Smart glasses, Buggy vocal assistant

Intelligent glasses are an exciting idea at the moment. In theory, they are a new gadget that does a lot of things our phones do, but in a factor of form always. They can take photos, make calls, translate the menus and – if technology and investment get there – they could slap a screen directly on the eyeballs for notifications, navigation and perhaps even augmented reality with the Pokémon Go.

I say “in theory” because just because the smart glasses can Do all these things on paper does not mean that they can do them well, and if they cannot do them well … They can just as well do not do them at all. We are still in the first stages of the great rise of smart glasses as a category of devices, but not very courageous to do everything right now, and one of these rare (at least in the United States) is a company based in China called Rokid (ID Rock-ID pronounced).

See Rokid Lunes on Amazon

I was lucky to try Rokid, Rokid, Rokid glasses, and although there was many who intrigued me, I can say with certainty that the folds are always being developed. One thing that these intelligent glasses have this great participant of Meta and that its rays of rays have not is a screen. This screen is a very simple double microphone LED display which only shows things in a very Matrix-Style green. I was able to use the Rokid glasses for 15 minutes and I was surprised to see how lively the screen, even if the display functions were quite basic. And look, you can see the screen from the outside of the glasses. And it is good because the sharpness is crucial for some of the things that make the glasses Rokid unique.

One of these distinct capacities is a teleprote feature that displays a presentation before your eyes, so that you can read and not look like a total moron during your big keynote. One thing that I found very cool is the fact that the Rokid glasses really use the embedded microphone to listen to your words and scroll the prompter with the words. Even in a crowded part with a lot of noise, the functionality worked gently, which is not a small feat.

Another feature centered on the screen I have been able to try was the translation, which – although my conversation was quite brief – seemed to work better than you expect. My demonstration companion spoke to me in Mandarin Chinese, and the Rokid glasses were able to translate his speech into small extracts and slap them on the screen. Again, the microphone did it all in a noisy room, which was legitimately impressive. Rokid’s smart glasses microphones work so well that I am sure you could use them to spy – he picked up conversations through the room that I couldn’t even do with my own ears. Cool! Also scary!

To use all of these things, it is better to couple the Rokid glasses with an application (Android only) where everything you do is displayed. As sharp as the screen is, it is also quite small and the words are pushed when new information arrives at a fairly fast pace. If you need to see something, it is better to prepare the application, for fear of asking someone to repeat themselves several times. And in case you wonder, you can Control the screen from smart glasses by sliding the right arm and using a tap to select things like parameters, translation and other things, but it is not exactly the most fluid experience. This is why vocal assistants – for Rokid and any company making smart glasses at the moment – are also critical. It brings me to a place not so shiny.

The vocal assistant of the Rokid glasses, which is supposed to activate with the “hi, rokid” wake phrase, was essentially broken. No matter how many times I have shouted “Hi, Rokid” in smart glasses, that would not answer my calls. Others around me also had the same problem, which is not big from the point of view of the user interface. What is interesting is that when an indigenous mandarin language representative said the sentence, it seemed to work each time. English -speaking Americans, not so much. I thought it was perhaps the noisy and crowded room at first, but after noticing this strange quirk, I think it can be a problem with the way the voice assistant is formed. I cannot say it with certainty without testing the Rokid glasses more carefully, but it is certainly a concern for anyone buying a pair in the United States

Like Meta rays of rays, Rokid glasses can also use AI for computer vision tasks as ask your glasses to read a menu in a different tongue using the integrated camera. I could not launch this task myself, taking into account the above-mentioned voice assistant problems, but when a Rokid representative asked the smart glasses to translate a menu in Finnish, he did (at least I think) quite well, displaying the Finnish words translated into the Rokid application. Again, I should test this more in -depth feature in a better environment to check the translation separately and determine how really it works (or terribly).

As long as we talk about computer vision, I was pleasantly surprised by the camera, which is a 12 megapixel sensor from Sony. Just a sensor, not two, however. I would say that it is equal with the rays of meta, but I could not test the video recording in my demo. I would not try to use the Rokid glasses to win photo competitions, but again, I would not do that with any Pair of smart glasses.

I will not know as long as I do not reach Rokid glasses for a longer period, but I have the impression that they are smart glasses with a few peaks and valleys. The translation could be impressive, just like the vision of the computer, and they are incredibly light (as light as the shelves), but if there is no functional vocal assistant and ready for English to attach everything together, it would be a big problem for anyone in the United States that wants to buy a pair. This is not the best news for lovers of smart glasses in America, but I suppose that Mark Zuckerberg will welcome this open -ended bizarre.

See Rokid Lunes on Amazon