Google is working with Gentle Monster and Warby Parker on smart glasses with Gemini AI, the company's plan to directly compete with Ray-Ban Meta.
EssilorLuxottica, Meta's partner which owns the Ray-Ban and Oakley brands, is the largest eyewear company in the world by far, and has almost 4000 stores in the US alone. Google reportedly wanted to steal the partnership, a move which Meta fought off by taking a 5% stake in the Franco-Italian company last year. Later this year the companies reportedly plan to launch Oakley Meta glasses.
Gentle Monster and Warby Parker are rising competitors to EssilorLuxottica. While far smaller in scale, they offer similar stylish designs. The US-based Warby Parker has over 270 physical stores in North America, while glasses from the South Korean Gentle Monster brand have become popular with younger people in the US and are worn by celebrities like Beyoncé, Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar, and Billie Eilish.
Google says it will also work with Kering Eyewear, one of EssilorLuxottica's main competitors, in the future.
Google is thus taking the same approach as Meta, partnering with existing stylish glasses brands to reach consumers with appealing smart glasses they'll actually want to wear in daily life - a drastically different approach to last decade's Google Glass.
The company says it's also working with Samsung to create "a software and reference hardware platform that will enable the ecosystem to make great glasses". It's unclear whether this means Samsung isn't yet making its own glasses, as The Information reported in October.
The HUD Is "Optional"
Google confirmed that all smart glasses using its platform will have a camera, microphones and speakers. But the company says that the in-lens display that enables the small monocular HUD it has been showing off will be "optional".
David Heaney
There's no word yet on whether the Gentle Monster and Warby Parker smart glasses will include the HUD, nor whether the future Kering Eyewear glasses will either.
