Gavin 
Meta and EssilorLuxottica just shipped the smart-glasses industry’s most telling hedge: a $349, 43-gram pair of AI audio glasses with no camera, built for the commuter who wants the assistant and the sound without being watched. This WSJ-style deep dive weighs it against Echo Frames, Bose Frames, Huawei x Gentle Monster and Xiaomi.
It was just past eleven on a Tuesday night in a mid-rise Hangzhou apartment block when Wang Lina’s phone buzzed to a thumbnail of a delivery rider. Rather than pad to the door, she opened the Mijia app, used the lock’s voice-changing intercom, and told the rider to leave the box in the building locker — a nine-second transaction that is the entire value proposition of the new Xiaomi Smart Door Lock 5C Cat’s Eye Edition, on pre-sale at ¥999.
Dianying’s E-EMAV is a tethered ducted-fan drone with a folding robotic arm designed to clean and inspect high-rise buildings, but contact wobble, a 150-meter tether ceiling, and unproven autonomy make it an expensive tool rather than a labor-replacing colleague.
Samsung’s 14.6-inch Tab S12 Ultra packs a faster Dimensity 9500 chip and 61% more AI compute, but carries over the same battery, charges extra for the S Pen, and still suffers from Android tablet app neglect.
Noise’s first open-ear earbuds bring Bose co-tuning to a sub-₹10,000 price point, but the lack of ANC, app dependence, and unproven Chat AI leave this well-spec’d first attempt short of its premium ambition.
Coway’s 1.6 kg walking-assist exoskeleton is elegant engineering, but a rental-only model with undisclosed pricing, missing battery specs, and a nine-person clinical trial makes it a wait-and-see product.
Ai+ Pulse 2 FE costs just 9,999 rupees in India with a 120Hz display and 50MP camera. But the 4G-only chipset and HD+ screen mean this budget phone has hidden compromises.
FRT Step-Up Neo is a passive back exoskeleton from Korea costing ~$1,600. At 3.6 kg with no smart sensors, is it worth the investment? Heres what to know.
