Vonder is making camera-free smart glasses that can differentiate between personal voice memos and conversations. I tried on some of the frames ahead of their November launch.

The multiple pairs of smart glasses prototypes I’m trying on are attractive, familiar and lightweight. They look normal, fit my face well and have no cameras. All they have on board is audio and microphone support. These Vonder smart glasses are all about listening to you as much as to others. And they can tell the difference.

Meta announced its own camera-free audio glasses this week, but Vonder, a company founded by execs from display glasses maker Viture, along with Guillaume Hamon, the chief brand officer, goes further. I met with Hamon and David Jiang, Viture’s CEO and co-founder, in New York a few weeks ago to learn about their new $299 to $399 glasses, which fit a wide range of eye prescriptions but also require a monthly paid AI subscription. 

Viture’s tethered wearables are more like wearable monitors in glasses form with augmented-reality bells and whistles. Vonder has no displays and leans on extended battery life and a unique approach to audio technology, using bone conduction in the glasses to help with privacy to filter personal voice memos versus recording external voices in a room.

The onboard array of microphones can listen in on conversations and summarize them using AI, which then appears in a phone app or a web app. But the glasses don’t keep any audio recordings. Apple is doing something similar on its Apple Watches and iPhones later this year via Siri Recap.

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