The moment Google’s new smart glasses started to make sense to me, I was talking to a woman I’ve never met before about what she likes to eat in Shenzhen.

She was speaking Mandarin, and I was speaking English. We were having the kind of conversation I’d want to have with someone I’m getting to know: What’s your hometown like? What traditional food should I try? And where in New York might I be able to get a taste of it?

I’ve used live translation on smart glasses (and phones, and earbuds in the past.) But this conversation, part of a demonstration of Google’s new collection of Intelligent Eyewear, felt the most inherently natural. After just a handful of exchanges, both the language barrier and the hardware helping me cross it felt nearly invisible.

That’s a promising start for a product that needs to work hard to give people a compelling reason to wear a camera and AI assistant on their face. Google’s bet combines Gemini’s ability to understand what you’re looking at, connections to the apps you already use and, through Gentle Monster’s and Warby Parker’s fashion footprints, glasses you might actually want to wear.

To that last point, looking good certainly helps. But at a time when people are understandably anxious about how camera glasses could be misused, making them look more ordinary also raises questions about how easily everyone else can recognize them.

After trying Google’s smart glasses (not to be confused with Google Glass) for a few hours, here’s what impressed me, and where I still have questions.

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