San Francisco-based smart glasses company Halliday just dropped a ton of details about its Gen 2 smart glasses, a set of waveguide display spectacles that project an AI-powered overlay into users’ field of view. The glasses are expected to ship in September. They retail for $599, and they’re available for pre-order now.

Unlike Meta’s Ray-Ban and Oakley glasses, the Halliday G2 glasses have no camera—the selling point is their monochrome display, which overlays a field of green text onto your field of view—think of it more like a personal video game-style heads-up display than a video player.

If you’re worried about being called out for wearing smart glasses in public, this pair is stealthy, and even fairly fashionable. But fashion isn’t the point either; the focus is on practicality and productivity. “We’re not building a tool for entertainment,” Halliday’s COO and co-founder Carter Hou told me. “It’s a tool to help our users improve the efficiency of their work life and their life-life.”

Halliday G2 glasses are designed for productivity

Credit: Halliday

While these glasses come with translation software and other expected utilities, the main selling point is “Meeting Flow,” an app that provides real-time AI assistance for work meetings. Switch the app on before your 2:30 staff meeting, Halliday promises, and the glasses will monitor the conversation, provide helpful tips, and keep a transcription of what’s being said. You’ll also be able to automatically “rewind” 30 seconds, so if you miss something that was said, you can instantly catch yourself up—which is great if you tend to zone out.

Another feature Halliday is touting: quick research. With a tap, you’ll be able to ask the AI to go over the last few minutes of the meeting, determine if there are any open questions, and provide answers on the fly, without you having to glance down at your phone. Other features aim to use AI tools to help keep your meetings on topic and note when important talking points don’t get covered in the meeting.

“Meetings are only the beginning,” Hou mused. “In the future we can make interviews more efficient, networking sessions easier, and more. We can take it out of the workspace, like to your next doctor visit, so you can ask your doctor the right questions and know exactly the definitions of any words they use.”

Hou sees a future where AI agents embedded in your glasses can listen to all your interactions, determine their purpose, and help you figure out what to do next—so if you happen to be stopped by a cop on the drive home from your productive meeting, it could provide a roadmap of how to best navigate the encounter.

How the Halliday G2 glasses fit into the smart glasses market

Halliday’s G2 glasses seem to slot into the same category as the Even Realities G2 glasses—they even have the same name. Both pairs of glasses have a monochrome display that uses waveguide technology, and they’re both designed for productivity and everyday use. In my opinion, the Even Realities G2 glasses’ signature “Conversate” app sounds a lot like “Meeting Flow,” but Halliday is trying to take the concept further. If it works as intended, the company could be giving Even Realities some serious competition in the display-style glasses niche. (Halliday’s G2s also feature built-in speakers, while Even Realities’ glasses are silent.)

On the negative side, Even Realities G2 glasses feature an app store with a slew of third-party apps for everything from bird watching to reading the Bible. At launch, Halliday G2 glasses will only support the apps that come pre-loaded.

Halliday Gen 2 specs

• Battery life: 12 hours of normal use

• Weight: 49g

• Audio: Onboard speakers

• Display: Monochrome, binocular waveguide display

• Brightness: Up to 1600 Nits

• Resolution: 600×300 per eye