Halliday has released a second version of its smart glasses, and the biggest change is how they put information in front of your eyes. Instead of using a small screen that physically swings into view, the new glasses use a technology called a waveguide, which sends light through a thin layer built into the lens. The Verge published a hands-on review on July 21, 2026, and reported notable improvements over the first version shown at CES 2025.

The display is monochrome green, with a resolution of 600 by 300 pixels per eye and a maximum brightness of 1,600 nits. Four microphones pick up your voice. Halliday told The Verge the battery lasts about 12 hours of normal use. The glasses cost $599, not counting prescription lenses if you need them.

The glasses do not have a camera. Halliday said this was a deliberate choice for privacy and battery life, which separates the device from other smart glasses that do include cameras.

The software focuses on work and communication. A feature called Meeting Flow helps during meetings in three ways: Thread Tracker keeps track of the conversation, Decision Confirmation confirms what was agreed, and Commitment Check notes what people promised to do. The glasses can also create transcripts and summaries after a meeting ends. Real-time translation works in over 45 languages.

The glasses also handle captioning, phone calls, teleprompter displays, and notecards for public speakers. The idea is that someone giving a talk can glance at notes or a script in the display without looking down or breaking eye contact with the audience.

The switch from a moving screen to waveguide optics is the most important hardware change. The first-generation Halliday glasses used a small physical display that moved into your field of view. It worked, but the moving part added bulk and could break. A waveguide sends light through a thin layer inside the lens, so there are no moving parts and the display is always ready. This is the same type of technology used in more expensive augmented reality headsets, though the Gen 2 only shows green text and images, not full color. The brightness of 1,600 nits should make the display readable in most indoor settings and many outdoor ones, though how it holds up in direct sunlight is still an open question.

Leaving out the camera has real tradeoffs worth considering. On the privacy side, it removes the part of smart glasses that causes the most concern. Camera-equipped wearables have faced pushback and even bans in some places since the original Google Glass prototypes. A design without a camera avoids that problem and probably helps the battery last 12 hours, since cameras and the processing they require use a lot of power. The downside is that the glasses cannot do anything that requires seeing the world. Visual search, recognizing objects, and taking photos are not possible. The device relies on its four microphones to listen and its display to show information.

At $599, the glasses fall between cheaper audio-only smart glasses and more capable but pricier AR headsets. The meeting features and translation are what need to justify that price. Thread Tracker, Decision Confirmation, and Commitment Check are specific enough that they could appeal to people who spend a lot of their day in meetings and would find a discreet transcript and task tracker genuinely useful.

The broader context is that smart eyewear is still looking for the one thing that makes people want it. Many companies have tried over the past decade, and the challenge has always been balancing what the glasses can do, how long the battery lasts, whether people feel comfortable wearing them in public, and how much they cost. Halliday's Gen 2 makes clear choices on each point: waveguide optics for a thinner design, no camera for privacy and battery, green-only display for simplicity, and software built around meetings and translation. Whether those choices match what enough people actually want is something the market will answer.