Solos AirGo 3 Smart Glasses review: Hands-free ChatGPT

Solos’ AirGo 3s truly put the “smart” in smart glasses with ChatGPT-backed AI assistance deeply integrated into these stylish and lightweight frames. If you’re a regular glasses wearer then you’ll be receiving a huge upgrade over your traditional frames with these smart tech infused specs featuring hands-free interaction with your smartphone, ChatGPT access through a single touch of the temples, real-time language translation, and impressive media playback through surprisingly decent frame-housed speakers.

After testing the Solos AirGo 3 Smart Glasses for over a month, I’ve come to find them invaluable, and a genuine step forward for face-worn frames. But just how have these smart glasses won me over so heavily? Let’s dive in and find out.

Solos AirGo 3 Smart Glasses: Price and availability

The Solos AirGo 3 Smart Glasses are available through the website SolosGlasses.com in three different styles: Xeon sunglasses (from $199), Argon eyeglasses (from $249), and Helium sports glasses (from $199).

Thanks to the AirGo 3’s modular construction, you’re able to disconnect the temples and fit new frames onto them bought separately from the SolosGlasses website, allowing you to mix-and-match frame styles and lens colors. Buying additional frames can range from $79 to $119 (more for fitted prescription lenses) depending on design, and a replacement Temples Kit is available for $174.

Solos AirGo 3 Smart Glasses: Design

Solos was kind enough to let us test out one of its Xeon 5 AirGo 3 models which adopt a style similar to a classic Wayfarer or Lexington frames. It’s a pretty iconic, chunky-framed design, that sits cleanly on the face with nose pads built into the frame itself.

They look like any other glasses from most angles and are very similar in appearance to the recently released Ray Ban Meta Smart Glasses. The chunkier temples are where the smart glasses’ electronics are stashed, though they remain lightweight and seamlessly blend in with the overall style of the rims.

The right temple is where you’ll find the smart glasses’ beamforming mics, powered by Whisper Audio Technology to reduce background and ambient noise by 45dB. These mics are tuned to pick up the wearer’s speech even while in busy environments. Having taken the Solos AirGo 3 Smart Glasses with me to use while out-and-about near busy roads and bustling streets, I can safely confirm they do just that.

My voice, mumbling as it may be, was consistently picked up, and accurately recognized by the glasses for prompts and during phone calls. As a vital part of the Solos experience, speech recognition is essential — and the Solos AirGo 3 Smart Glasses never once struggled across my near month-long test.

Also on this side of the frames are the smart glasses’ touch-sensitive virtual switches. A seamlessly blended shallow groove acts as a virtual volume rocker, with a swipe towards or away from the ears raising and lowering the device’s volume, respectively. Next to this is a small bump that can be tapped or held to engage the AirGo 3’s mics and capture audio prompts or turn the device on or off.

While these virtual buttons are highly responsive and very rarely misjudge an input, they can be hard to locate. Even after a month of usage, I would still misplace my digits while trying to press one of them, oftentimes accidentally engaging the wrong action in the process. While their seamless design is imperceptible to most, it may be a little too seamless for the wearer to accurately target by muscle memory alone.

Even the frames themselves act as a virtual button, able to register single taps, double taps, and triple taps to interact with your connected smartphone. A quick single tap across the frames can play/pause media, while a triple tap can bypass SolosApp's digital assistant to engage with your phone’s own.

Paired with the beamforming mics, these quick inputs give you an impressive hands-free experience. I was never once left holding my temple while shouting aloud in public as passersby crossed streets to avoid the man yelling into the void about playing conspiracy podcasts on Amazon Music. Which was a nice change of pace, I have to admit.

Solos AirGo 3 Smart Glasses: Audio

As the temples branch off they narrow into soft coated tips that don’t rub or wear against the ear over long stretches of use — ideal if you’re a prescription glasses wearer like myself who will wear the Solos AirGo 3 as an all-day solution to my wonky optics. Just before the AirGos curve around the ear are twin semi-open ear speakers that direct audio into your ear. These speakers can get surprisingly loud, and be adjusted in-app to enhance the sound of voice or music playback.

At lower volumes these speakers will gently beam your favorite tunes into your ears in a fairly imperceptible to others manner in outside settings. However, as the volume increases, so does the level of audio bleed, which can leave you feeling like you’ve committed some sort of social faux pas as you wander the streets with a boombox on your face. While I’ve been out there enriching the public experience by sharing the gift of music with others through the AirGo 3’s powerful in-frame speakers, I’ve yet to receive one Wu-Tang “W” as a thank you for my efforts.

