Either someone at HTC has an interest in Roman history, or this is a massive coincidence. The former smartphone maker revealed its new Vive Eagle smart glasses, or, as the company calls them, “wearable AI glasses.”
For folks who haven’t read Julius Caesar’s campaign diaries or heard the plaintive cry of “Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!”, Vive in Latin translates roughly to ‘may he live!’, while the eagle was a noted bit of sacred iconography for the Roman legions. None of this explains what HTC intends with its new wearable tech, however.
Vive Eagle, vive aquilifer
According to the company, the new headwear combines “music playback, voice assistance, smart photography and videography, and photo-based translation into a fashionable frame,” producing what HTC’s senior vice president Charles Huang says is “more than just a pair of glasses – it’s a way to live life with greater freedom.” We don’t think we’d go quite that far, ourselves.
Examining the HTC Vive Eagle glasses with less hyperbole, the eyewear seems to slot into the segment somewhere ahead of Meta’s Ray-Ban partnership. Cameras, microphones, and speakers are combined in a 49-gram frame that allows for videos, translations (the supported languages are Arabic, Traditional Chinese, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Korean, Thai, and Turkish), phone calls, and music.
The latter “combines large acoustic drivers and virtual bass enhancement to deliver rich, spatial audio while minimizing sound leakage,” with the audio system also providing voice control for the Vive Eagle’s functions. The 12MP ultra-wide camera set in the frame alongside Zeiss Sun lenses responds, as do most of the eyewear’s functions, to the keywords “Hey, Vive”. Smart assistant integration includes OpenAI GPT and Google’s Gemini.
The Vive Eagle boasts 36 hours of standby, 4.5 hours of music playback, and magnetic fast-charging for the 235mAh battery.
Now for the tricky bit. HTC’s newest product is currently on pre-order, but only in Taiwan. It’ll set buyers back some R9,200 in the local currency, with shipping starting in September this year. It’s all very neat for something your phone can already do fairly well, but you’d look pretty goofy with a smartphone strapped across your nose.
