- Engo has unveiled the engo3 smart glasses with an AR heads-up display
- The smart glasses are designed to display vital statistics in your lens as if they were floating 10 feet in front of you, and they don’t capture content or play music
- The glasses are compatible with Apple and Garmin watches, among others
Engo has unveiled the engo3 smart glasses, a device designed to show you an augmented-reality image of your vital statistics during a run.
Using Engo’s ‘lightweight AR technology’, the engo3 specs use a custom interface to take data from smartphones and wearables – we’re not sure which exact models, but we know the list includes Apple and top Garmin watches – and display the data as if it were floating about 3 meters in front of you. Information displayed includes ‘heart rate, pace, cadence and more’ as well as cues for customized structured training programs such as interval training.
Although they share a similar exterior design to Meta’s Oakley Meta Vanguard specs, their functionalities are very, very different. The Vanguard glasses can take information from Garmin watches, but will either read it to you via the built-in speakers or overlay it on top of footage taken by the onboard camera. You never see it as a heads-up display.
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On the other hand, the engo3 glasses don’t have a built-in AI assistant and can’t play music, give you notifications, or capture content like the Vanguards do. They are solely about training guidance.
The Engo3 press release addressed this as a conscious choice, saying: ‘ENGO’s approach focuses on the following: optimizing weight, user experience and battery life. That means no camera, no sound, and no redundant features to add weight or distract the user.
“This choice is at odds with many smart glasses that offer a wealth of additional options, often a source of distraction.”
Engo3 offers up to 20 hours of battery life. They are available now and cost $399 USD / £299 (around AU$575).
When I first unboxed the Oakley Meta Vanguards, I told another runner friend about the Garmin integration. Initially excited at the prospect of seeing her stats in the glasses, I had to let her down and tell her that it’s only overlaid on the footage that Vanguards take.
Eschewing the other smart glasses frippery in favor of the Iron Man-style heads-up display, the Engo3 specs look a lot more like what people have in mind when they think of futuristic smart glasses. I am excited to try them.
We reviewed the Engo 2 smart glasses back in 2023 and found them smart but under-baked – we’re hoping now, in the age of smart glasses, that the technology has evolved and that the successor has succeeded where its predecessor couldn’t.
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