You’ll get the most out of these speakers while at home or in the car. Where you’re free to crank up the volume on the Solos, with their surprisingly clear and crisp audio. Here you’ll be free to go about the mundane activities of your everyday life to your favorite podcasts or soundtrack. There’s nothing like bursting out into an impromptu karaoke session of “Tiny Dancer” while washing the dishes, after all.

Solos AirGo 3 Smart Glasses: Software

Solos AirGo App is available for iPhone (iOS 13 and above) and Android (version 8 and above) devices, including tablets. Solos’ app is an essential companion to its smart glasses and unlocks the potential of these frames in full.

The glasses are paired with your smartphone via Bluetooth and after launching the app you’re greeted with an in-depth setup. It walks you through how to interact with the glasses, setting up a Solos account, speech recognition, customizing your SolosChat AI agent, and picking the best EQ setting for audio playback including different genres of music.

It’s one of the most well-rounded smart glasses experiences I’ve come across so far, with each tutorial well-sign-posted with accurate visual clues and detailed instructions. Solos software is incredibly easy to get to grips with and spread across three primary modes: SolosChat, SolosTranslate, and the Solos AI Coach.

SolosChat is probably the key selling point of these smart glasses. Powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, SolosChat is a Large Language Model seamlessly integrated into the Solos smart glasses experience and available to interact with through a simple tap and hold of the frame’s virtual action button. From here you’ll be able to speak your prompt, captured by the beamforming mic array and converted to text before being sent to the app-based chatbot.

The speed of the reply is incredibly impressive, with your chosen AI avatar responding in moments either through the temple-housed speakers or through text in the SolosApp chat window. It makes each interaction feel fluid and provides you with a world of information available at the drop of a hat.

This is great if, like me, you’re ever knee-deep in your workload and have a question that comes to mind that you might want to Google the answer for. Instead of switching tabs or diverting your focus, you can simply ask SolosChat and get back to work as you listen to the answer.

Of course, how you make use of SolosChat is entirely up to you, and people’s mileage may vary with the feature. Personally, I find it a great help when it comes to research or getting to grips with new concepts. I’m not beyond asking ChatGPT if it can explain something to me like I’m five years of age, or getting it to refresh my withered mind by asking it to help recall a film I watched 20-years ago that I’ve long forgotten the name of.

Another great feature that can prove incredibly useful is SolosTranslate, a ChatGPT-powered real-time translation tool that captures audio through the AirGo 3’s mic array and converts it into your language of choice in text or audio form. It can even work to translate your own words into a desired output language and eliminate the language barrier between two people. (It also has its uses for eavesdropping during code-switches to know exactly what the owner of your local bodega truly thinks of you.)

While the SolosChat feature is impressive in itself, SolosTranslate really takes it up a notch. The speed and accuracy of its translation is outstanding and similar to that offered by the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S24’s Live Translate. Not only will SolosTranslate capture the spoken word, but it will write it out, adjusting as it goes to provide better linguistic context based on the next series of words. Once it’s done capturing a speaker, the translation is genuinely near-instant, and audio playback in your preferred language kicks in at the exact same time.

This one isn’t a truly hands-off experience, as it can’t yet offer a rolling translation for seamless conservation. But I don’t think it detracts from a nevertheless astounding feature. SolosTranslate is a new feature to the frames and there’s always potential for it to expand in future.

The final section of the SolosApp is reserved for the AI Coach — a health tracker that can record steps taken, calories burnt through exercise, and even help to promote better posture through the IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) motion sensors housed within the frames. While it can’t match the health tracking metrics of a smartwatch, it still has plenty of valuable insights into how active you are throughout your day, and why your neck might be feeling a little older than you actually are if you spend too much time head-down on your devices.

Bottom line

Solos’ AirGo 3 Smart Glasses genuinely feel like a glasses 2.0 moment. While they don’t incorporate the portable display tech of smart glasses like the XREAL Air 2, what they do provide is exactly what a pair of glasses should: focus.

The AirGo 3s are a distraction-free device that gives you rapid access to a ChatGPT-backed LLM packed with valuable insights and information to help you throughout your day, including the ability to translate up to 13 languages in real time. All this while enjoying your favorite podcasts or music, without shutting you off from the wider world like you would with noise-canceling earphones.

I wear glasses every day, so the Solos AirGo 3’s prescription-friendly frames are already serving me faithfully. Especially with its fantastic AI-backed features, media playback, and hands-free interaction with my smartphone. But when it comes to picking out your next frames, the Solos AirGo 3, with its 10+ hour battery life, fantastic software, and impressive modular design, gets my full backing.