This is definitely not the smart glasses operating system to converge on.
If there's anything worthwhile in it I'd advise interested people in forking it, and turning it into an actually open open-source operating system.
https://docs.mentra.glass/ubuntu-deployment
https://docs.mentra.glass/railway-deployment
In your opinion, what do you think should change to make this an "actual" open source OS?
It's not that the OS is not open source, it's that it seems a privacy nightmare; the fact that the app also runs on the developers' servers just adds to the amount of parties you need to trust. That you and the people around you need to trust, actually.
And the company has strong connections to China, by the way.
The system is also not very open, if the users are forced to use your store.
It seems unlikely that there's much to be salvaged, given that you're using AOSP as the actual operating system.
This is enabled by relay servers. You can use Mentra's relay server, or host your own.
This is the architecture that we use and recommend so multiple apps can run at once and access powerful AI, while saving your phones battery. If you need to run offline or on the edge, we're working on the Mentra Edge SDK so you can skip the cloud, but it has downsides - only 1 app at a time.
Remember, every app on your phone is communicating with its own backend - which you have to trust. This isn't different.
Users aren't forced to use the store. You can self host a relay server, self host a store, etc.
I get the trade off. Glasses may some not simply have enough space for hardware. I briefly debated attaching a relay ( some of the processing for what I had in mind could be done with a simple raspberry ).
https://github.com/Mentra-Community/MentraOS/tree/main/cloud
I don't really see why you'd need a cloud for multiple apps to access "context" at the same time (or to be able to run more than one).
Being able to run apps on the cloud is nice, for the ones that are too heavy for the device, but I don't see why it would have to be a requirement.
You'll also have unnecessary lag in some situations, where a simple local app would be enough, and you'll be unable to do anything without an internet connection.
> This is enabled by relay servers. You can use Mentra's relay server, or host your own.
> This is the architecture that we use and recommend so multiple apps can run at once and access powerful AI, while saving your phones battery. If you need to run offline or on the edge, we're working on the Mentra Edge SDK so you can skip the cloud, but it has downsides - only 1 app at a time.
You're able to run AOSP on those devices, I don't see why you couldn't run several lightweight apps at the same time; if you mention the sdk, besides, I imagine that only apps that explicitly add support to run locally will be able to do so.
And, for lightweight software a constant data exchange will easily consume more battery than running everything locally.
> Remember, every app on your phone is communicating with its own backend - which you have to trust. This isn't different.
Every app on my phone?? You've never heard of local, offline apps?
And exchanging some data with a server is not the same as running entirely remotely, which necessarily requires transmitting all the data the app uses.
it's wild that you think that a "cloud app" has no privacy downsides compared to normal software.
> Users aren't forced to use the store. You can self host a relay server, self host a store, etc.
That's good.
But for yours, default store (that would likely become the dominant one, if your system were successful) you decided to require an account, reducing privacy further.