Tried the Solos AirGo V to See How They Compare with Meta Ray-Bans

The AirGo V, the newest entry in Solos line of smart glasses, leaves a lot to be desired in terms of camera quality, audio quality, and ease-of-use.

When Solos announced its AirGo V smart glasses a few weeks ago, they sounded like a viable alternative to Meta's ubiquitous Ray-Bans, but I've been testing these new glasses for a week or so, and Mark Zuckerberg can sleep tight: Like Meta's specs, the Solos specs offer a camera, AI assistant, and bluetooth speakers for $299, but they do almost everything worse than the competition.

Design: lightweight, modular glasses

The best thing about the Solos AirGo V line of glasses is the design. They're modular, so all the computer-y bits are contained within the stems. That means you can switch out the fronts to change styles while keeping the "smart" part of your glasses intact. Cool. (I find the Solos frame fronts boring, but that's a taste thing.)

The AirGo V frames are light too, approximately 42 grams depending on the style, compared to around 50 grams for Meta Ray-Bans. Eight grams doesn't sound like a lot, but when it's on your face all day, it matters.

Customizable AI assistant and other features

In keeping with the modular mood of the frame design, you won't be locked down to a proprietary AI agent with these glasses. You can customize the intelligence behind that little voice in your ear by choosing between ChatGPT 40-mini (Azure), Gpt-40-mini-(OpenAI), Claude 2, and Gemini 2.0 (flash).

They all work the same way: You hit a button on the side of your glasses, wait for an audio prompt, and say, "What's the capitol of Idaho?" or whatever. You can also ask them to describe what you're already looking at. I tried out different AIs, and they all seem to work similarly to me, but I'm sure some people have their favorites. A feature I did appreciate was being able to change the prompt, so my AI always answers me like a 1950s beatnik, or KITT from Knight Rider.

Actually using the AI is where things bog down. The company says their glasses make AI integration a "truly hands-free experience," but don't be fooled into thinking this means you can say "hey, glasses" and start talking, or that the AI is working independently from your phone. To start an interaction with the AI, you have to push a button on the glasses, and the app has to be running on your phone, because that's where the AI is really running. I'm pretty sure my hands were involved in both operations. Saying "Hey, Meta..." is dorky, sure, but it doesn't involve anything but your voice.

The same issue applies to the language translation feature of the AirGo V glasses. It's really all done in the app, so the person you're talking to has to hit a microphone button before they speak, then the AI translates it and reads it back to you. The difference with Meta's glasses is you can say, "Hey Meta, start a translation session" and it will automatically translate to you. It's a small difference, but an important one.

You know how smart tech products often come with features no one ever uses? There are a few of them here, like a posture-checker that nags you for not sitting up straight and a thing that reminds you to drink water. Thanks?

Camera quality: Subpar

The "killer app" that convinced me to adopt a pair of Meta Ray-Bans as my everyday specs was the built-in camera: Being able to instantly take a snapshot, even while riding a bike or driving a car, has become a must for me. You cannot do this with the AirGo V glasses. For reasons unknown, to capture a photo with the built-in camera on these glasses, you must follow these steps:

1. Open the Solos app on your phone

2. Press the button on the side of your glasses

3. Say, "take a picture" to your AI assistant

4. Wait about three full seconds for the AI to actually take the picture

5. Get mad because that neat-looking bird already flew away.

I don't know why they didn't go with "hit a button on the side of your glasses to take a picture" at the very least, but even if they had, the pictures are not great. The Solos Camera is 5 megapixels at a resolution of 2592 X1944, compared to 12 megapixels at a 3024 x 4032 for the Meta Ray-Bans (not to mention 48 megapixels on an iPhone 16). Below are straight-from-the-cameras side-by-side photos of my neighbor Eddie's car taken at the same time with the AirGo V and Ray-Ban Metas, to give you an idea of the quality difference.

If you're wondering how to take a video with AirGos glasses, you can't. It doesn't do video.

Sound quality: Suitable for phone calls only

Solos makes a big deal about the "Whisper technology" noise canceling capabilities of their glasses, saying it employs "advanced techniques such as beamforming, NLMS, VAD, and wiener filter" to "reduces ambient noise by 100dB." I'm dubious—a running chainsaw is 100db—but in an ad-hoc home test, the AirGo V performed marginally better than the Meta Ray-Bans at "hearing a conversation in a loud place." In all other ways, though, the audio on these smart glasses is abysmal, wiener filter or no.

I'm no fidelity snob, and I understand the audio limitations of speakers-in-eyeglasses, but music coming through these glasses just sounds so shrill and tinny, it's unlistenable. So you can play music, podcasts, or audiobooks from Spotify, Apple Music and other streaming services on your glasses, but you won't. It's so bad, I did a blind test with some family members between AirGo V audio and these semi-disposable WeariQ “smart audio glasses” that retail for $29.88 at Wal-Mart. The unanimous choice? The Wal-Mart specials.

Battery life and charging

The AirGo V's modular design lets you charge the glasses straight from USB-C, or use a magnetic charger that clamps onto the side of one of the arms. They charge fairly quickly with no issues, but the company claims 10 hours of music streaming on a single charge, and I was only able to stream between six and seven hours of Hawkwind before it ran out of gas. (Not that you'd be able to stand listening to music on these godawful speakers for more than a few minutes anyway.)

The charge life, claim of hands-free operation, and wild noise-reduction promises add up to a product that feels like half a scam: seemingly cool, but unable to deliver on the promises it makes.

If these were the first AI-powered smart glasses to hit the market, they'd be cool but annoying, like a lot of first stabs. But smart glasses have been around for years. Unless you're totally married to the (fairly generic) look or modular design of the Solos AirGo V, you really shouldn't buy them. They're just not very good as smart glasses go.