In the week when Vision Pro captivates gadget fans worldwide, a bold company is aiming to make a name for their augmented reality device with a very different form factor.
Brilliant Labs, located in Singapore, launched Frame, a set of lightweight AR glasses with a multimodal AI assistant named Noa, today. Niantic CEO John Hanke, who created Pokémon GO, invested in the glasses. Brilliant Labs did not reveal Hanke’s financing.
Due to its AI models, Noa can process voice commands, generate images, and translate. Its AI models include conversational search engine Perplexity AI, Stability AI’s text-to-image model Stable Diffusion, OpenAI’s latest text-generation model GPT4, and Whisper. Frame lenses show films and photographs at 640 x 400.
With these characteristics, a mallgoer may ask Noa to check Frame’s online pricing for shoes they like.
“The future of human/AI interaction will come to life in innovative wearables and new devices, and I’m so excited to be bringing Perplexity’s real-time answer engine to Brilliant Labs’ Frame,” said CEO and creator Aravind Srinivas.
The issue is whether Frame will respond sufficiently for its AI-generated replies to assist. Today, Brilliant Labs’ Bluetooth-enabled gadgets use smartphones to access AI models. Eventually, the creators plan to put lightweight machine-learning models directly into glasses instead of the phone host.
Frame followed Brilliant Labs’ inaugural product, Monocle, a single-lens AR device that won over the open source hardware community with its programmability and affordability. Stanford students created a dating assistant that gave real-time advice on what to say on a date.
Like its predecessor, Frame will be open source, giving developers access to live documentation, software, and hardware schematics. Their Noa-supported AI model parameters may also be adjusted.
The frame is daily-wearable and has prescription lenses, unlike the bulky Vision Pro. The spectacles weigh 39 grams and have thick nylon plastic spherical frames. The business calls them “homage to the groundbreaking innovations and ideas introduced by figures of history including John Lennon, Steve Jobs, and Gandhi.”
Frames will cost $349, like Monocle, and be preordered today. April will see gadget shipping.
Famous angel investors have supported Brilliant Labs since its 2019 founding. In June, we revealed its $3 million investment from Brendan Iribe, co-creator of Oculus; Adam Cheyer, Siri co-founder; Eric Migicovsky, Pebble founder and former Y Combinator partner; and others. Hanke’s investment raises the firm’s total funding to $6 million.
