MentraOS – open-source Smart glasses OS

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.

META wants to be the Android of smart glasses because they know it will be the next dominate form factor when we have desirable devices (also why they are starting with less hardware but a form factor people feel comfortable wearing in public)

Android XR is coming out with Moohan next month, if Visor ever comes out, it is believed that will eventually by on AXR. Apple still seems hobbled since Jobs left

It is hard for me to swallow the promise of smart glasses and I was dev-ing for the original Google glass.

It's awkward, battery life is a pittance, the display can be useful but only in select cases. Controls are always an issue. LLMs won't actually fix that - voice control is not the answer.

Disagree with you there having used Rayban Metas for about six months.

Always-on access to an LLM via voice is a useful and novel way of interacting with computers.

From trivial things like asking it about a landmark I'm seeing or when I'm driving to tell me about some historical event (almost like an on tap podcast), to slightly more useful things like asking it to add stuff to my calendar/reminders when I'm biking home.

It certainly isn't a replacement for a more robust interface, but it is a very nice way of using a computer while I'm out and about and don't want to pull out my phone.

I would agree if I could use ChatGPT's advanced voice mode with them. It's purely a software/lock-in issue that I can't, but it means that I never wear my glasses, vs wearing them all the time.

They're so unobtrusive for chatting, that it would be amazing if we could get a capable LLM on the other side. Too bad we can't because corporations like walled gardens.