These privacy-focused smart glasses promise not to snoop on you and others

Despite the success of the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, a stigma hangs over the social media giant’s eyewear. Questions about privacy have been a common theme, not only for those around the user, but also for the user themself. If those concerns are the one thing keeping you away from this genre of wearable, you may be interested to learn about the new smart glasses from Vonder.

Founded by the co-founders of XR glasses brand Viture, Vonder is unveiling its debut collection of intelligent eyewear. According to the company, these smart glasses were designed first and foremost to be everyday glasses. As a result, they’re lightweight (under 30g) and made to the wearer’s prescription (from single vision and progressive to Transitions and gradient tint lenses). There are six frames to choose from and three different color options.

However, the more important selling point is that these smart glasses emphasize privacy. Vonder’s smart glasses do not include cameras, displays, or an always-on recorder. The company states that nothing is captured until the user chooses to capture something. Its wearable is designed to recognize and only record the user’s voice, discarding other voices on-device. And when the wearer wants to record a conversation, lecture, or meeting, they have to explicitly activate Meeting Mode (uses a physical toggle), which turns on a visible indicator.

Speaking of recording, these glasses won’t hang on to recorded audio. Vonder says the wearer’s words are converted into text and saved as memories, while the original audio is deleted. These memories can be accessed and reviewed in the Vonder app, deleted individually, or erased entirely. The company adds that all data is protected by financial-grade encryption and that no user data is sold.

As you can probably guess, this is an AI product. This device will use the VONDER Personal Memory Graph, which is described as a “living map shaped by the wearer’s own notes, conversations, and recurring context.” You’ll be able to use this AI to get personalized insights, recall information, search for past memories, take voice notes, handle music and calls hands-free, and more. However, you’ll also have a chance to pick from a list of big-name models like Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT.

Vonder’s smart glasses offer over 16 hours of battery life, are said to charge up to 80% in 25 minutes, and have an IP54 rating. Pre-orders will open up on September 28, 2026, at 9:00 AM ET. They’ll be available starting at $299 on Vonder’s website and Best Buy. Shipping is scheduled to begin on an unspecified date this November.