AI Glasses Aim to Replace Smartphones as IFA 2026 Shows New Hardware Wave

At IFA 2026 in Berlin, running from September 4 to 8, the biggest draw for visitors isn't TVs or laptops, it's glasses. Manufacturers from China and Europe are showing off lightweight, everyday eyewear with built-in artificial intelligence designed to take over some smartphone functions: live conversation translation, navigation, work notes, and connections to ChatGPT or Gemini.

Glasses Instead of Phones

The idea is simple: instead of pulling out a phone to ask a voice assistant something, take a photo, or check a route, users talk to their glasses or look through the lenses. INMO and RayNeo are showing devices at IFA weighing between 33 and 60 grams, roughly the same as ordinary prescription glasses. That's a clear departure from earlier generations of AR headsets, which weighed several hundred grams and were suited mainly to short sessions.

The INMO GO3, a Chinese pair of glasses that won an IFA Innovation Award in the emerging-technology category, combines binocular Micro-LED displays with diffractive waveguides. It delivers a resolution of 640 by 480 pixels per eye, brightness up to 1,500 nits, and a 30-degree field of view. Its biggest selling point is live translation: subtitles appear directly in the user's field of view, the system supports 77 source languages and 98 target languages, and it can also translate text in photos and work offline in nine languages.

Work, Navigation, and ChatGPT Integration

The INMO GO3 isn't limited to travel and tourism. The manufacturer built an AI teleprompter into the glasses, along with meeting transcription, automatic summaries, and voice notes, plus integration with ChatGPT and Gemini as conversational engines. For walking and cycling navigation, the glasses rely on HERE maps, so the route appears directly in front of the user's eyes without needing to look at a phone screen.

The price is striking compared to the competition: on Kickstarter, the GO3 costs $499, with a planned retail price of $599. That's notably less than flagship mixed-reality headsets from the biggest manufacturers. INMO is also betting on swappable batteries instead of a single cell, meant to allow all-day use without recharging during the day.

RayNeo Bets on Entertainment

The second Chinese player, RayNeo, has leaned toward entertainment. The GT Max model, shown at the company's booth in Hall 21A, generates a virtual screen that can be scaled between 227, 267, and 307 inches with a 59-degree field of view. The display runs on RayNeo's Peacock 3.0 Max optical engine with Dolby Vision support, and the sound was tuned in collaboration with Bang & Olufsen. Despite the extensive electronics, the device weighs 78 grams.

Alongside the GT Max, RayNeo is also showing the iO model, geared more toward productivity and office work than watching movies. The company has effectively split its lineup into two tracks: an entertainment-focused one with a massive virtual screen for movies and games, and a work-focused one closer to what INMO offers.

What Else IFA Is Showing

The AI glasses trend isn't the only theme at this year's show, but it intersects with other launches. Meta and Cupra showed a joint project in which looking at a car through AI glasses automatically displays the vehicle's digital owner's manual. Chinese company Lokid, meanwhile, presented glasses with navigation and translation overlaid in real time on the street scene in front of the wearer.

Artificial intelligence has also found its way into hardware nobody expected. Dyson showed a toothbrush with a micro-camera recording at 28 frames per second, whose vision model was trained on roughly 500,000 images of teeth to precisely direct fluid streams into the gaps between them. Robot vacuum makers, such as the team behind the Nurovi series, are touting recognition of more than a hundred types of household dirt and real-time control of suction power and steam.

What It Means for the Market and Poland

For readers in Poland, the key question is when this kind of hardware will actually reach store shelves and how much it will cost once converted to zlotys with customs duties and VAT added. Starting prices around $500, or roughly 2,000 zlotys, put these glasses closer to mid-range smartphones than expensive VR headsets, which could speed up an initial wave of interest among tech enthusiasts, translators, and people working with foreign clients.

At the same time, a weight under 60 grams and a price under $600 suggest manufacturers are deliberately targeting everyday wear, not just brief demo sessions at trade shows. If live translation and integration with assistants like ChatGPT genuinely work outside show-floor conditions, AI glasses could become the first wearable device since the smartwatch to meaningfully take over everyday tasks from the phone, rather than just putting on an impressive stage demo.