Even G1 vs Omi in 2026

Even G1

The Even Realities G1 is minimalist display HUD smart glasses (44g, magnesium/titanium, looking like ordinary eyeglasses) with a monochrome green waveguide display and, deliberately, no camera, speakers, or audio. It does turn-by-turn navigation, teleprompter, real-time translation, notifications, and transcription well; its 'Even AI' is a thin cloud Q&A wrapper (Perplexity/ChatGPT), placing it at the veneer end of the AI-substance spectrum: the glasses are a good display device, the 'AI' is a light add-on. Pricing is $599 base, plus $150 for prescription lenses and $100 for a sun clip; about 1.5-day battery.

Omi

Omi, by Based Hardware (founder Nik Shevchenko, San Francisco), is a shipping AI necklace in the ambient-recording 'second brain' category: a small circular orb on a neck lanyard that captures conversations and runs them through GPT-4o for ambient transcription in 25+ languages, auto-summaries and tasks, a searchable memory database, daily recaps, and a 'Brain Map'. It sells for $89 as a consumer unit (about $70 dev) one-time, with a free tier (unlimited on-device transcription plus 1,200 cloud minutes a month) and an optional Omi Unlimited plan from $16 a month; the user owns the device.

It is one of the few genuinely open-hardware entries in the cohort: an MIT-licensed GitHub repo of about 12,700 stars with firmware, apps, and open hardware designs, maintained into 2026. The AI is genuine cloud functionality, not veneer. One significant cap-flag: the aspirational brain-interface and EEG 'reads-your-mind' marketing is not the shipping product, which is audio-only; the BCI module is roadmap with no code, and TechCrunch could not verify it. (Omi is distinct from Friend, Avi Schiffmann's pendant; Shevchenko's device was originally also named Friend and was renamed Omi.)