Smart glasses without cameras find a niche in Canberra’s tech scene

Canberra workers are starting to ditch the second monitor for a pair of glasses that show notifications, calendars and code without ever pulling out a phone. The device in question is the G1 smart glasses from Even Realities, a Chinese startup that shipped its first units in late 2025. Unlike Meta’s Ray-Ban Stories or the rumored Apple headset, the G1 has no camera, a design choice that is quietly resonating in a city where privacy concerns often collide with tech optimism.

Productivity over recording

The G1 looks like thick-rimmed prescription eyewear. A small projector in the right temple bounces monochrome text onto a lens waveguide. Users see a floating display of emails, calendar appointments, turn-by-turn directions or code snippets, all without blocking their view of the real world. The lack of a camera means nobody worries about being secretly recorded. For Canberra’s government-adjacent tech workers and remote contractors, that distinction matters. It is the difference between a wearable that feels like a tool and one that feels like a surveillance device.

Even Realities calls the approach “productivity beats recording everyone.” The G1 connects to a smartphone via Bluetooth and runs for about seven hours on a charge. It has a touchpad on the temple and responds to voice commands. The company says it will not add a camera to future models, betting that professionals want heads-up data without the social friction of a recording device.

In Canberra, use cases are emerging in co-working spaces and university labs. Developers at the Canberra Innovation Network on Barry Drive have been spotted wearing the glasses during sprint meetings. They read Slack messages and Jira task updates without looking at their phones. One early adopter told colleagues the glasses helped him keep eye contact during client calls while still checking his calendar. The device costs $850 in Australia, including prescription lenses, roughly the price of a mid-range monitor.

Local adoption and what comes next

No official sales figures are available for the ACT. But local optometrists, including OPSM at the Canberra Centre, report a handful of inquiries about lens fitting for the G1 frames. Even Realities ships directly to customers and offers an online fitting tool, but some buyers prefer an in-person adjustment. A few independent eyewear stores in Braddon say they are evaluating whether to stock the frames as an option alongside regular glasses.

For now, the technology remains niche. The display is monochrome and low-resolution compared to a smartphone screen. The battery life, while workable for a day of intermittent use, requires charging overnight. And the $850 price tag puts it out of reach for casual buyers. But for the segment of Canberra’s workforce that spends hours a day in front of screens, developers, project managers, policy analysts, the trade-off is starting to look reasonable.

Even Realities expects to release a software update in late 2026 that adds live translation and a docking mode for laptop pairing. If those features land as promised, the glasses could shift from curiosity to daily driver for a growing number of local tech workers. For now, they are a glimpse of a future where the screen lives on your face, not in your pocket, and no one has to worry about being recorded.