INMO Air3 Smart Glasses Recalled for Overheating Risk
INMO International Technology Limited has recalled its Air3 smart glasses because the left temple can overheat during extended use, posing a risk of serious injury or death from burn hazard. The action covers more than 1,600 units sold in the United States and Canada, according to reporting published Sept. 24, 2026. The Verge
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission lists the remedy for the recall as Repair. CPSC
Ten users reported a burning sensation to the face and left side of the ear while wearing the glasses. The affected units were sold between December 2025 and August 2026 through Inmo's website, Amazon, and a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. Prices ranged from $900 to $1,300. Owners can identify the recalled hardware by black frames and a label on the right temple printed with Air3 and Inmo.
INMO has instructed consumers to stop using the Air3 glasses immediately and is offering a free online software update as the remedy, available through its support team by phone or email. The company also included a protective sleeve with the glasses intended to shield the user's head from excessive heat while wearing them.
The broader context here is common in head-worn computers. Glasses pack processors, radios, displays, and batteries into thin temples with little room to spread heat and almost no airflow, while warm surfaces press against sensitive skin at the temple and ear. Ten reports is a small number, but it carries weight for a run of 1,600 skin-contact devices. Longer sessions build up stored heat, so power management, duty cycling, or briefly pausing parts to cool, and thermal throttling, or automatically slowing chips to limit heat, work as safety controls as well as performance controls.
In my view, the choice of an online software update as the corrective action is the detail practitioners should weigh most carefully. A software change can reduce sustained power use and cap skin-contact temperature without a physical return, which keeps logistics simple for a small, geographically dispersed installed base sold partly through crowdfunding. The trade is straightforward. The form factor stays the same and no hardware exchange is needed, but sustained performance will likely stay inside a tighter heat limit.
Worth flagging for enterprise buyers and developers is the operational lesson. A fleet of 1,600 units is easy to patch. Trust is harder to patch. For assisted-reality uses that require long wear times, procurement and safety review will look closely at how heat limits are tested, how over-temperature events are detected and logged on device, and how quickly users can be reached when a limit must change. Over-the-air distribution helps with that last problem, provided enrollment and update compliance are high.
What this enables, if handled well, is still encouraging. Lightweight, all-day-capable glasses remain a practical interface for contextual information and hands-free workflows. Getting thermal design and field update discipline right early makes longer sessions and broader deployment possible.
