Google and Samsung open pre-orders for Gemini intelligent eyewear

Pre-orders opened on 12 November for Intelligent Eyewear, a new line of glasses with Gemini built in, designed with Gentle Monster, Warby Parker and Samsung. Shahram Izadi, Google’s vice president and general manager of XR, said the frames are meant to give hands-free help on the go, including real-time directions, language translation and visual assistance, as well as photos, music and calendar help, with the phone left in a pocket. Warby Parker styles start at US$395. Gentle Monster’s collection starts at $449, and Samsung lists those frames up to $489 depending on the model. The glasses go on sale in stores and online on 10 December.

Available for pre-order now: Intelligent eyewear. Made in collaboration with Gentle Monster, Warby Parker, and Samsung, these frames have Gemini built right in for hands-free help on the go.

November 12, 2026

Both collections launch in the United States. Gentle Monster’s is also available in South Korea. Google says the eyewear can only be set up with a compatible Google account from those two countries, and that the account must be for someone 18 or older. The frames work with listed Pixel 7-series and later phones on a current Android 17 update, selected Galaxy models running One UI 9.0 or later, and, in Google’s listing, iPhone 13 Pro and later.

Samsung engineered the hardware around Qualcomm’s Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 platform. Official materials describe frames of about 41 grams, a 12-megapixel HDR camera, two open-ear speakers, four microphones, and a battery of up to nine hours, with a charging case that can recharge the frames up to seven times. Samsung puts total run time at up to 72 hours with a fully charged case. The Gentle Monster line has six designs in bold colours, 16 variations in all. Warby Parker offers three styles, Alden, Reid and Wren, in optical or sun options, for 14 variations. Together that is the 30 designs Samsung announced. Prescription lenses are available on most frames. In a hands-on for Engadget, Sam Rutherford wrote that this first run has no built-in display.

Google Intelligent Eyewear hands-on: Gemini, a camera and speakers on your face

November 12, 2026

Say “Hey Gemini” or tap the frames to ask about what you are looking at, add something to a grocery list, or check whether a poster clashes with your calendar. Google Maps can give turn-by-turn directions in your ear, and Google Translate is described as offering real-time speech translation with automatic language detection across more than 70 languages. A new Guided Vision mode is meant to give conversational audio descriptions to people who are blind or have low vision, or who want help reading small print or finding everyday items. Google is also working with Aira so that a wearer can ask Gemini to open Aira Explorer and stream the camera feed to a trained visual interpreter. At launch, Guided Vision and Aira are only available when the glasses are paired with a compatible Android phone. Google says Guided Vision is not a medical device or a replacement for a mobility aid, and that it is not intended for navigation or other safety-critical tasks.

Google published a separate privacy post alongside the pre-order. When the wearer takes a photo or video for the gallery, an outward-facing LED is designed to light up so people nearby can see that the camera is in use. Sensors are designed to stop photos or videos if that light is covered or tampered with. Samsung adds that the wearer also gets an inner light and a sound, and that the camera is designed to be disabled if the external LED is covered or is not working. Visuals sent to Gemini are not saved in Gemini History, Google says, and are not used to train AI models or to target ads. The glasses are designed to redact bystanders’ faces from those visuals before Gemini processes them, and to focus on the wearer’s voice with directional microphones. Data on the device and in transit is encrypted. App access to the camera and microphone is under the wearer’s control, and every pair has a physical off switch so the frames can be worn as ordinary glasses. Before setup, users must agree not to record others without permission, not to record in sensitive places, and not to cover the indicator light. Google also says Play policies for this eyewear prohibit apps from using the camera for social live-streaming or real-time facial identification, and from changing the behaviour of the outer light.

Those design claims arrive in a year of growing official scrutiny of camera glasses, much of it focused on Meta’s Ray-Ban models. In a 10 September review of the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer (Gen 1), Hamburg’s data protection authority said the outward LED was only visible to a limited extent, depending on distance, viewing angle and lighting, and that covering methods could circumvent the mechanism meant to stop recording if the light is blocked. It concluded that recording people outside a close circle of friends and family will generally not be permissible under data protection law, because informed consent cannot realistically be obtained, and that there will typically be no legal basis for Meta’s AI training. On 13 October the European Data Protection Board adopted a statement on smart glasses. Chair Anu Talus said the devices “look like ordinary glasses, but they include cameras and microphones” and that “individuals may be recorded without their knowledge,” and called for warnings that are “reliable, hard to ignore, and always up to date.”

In early November, UK safeguarding minister Satvir Kaur told the House of Commons the government was already “looking into options to restrict smart glasses in certain settings and restricting the sale to certain users,” after Liberal Democrat MP Anna Sabine raised reports of women being filmed without consent. A Meta spokesperson told the Guardian that the glasses “were built to be noticed,” that every pair with a camera has a bright light that blinks when a photo or video is taken, that the light cannot be turned off, and that the camera is disabled if someone covers or tampers with it. In France, the Paris public prosecutor’s office said in September it had opened investigations after complaints about women being filmed in the street without consent using smart glasses; prosecutors did not name the brands involved. The e-Enfance association, which runs a national hotline for online abuse, said most of about 20 reports it had received by early September involved Meta glasses, AFP reported. In the United States, Senators Ron Wyden, Jeff Merkley and Edward Markey wrote to Meta in March asking for answers about reported plans to add facial recognition to its smart glasses. Hamburg’s examination of the Wayfarer model found software tables whose names suggested facial recognition but contained no entries, and the authority said it could be assumed that, at least so far, no facial recognition was taking place.

Pre-orders are live online and in store at Gentle Monster and Warby Parker. Google says customers can book a guided demo at more than 360 Warby Parker stores in the United States, with hands-on demos also at select Gentle Monster and Google Store locations. Samsung says demonstrations will also be available at select Samsung retail locations from 10 December. More detail is at glasses.google.