Thirty pairs of glasses, and not one of them looks like a gadget. Samsung built the platform with Google, then handed the part people actually see to two eyewear houses with opposite instincts, Gentle Monster in Seoul and Warby Parker in New York. Each one got to design like itself, and the tech stays tucked into the temples.
Pre-orders opened today, and both collections reach stores on December 10, with Gentle Monster also launching in South Korea. Prices start at $395 at Warby Parker and run $449 to $489 at Gentle Monster.
Both houses keep their own doors in the deal: Gentle Monster sells through its own online store and Warby Parker through its shops and site, while Samsung’s stores add hands-on demos once the glasses land. Nobody’s borrowing a storefront.
Gentle Monster goes sculptural
Gentle Monster treats eyewear like sculpture, and its 16 variations across six frame styles keep that habit intact. The shapes run square, round, cat-eye and oval, all cut in polyamide. Frames come in black, dark red, gray, pink and yellow, with tinted, clear, blue or brown lenses depending on the style. The frames you’d pick off the brand’s own wall are the frames you get, electronics and all.
Gentle Monster’s own store takes the first pre-order batch from November 12 to 15.
The square and round fronts read like optical staples, while the oval and cat-eye lean fashion-forward. The whole range looks like a normal Gentle Monster drop until you spot the camera dot at the hinge. That’s the only tell.
Six frame styles, 16 variations · First pre-order batch, November 12 to 15
From $449
Warby Parker keeps it classic
Warby Parker went the other way. Its 14 variations sit on three styles drawn from the brand’s best-known silhouettes, Alden, Reid and Wren, each in optical and sun versions with a range of widths and prescription options. The colors stay in the brand’s register too: Pine, Saddle and Jet Black.
The material is where the design shows. Each frame is lightweight, flexible nylon, and the inner temple gets a semi-transparent finish that lets you see the hardware inside instead of hiding it. Custom clip-on sun lenses made for the collection turn an optical pair into sunglasses.
Deliveries start in mid-December, and if you wear Warby Parker already, nothing about the shopping changes. Same store, same try-on wall, smarter temples.
Alden, Reid and Wren frames · Optical and sun versions · Deliveries from mid-December
From $395
A camera, four microphones, and no screen
Under every front sits the same kit. A Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 chip runs the glasses and hands part of the processing to the phone in your pocket. Google’s Gemini is built in for questions, translation and visual answers, with Bixby on Galaxy phones only. The 12MP camera, two open-ear speakers and four microphones all fit inside the frame.
The frames weigh 39.6 to 43.9 grams at Gentle Monster and 40.4 to 42.6 grams at Warby Parker before prescription lenses, light enough that the weight stops being the conversation. Battery life runs up to nine hours, and the case adds up to seven full charges.
The pairing list is wider than the Galaxy badge suggests: recent Galaxy phones on One UI 9, Pixel 7 and newer on the September 2026 Android 17 update, and iPhone 13 Pro and up. Control runs on taps and voice, plus wrist gestures from a Galaxy Watch9. Nothing dangles and nothing clips on.
Privacy gets a light of its own
Every pair carries a recording LED on the front, while the wearer gets an inner light and a sound when capture starts. Cover that LED, or let it fail, and the camera is designed to stop capturing.
Faces get handled before answers do. When you ask Gemini about something in front of you, the glasses redact bystanders’ faces before it responds, and Samsung says those visuals never feed AI training or ad targeting. Activation also requires age verification for users 18 and over.
The open-ear speakers aim the sound at you and keep it there, tuned to leak as little as possible to the person on the next stool.
Smart glasses usually ask you to forgive the hardware for the software’s sake. These flip the order. You’d choose between Wren and an oval Gentle Monster front the way you’d choose any frames, by face and by mood, and the camera rides along almost as an afterthought.
I’d start with Warby Parker at $395 if you want glasses that pass for everyday optical frames. Pick Gentle Monster from $449 if the frame itself is the statement.