This morning, upstart smart glasses company Even Realities launched Even Hub, an open app store and developer platform for its G2 line of display style smart glasses. This could be the first salvo in a war between open- and closed-platform display smart glasses.
On one side is Meta. The Goliath of the smart glasses market has thus far taken a completely closed approached to its newish Display glasses: Meta decides what your smart glasses can do and determines what apps you can access. The David to Meta's Goliath is Even Realities, a boutique tech company that just launched a storefront with over 50 apps made by third-party developers, so users can decide for themselves what to install and what to ignore.
Meta Ray-Ban Display $799.00 at Best Buy Get Deal Get Deal $799.00 at Best BuyCompeting strategies for display-style smart glasses
In terms of total market share, Meta and Even Realities aren't in the same universe. Meta's market capitalization is approximately $1.47 trillion, and its line of Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses make up about 82% of the smart glasses market. Even Realities is worth an estimated $10 million and its $3.3 million in annual revenue is less than one percent of the total smart glasses market. But within the niche of display-integrated glasses, the two companies are peers: estimates for 2025-2026 suggest that Meta has sold around 20,000 of its high end, Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, while Even Realities profits suggest the company has moved between 10,000 and 25,000 pairs of its G2 glasses.
Even Realities G2 $599.00 at Even Realities Get Deal Get Deal $599.00 at Even RealitiesThe most important divide between these companies might prove to be their approach to software. All technology is on a continuum between "open" and "closed," and Meta's smart glasses have, so far, been far into the restricted part of the spectrum. You get a highly curated experience, with Meta acting as the arbiter of what is installed on your face computer, whether you're rocking Display glasses or Ray-Ban Metas. You don't download apps, you toggle "experiences" on and off. You can choose to disable or enable Apple Music, but you can't choose to listen to music on a new platform developed by a third party. You can't delete core features you don't want. Even something as basic as changing the wake-up words for the AI is off-limits; it's "Hey, Meta," or it's nothing.
It's worth noting that Meta isn't fundamentally opposed to third-party development. The company's Meta Horizon Store for the Quest line of VR headsets is a massive, vibrant marketplace with everything from high-end games to tiny, janky tools on offer, and the company shut down much of its first-party VR development, while pledging to continue supporting indie devs. So it's possible/probable that Meta is waiting for the hardware to mature before opening a more open store for its glasses, or just adding a "Display" section to the existing Horizon Store.
Open isn't necessarily better
While the knee-jerk reaction might be to conclude that the choice offered by an open system is more desirable than a closed one, that hasn't always been the case in the tech world. Nintendo dominated video games in the 1980s by maintaining strict quality controls over games released on its NES, and few kids wanted the more "open" competing systems. Adobe's Flash dominated everything the "open web" had to offer in the early 2000s, only dying when another relatively closed system, Apple's iPhone, refused to support it. Speaking of Apple, its iOS devices account for 63% of the American smart phone market, while the nearest competitor, the more open Android, is perpetually second. Time, as they say, will tell whether consumers prefer a curated experience, a modular, open one, or even want glasses with a HUD at all.
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