5 Reasons Why Smart Glasses Will Make You Uncool

Back in 2015 we explained why the Apple Watch would make you the most uncool person in the world. A decade later the tech industry has moved the battlefield roughly eight inches north and now wants your face. Smart glasses are everywhere again, so once again we are here to perform a public service. Here are five perfectly valid reasons to think twice before strapping a computer to your head.

Everyone Thinks You’re Filming Them

You might just be checking the weather. Doesn’t matter. The moment that little lens glints, every person in the room recalibrates their opinion of you, and never upward. Nothing kills a conversation faster than the suspicion that it’s being uploaded somewhere.

The Head-Tilt of Shame

Smart glasses owners develop a signature move where they stare slowly upward into the middle distance while a menu only they can see refuses to load. It looks less like the future and more like someone trying to remember where they parked. In 1998 we called this “standing around,” and it was free. Early adopters have already given the move a name, “buffering,” which is the first honest piece of branding this product category has produced. We expect it on greeting cards by Christmas.

Talking to Your Eyebrows

Voice control means muttering commands to your own face in public. “Hey glasses, take a photo.” The Bluetooth-headset guys of 2007 walked so you could run. They were also universally considered menaces, which should tell you something, and at least their gadget had the decency to live on an ear.

Battery Life, or the Lack Thereof

Much like our old friend the smartwatch, smart glasses die at the exact moment you need them. Regular glasses have a battery life of forever. Hard to improve on forever, though the industry keeps billing us for the attempt.

You Will Walk Into Things

There is a rich and growing video genre of people watching a floating screen instead of the lamppost directly in front of them. Physics remains undefeated. Your shins will be entered into evidence.

Bonus Reason: The Subscription You Didn’t See Coming

Here’s the part the launch keynote glosses over. The glasses are merely the down payment. The good features live behind a monthly plan, the AI assistant needs a premium tier to remember your name, and the day the company pivots or sunsets the service, your fancy face computer becomes regular sunglasses with extra weight and a charging case. We’ve watched this movie before with smart home hubs, fitness bands and at least one $400 juicer. Regular glasses have never once asked us for a credit card, and we’d like to formally thank them for their service.

Will any of this stop smart glasses from taking over? Probably not, and in ten years we expect to be writing this exact article about neural implants. See you then. We’ll be the ones in regular prescription lenses, smugly hydrated and fully charged. Bring your chin. It has appointments to keep.