Even Realities Bets On App Store Freedom To Challenge Meta's Locked-Down Smart Glasses Even Realities has launched Even Hub, an open store stocked with more than 50 third-party apps for its G2 smart glasses, drawing a sharp contrast with Meta's fully closed approach to its Display glasses. A little-known eyewear startup picked a fight this morning with the biggest name in social media over a question that isn't small at all: who gets to decide what runs on the computer sitting on your face. Even Realities, maker of the G2 line of display-equipped glasses, opened a storefront called Even Hub, stocked at launch with more than 50 apps built by outside developers. The move draws a hard line against Meta, whose own Display glasses currently run nothing beyond what Meta itself has approved. A Small Rival Squares Off Against a Trillion-Dollar Giant On paper, this isn't a fair fight. Meta carries a market capitalization of roughly $1.47 trillion, and its Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses already account for about 82% of the entire smart glasses market. Even Realities, by contrast, is valued at only around $10 million according to estimates from Prospero, although a company spokesperson insists the real number is far higher, at least $500 million. Yet narrow the lens to just the glasses that actually project a display in front of your eyes, and the two brands look much closer in size. Estimates for 2025-2026 put Meta's sales of its high-end Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses at around 20,000 units. Prospero's figures suggest Even Realities has shipped somewhere between 10,000 and 25,000 pairs of its G2 glasses, though the company's own spokesperson claims real sales run into the "hundreds of thousands." Two Very Different Pairs of Glasses The hardware itself reflects two opposite philosophies. Meta's Display glasses cost $799 and pack in everything its standard camera-equipped glasses already do, plus a full-color, high-quality video display and the familiar Ray-Ban silhouette. Even Realities' G2 glasses cost $599, skip the camera and any onboard audio entirely, and hide their single-color display inside a frame built to pass as an ordinary pair of spectacles. They're designed to be worn all day as everyday, fashionable eyewear that happens to be able to throw a map in front of your eyes or feed you a name at a party. The Real Divide Is Software, Not Hardware The bigger split between the two companies may be philosophical rather than physical. Every piece of consumer technology sits somewhere on a line between open and closed, and Meta's smart glasses sit firmly on the closed end of it. Meta decides which "experiences" exist on the glasses, and owners simply switch them on or off, they cannot download software built by anyone else. Wearers can turn Apple Music on or off inside the glasses, for instance, but cannot add a rival music service built by a third party. Core features cannot be deleted, and even the wake phrase for the onboard AI cannot be changed. It's "Hey, Meta," or nothing at all. Even Realities takes a middle path, closer to Apple's App Store model than to a fully open system like Linux. Owners can browse a curated library of approved apps and decide for themselves whether they want an EPUB reader, a chess game, or a charge indicator for their Tesla built into their glasses. Unlike Meta's approach, Even Realities also lets people strip out core features they never use. Meta May Still Loosen Its Grip None of this means Meta is philosophically opposed to outside developers forever. Its Meta Horizon Store, built for the Quest line of VR headsets, is already a large and active marketplace stretching from polished, big-budget games to small experimental tools. Meta has also wound down much of its own first-party VR game development while promising to keep supporting independent developers on that platform. That history suggests Meta could simply be waiting for its glasses hardware to mature before loosening the rules, whether through a dedicated glasses store or by folding a "Display" section into the existing Horizon Store. History Says Open Doesn't Always Win It's tempting to assume that giving customers more choice is automatically the smarter bet, but tech history doesn't fully back that up. Nintendo took over the video game business in the 1980s precisely by locking down which games could run on the NES, while rival, more open consoles of that era struggled to compete. Adobe's Flash ruled the open web through the early 2000s, only to collapse once a far more closed device, Apple's iPhone, simply refused to support it. Apple's closed iOS still commands about 63% of the American smartphone market today, with the more open Android perpetually trailing in second place. Why the Stakes Go Beyond Two Companies Right now, the market for display-equipped smart glasses is still small, limited mostly to tech enthusiasts and early adopters willing to pay a premium for a gadget that hasn't gone mainstream yet. But if HUD-style glasses do catch on with ordinary buyers, and both companies stick to their current strategies, whichever approach wins will end up deciding how much control everyday users get over their own augmented future. Whether people ultimately prefer a tightly curated experience, a modular and open one, or no display glasses at all remains an open question. What this means for you If you're considering a pair of smart glasses, price and control now come as a clear tradeoff between the two brands. • For buyers: Meta's $799 Display glasses will stay locked to whatever features Meta itself enables. Even Realities' $599 G2 glasses let you pick and choose which apps stay installed. • For developers: Building and selling an app is already possible on Even Hub, as more than 50 third-party developers have shown. That option doesn't currently exist on Meta's platform. • For investors: Estimates of Even Realities' valuation vary wildly, from $10 million to at least $500 million, showing how hard it still is to get reliable numbers on this segment. • For gadget owners: Meta's glasses don't let you change the AI's wake word or remove core features, while Even Realities does. Factor privacy and personalization needs in before picking a model. Questions & Answers 1. What is Even Hub? It's an open app store for Even Realities' G2 smart glasses, launched with more than 50 apps built by third-party developers. 2. How is Even Realities different from Meta's glasses? Meta's glasses only let owners toggle features Meta itself has built, while Even Realities lets users install and remove third-party apps. 3. How much do the two glasses cost? Meta's Display glasses cost $799, while Even Realities' G2 glasses cost $599. 4. Which company has sold more units? Meta has sold an estimated 20,000 Display glasses, while Prospero estimates Even Realities has sold between 10,000 and 25,000 units, though the company claims sales reach into the hundreds of thousands. 5. What is Even Realities worth? Prospero estimates it at around $10 million, but a company spokesperson says it's at least $500 million. 6. Will Meta eventually open its platform too? The article doesn't confirm this directly, but Meta's existing Horizon Store for its Quest VR headsets shows it has run an open marketplace before. https://trendkia.com/en/guides/meta-ke-bnda-smarta-glaseja-sistama-ko-chunauti-dene-ke-lie-even-realities-ne-khola-aipa-stora-28339 TrendKia — Har trend, sabse pehle.