Solos' smart glasses feature a detachable camera for privacy

Until now, anyone looking for smart glasses that combine an ambient AI voice with first-person visual recognition realistically had one option: Ray-Ban Metas.

Smart eyewear maker Solos is stepping up with a direct challenger: the AirGo Vision. The device brings multimodal AI to your face, but it tackles the biggest social friction point of smart wearables in an unexpected way.

Swapping cameras for peace of mind

The AirGo Vision mounts camera sensors on the side frames, allowing the onboard assistant to pull context from what you are looking at. According to Solos, you can ask it to identify people, objects, ongoing activities, and foreign text for translation, or simply trigger a snapshot hands-free.

That multimodal feature set matches what we have seen across AI wearables, but Solos added a hardware twist: removable side frames.

Thanks to a modular frame design, you can detach the camera-equipped arms and snap on a conventional pair of frames. When you step into a sensitive meeting, a gym, or a doctor's office, you can physically remove the camera rather than having to convince bystanders that you are not recording.

Hardware configurations include two frame silhouettes dubbed Krypton 1 and Krypton 2, seven color options, and prescription lens support. The glasses start at $299, with a bundle including both traditional and camera frames priced at $349.

Multi-model brains and an always-on mode

Instead of locking buyers into an in-house model like Meta does with Llama, Solos built the AirGo Vision around an open-architecture setup.

The hardware ships with ChatGPT handling hands-free voice interactions out of the box, with upcoming support planned for Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini. For users already committed to a specific model ecosystem, that flexibility avoids duplicate subscriptions and fragmented workflows.

Battery-wise, Solos claims the device can handle up to 2,500 AI interactions or photo captures on a single charge. It also features a new Always-On mode, which keeps onboard AI functions responsive even when the mobile companion app is shut down.

Why it matters

We think the most clever part of the AirGo Vision is not the multimodal vision, but the simple physical off switch.

Camera glasses face persistent social friction. Software toggles and tiny privacy LEDs have never fully convinced people nearby that they are not being recorded. Swapping to a dummy frame completely eliminates that ambiguity, giving users a way to keep audio assistance without looking like a surveillance liability.

It also highlights an alternative business model for AI hardware. Solos cannot afford to build frontier models from scratch, so acting as an open conduit for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini turns frontier AI labs from rivals into utility providers.

Whether that is enough to challenge Meta is another question. At $299 to $349, it sits right in Ray-Ban territory without the cultural cachet of Luxottica design, and modular joints always raise durability questions. Still, for professionals who want visual AI without getting kicked out of sensitive spaces, Solos just offered a very practical compromise.