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MentraOS – open-source Smart glasses OS

(github.com)
206 points arbayi | 1 comments | 05 Sep 25 16:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.205s | source
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cco ◴[05 Sep 25 19:13 UTC] No.45142454[source]▶
Here's the deal, you don't need any of this.

I have Rayban Metas and the hardware is great...but the software borders on being unhelpful. If they merely served a dumb camera and bluetooth headset to my phone they'd be an unbelievably good product.

Meta won't do this because they want to capture _everything_ going on, but I don't want to chat with Meta's AI, it is very bad, I want to chat with Gemini or ChatGPT and I can do so with their glasses but I must initiate that on my phone (Meta won't give you wakewords for OpenAI/Google of course).

So my suggestion here would be don't? There is no need for an app store or anything like that, just the thinest software layer you need to make the sunglass hardware work as a dumb bluetooth headset and remote camera for the user's phone.

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caydenpiercehax ◴[06 Sep 25 04:36 UTC] No.45146648[source]▶
That sounds nice but there's problems in reality.

How do the glasses serve as a "dumb camera to your phone"? What protocol do they use to do this? It doesn't exist. It's something that must be solved at the OS layer.

What if you want to use multiple apps? Are you going to spend 2 minutes each time disconnecting Bluetooth from one phone app, connecting to another, and then using it? No, you need to runtime that lets multiple apps access the sensors as needed.

Do you want to make an app that accesses the microphone? If you want to have translation app running at the same time that you're taking notes, then again you need some way to allow multiple apps to run at once.

MentraOS solves those problems.

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1. 1dom ◴[06 Sep 25 10:24 UTC] No.45148095[source]▶
"How do the glasses serve as a dumb camera to the phone": just like a USB camera. USB protocol, or USBIP. "yeah, but what OS" - what OS does a USB webcam need to be a USB webcam? That OS.

"What if you want to use multiple apps?" for a headset that's a window to a phone, you see the phone screen, the phone handles multitasking. Want to switch between apps? Then switch between apps on your phone, and you see the result.

"Do you want to make an app that accesses the microphone?" again, the phone does it. What OS do my bluetooth earphones run to be accessible from my phone?

I agree with what the person you're responding to wants: just an screen/audio interface with my phone. MentraOS is obviously not* aiming to be that, otherwise it wouldn't have any apps at all, especially not things like a "notes" app or any other app I already have on my phone.

The issue is as soon as you start trying to build an app ecosystem, you inevitably create the sort of opportunities business loves to exploit, and then all of a sudden I've got another layer for big tech to try extract stuff from me, when all I wanted was to be able to see my phone screen without having my phone directly in front of me - as someone who uses apps rather than develops them, I don't need another app store or more apps!

*Edit: having read some of their work culture, and the people involved, this isn't a project that's intended to be owned by humans, this is going to become the worst kind of big tech, or nothing.