Xgimi, a Chinese company known for its all-in-one smart projectors, is expanding its portfolio with a new line of screen-mounted smart glasses for the first time at CES 2026. Unlike AR glasses from companies like Meta and Snap, Xgimi’s new privacy-focused MemoMind One skips cameras in favor of active lighting that helps hide its smart-working frame. After testing it for a week, I’m completely sold on the idea of having a screen floating in front of my eyes constantly feeding me useful information that no one else can see, but the MemoMind One isn’t quite delivering on my Tony Stark dreams just yet. There’s some unique functionality I can get from my smartwatch or phone, but I’ll need more to justify dropping a half-grand (or more) on another smart wearable.
Xgimi is launching a Kickstarter for the glasses today, and the company plans to start shipping them in late July. There are three styles to choose from, and while the full price will be $599, or $879 for prescription lenses, Kickstarter support discounts it to $399/$499. You can also customize the look of some of the styles in different colors, but that raises the price to $699/$879, down from $449/$499.
I tested the beta version with beta software and a buggy mobile app with no features. So while I can’t gauge what the final result will be like, after a week I was impressed with some aspects and frustrated with others.
Similar to the $800 Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, the MemoMind One uses a pair of micro-LED projectors and transparent (but visible) waveguide prisms in each lens to create a display that you can only see. While the Ray-Ban Display is full color, the MemoMind One’s screen is bright green. It reminds me of the Apple II computers I used in grade school, but it doesn’t feel like I’m using old technology because the experience of staring at a standalone screen hanging in the air still feels futuristic. You can adjust the distance, position, and brightness of the display, and while the bright green color helps it stand out and stay visible indoors, it was hard to see outside on a sunny day without looking at something dark in the background to create more contrast.
At about 47 grams, the MemoMind One is heavier than my reading glasses but still feels light and comfortable, even with large arm pieces that are equipped with batteries that are good for 16 hours of use, charging contacts, Harman Kardon speakers, and other electronics. Most of the people I wore didn’t know they had smart features – unless I listened to something. As much as I want to use the MemoMind One as an alternative to hearing aids, people around me could easily hear what was being played through their speakers even at very low volumes, including calls that were far from private.
Lifting your head or pressing one of the mirror buttons near the right hinge activates the MemoMind One’s home screen, which displays the time, battery level, date, and weather on the left with customizable information on the right. With the app you can choose up to four different categories such as stocks, news articles from predefined sources (you can’t add RSS feeds), upcoming calendar events synced to your phone, to-do lists, and notifications.
I was more than happy to use the MemoMind One as a smart way to look down at my Apple Watch to check notifications or quickly respond to text messages, but the glasses are not a smartwatch. Most notifications from your phone will appear on the glass screen with a condensed version of the message so you can get the gist of what they’re about. But there’s no way to read more than what’s in the short notice, and you can’t reply to messages or emails with glasses.
Pressing and holding the mirror button or saying “hello, Memo” lets you interact with MemoMind One’s AI assistant with voice commands while responses are displayed as text with the option to read them to yourself. Responses usually take about four or five seconds, and I found myself using Assistant more often than the current version of Siri on my watch. But I’ll admit I’m disappointed there’s no way to privately ask the AI assistant questions to make me seem smarter than I really am.
Double-pressing the mirror button brings up the Quick Launch section that can be customized by accessing three different functions. This can include a teleprompter that will display and scroll a script that matches your speaking cadence, captions generated on the fly while you watch something, and a voice recorder that shows a near real-time transcription of what the glasses are hearing while the mobile app can generate AI summaries.
As a Canadian living near Quebec with amazing French skills, I was eager to test out MemoMind One’s live translation feature. A Box Mode for back-and-forth dialogue is promised, but so far I’ve been able to test the Mirror’s Listening Mode, which produces a translated transcript on the display.
Speed and accuracy are good, but it depends a lot on how clearly the microphone of the glasses picks up the other person. Testing it with my wife speaking French across the room required her to raise her voice above normal volume while background noises like music playing were easily tripped up. Quick access to the feature is easy, but the translator cannot recognize the spoken language, so you must first open the mobile application and select which languages the tool translates.
I was similarly frustrated when I tried to use MemoMind One’s map feature. Glasses with displays that guide you to a place are a great idea, but you can’t ask AI to take you to your destination. You need to open the mobile app, and the feature is currently limited to walking and cycling directions.
Xgimi is heavily promoting the MemoMind One’s camera-less privacy feature, but an optional feature called Moments isn’t worth it. Mirrors constantly record everything and everyone around you to create an inaccurate snapshot of your day. It’s supposed to work as a sort of auto-generated journal that highlights important moments, but it gets a lot of details wrong and often confuses what you’ve done since it only relies on audio. Xgimi plans to charge $19.99/month for the premium feature, but the best upgrade is to keep sessions closed.
I have no doubt that glasses with screens will be a big part of our future, but I’m still not convinced that the features of the MemoMind One will make me want to wear them all day. Although they offer several very useful features, they feel very dependent on the mobile app. If I’m going to have trouble taking out my phone, I’ll just use it to complete the task at hand. But there’s some interesting potential here in a design that doesn’t look awkward to wear, and I’m eager to revisit the MemoMind One once Xgimi has finished and polished its software and features.
Photo by Andrew Liszewski / The Verge
