This AR Accessory Turns Your Dumb Glasses Into a Google Glass Ripoff

Smart glasses are kind of a big thing this year, and there are (last I checked) quite a few pairs out there for your consideration. But as many pairs of smart glasses as there are in the world, there are infinitely more regular glasses that are apparently just waiting to be smart. Or at least that’s the estimation of a company that makes one small, very Google Glass-like XR accessory.

The Guide01, a small glasses attachment out of Japan, is basically the e-bike conversion kit of smart glasses and allows you to attach a small heads-up display (HUD) to the arm of your old dumb glasses with the help of a mount. And with that tiny display, which notably makes your glasses look an awful lot like Google Glass, you can see pretty much everything you’d expect from another pair of HUD-style glasses, including turn-by-turn navigation, notifications like texts and emails, and readouts for weather and the date. There’s a small touchpad on the device for controlling UI, and it uses Bluetooth to connect to your phone, so you can also control it via a companion app. Naturally, there’s a microphone for voice controls, too, which is great for anyone who hates tapping around on a tiny touchpad.

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Why would you use a device like this as opposed to a pair of dedicated smart glasses, you ask? Well, most probably wouldn’t, but if you did, it’d probably be because of the weight. One of the major advantages of a solution like Guide01 is that it’s incredibly light—in this case, just 10g, which, for perspective, is a heck of a lot lighter than the Meta Ray-Ban Display’s 69g to 70g weight. Obviously, you have to add the weight of your glasses to that too, but even if your frames weigh three times as much as the Guide01, it still puts the overall total under Meta’s display smart glasses.

Despite being pretty small and lightweight, the Guide01 actually has some pretty impressive specs on paper. For one, the display is actually full-color OLED, not a monochrome green LED like some other lightweight glasses, including Even Realities’ recently released Even G2 or those made by Rokid. The resolution of the Guide01 is actually not bad either when you compare it to the Meta Ray-Ban Display. It’s 624 x 405 compared to the Meta Ray-Ban Display’s 600 x 600 resolution. It also has 1,200 nits of brightness, which is well below the Meta Ray-Ban Display’s 5,000 nits of max brightness, but should still be serviceable in direct sunlight.

Despite the better-than-you’d-expect display, there is one thing that feels like a glaring problem, though, and if you’ve used a pair of smart glasses, you probably already know what it is. I’m talking about the battery. The Guide01 apparently only gets 90 minutes on a single charge, which is woefully short. Fear not, though, the attachment comes with a wireless earbuds-like charging case that lets you top the accessory up on the fly… Clearly, this is not the solution if you’re looking for something with an all-day battery, but if you’re looking to use a HUD in small doses, it could work. Maybe? At least it allegedly charges in 10 minutes.

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While the Guide01 is a crowd-funded device (meaning you should approach it with caution), there are some prototypes floating in the real world, like the one at this XR conference in Japan above, so it seems the device is at least feasible and functional on paper. And in case you were wondering, yes, you can attach this to your old Ray-Ban Stories, apparently. The Guide01 costs 33,800 yen (about $218), but prices will rise as the crowdfunding progresses.