones (iOS 18 or newer) and ship in the US.
You don’t need a subscription. The core features are free, including notifications, calls, transcription, note taking and translation. There’s an optional AI plan, currently $20 a month, for unlimited AI assistant use. Without it, you still get a daily allowance of AI answers. Prices and plans change, so check MIRA’s site for the latest.
| Price | $649, or $749 with prescription lenses (from MIRA when I wrote this) |
|---|---|
| Display | A “waveguide,” which beams the picture into the lens itself so it looks like it’s floating in front of you |
| Camera | None |
| Microphones and speakers | Two of each, built into the arms |
| Weight | 39 grams, about the same as a regular pair of glasses |
| Battery | MIRA lists 10 hours. My pair gets about four. Charges in about 40 minutes. |
| Languages | 60+ for translation and captions |
| Works with | iPhone (iOS 18 or newer), iMessage, phone calls, Gmail, Google Calendar, Claude, ChatGPT and more |
| Weather | Splash resistant (IPX2). The ring is waterproof to 50 meters. |
| Colors | Black. Just black. |
I love these glasses. They aren’t trying to replace your eyes or film your life. They quietly put your notifications, captions and translations right where you’re already looking. The battery needs to get better, but based on how much this company has improved the first generation, I expect it will. A second generation is out now that I haven’t tried yet. Even so, I’d recommend them.
I bought these glasses with my own money, as an early adopter. MIRA didn’t pay me, didn’t see this review first, and nobody told me what to say. There are no affiliate links on this page.
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