Brilliant Labs Halo: price, specs, release date and what we know

The Brilliant Labs Halo is a pair of open-source AI glasses weighing 40 g, sold for $399 (about €367, or about 241,000 FCFA) on its maker’s website, with a small colour display, a voice assistant and a claimed fourteen hours of battery life. It is aimed at developers, tinkerers and anyone put off by Meta’s data collection. Announced on 31 July 2025, it has slipped by nine months and no independent review exists yet. Our advice, as of 3 October 2026: wait for the first feedback.

Introduction: the Brilliant Labs Halo, AI glasses that go against the grain

Brilliant Labs is a small company founded in 2019 by Bobak Tavangar, a former Apple employee, and based in Singapore. It has already released the Monocle in 2023, a clip-on lens for developers, then the Frame in 2024, round glasses with a display sold for $349. The Brilliant Labs Halo is the third attempt, and the first one designed for someone who does not write code.

Where Meta sells glasses that film and post, the young company sells glasses that listen, look and remember, without recording anything readable, or so it says. The code is open, which remains unique in this market. The Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2, sold from €419 in France, has no display. The Meta Ray-Ban Display has one, but costs €899.

This page relies on the specifications released by the brand, on its GitHub repository and on the specialist press. Our newsroom has not handled the product and has found no full review published by a third party.

Verdict in brief: our take on the Brilliant Labs Halo ahead of the reviews

Three figures matter in the Brilliant Labs Halo spec sheet. First, the 40 g: some thirty grams less than the Meta Ray-Ban Display, which makes wearing it from morning to night believable. Then the 640 x 480 pixels, a value reported by third-party sources: this is a notification display, not a cinema screen. Finally, the two 150 mAh cells, which make the claimed fourteen hours hard to believe under sustained use.

Design of the Brilliant Labs Halo: 40 g and the look of ordinary glasses

The frame drops the round shape of the Frame for a rectangular one close to a Wayfarer, in matte black, the only colour on offer. The brand claims the thinnest AI glasses in the world, a phrase that Tom’s Guide puts in quotation marks. In the official photos the temples remain thick, but the whole thing goes unnoticed.

A light frame, but one that does not fold

At a little over 40 g, the Brilliant Labs Halo weighs less than a pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which come in at around fifty grams. The AR Compare website, however, reports a frame that does not fold. If that is confirmed, you will need a hard case and some room in your bag.

Vision correction: dials and a partner optician

According to Road to VR, the display optics can be adjusted from +2 to -6 dioptres, for a pupillary distance of 58 to 72 mm. An average short-sighted wearer can therefore read the display without special lenses. For the rest of the world around you, the brand points to SmartBuyGlasses, which fits prescription lenses, astigmatism included, as well as photochromic lenses.

Durability: no IP rating published

None of the sources consulted mentions any certification against water or dust. If in doubt, avoid driving rain and the beach. In Douala during the rainy season or under the harmattan in Dakar, that precaution is anything but theoretical.

Display: a colour micro-display hidden in the top of the frame

The Frame used a prism stuck behind the lens, visible from the outside. The Brilliant Labs Halo takes a different approach. Hackaday describes a tiny module housed in the upper edge of the frame, which you glance up at. The lenses remain normal lenses.

0.2 inches, an image you have to look for

The display is a 0.2-inch colour microOLED. The brand publishes neither its resolution nor its field of view. Third-party sources put it at 640 x 480 pixels. The interface goes for a retro, arcade-cabinet style, with large characters.

The image is not overlaid on what you are looking at: it stays at the periphery. Galaxus writes that the information appears when you tilt your head. It is more discreet than a central display, and less immersive.

What this display will not do

The display on the Brilliant Labs Halo is not for watching a video or reading a long article. It has nothing in common with giant-screen glasses such as the Xreal Aura, which project a virtual desktop in front of both eyes.

The big unknown remains brightness. Meta claims 5,000 nits on its Display glasses. Brilliant Labs gives no figure, and outdoor readability, which is decisive in the tropics, remains an open question.

Performance: Alif B1 chip, Noa AI, audio and optical sensor

The Brilliant Labs Halo runs on a microcontroller, the Balletto B1 from Alif Semiconductor, which pairs an Arm Cortex-M55 core with an Ethos-U55 neural unit. It is an industrial sensor chip, designed to draw very little power.

Local AI, but how far does it go?

In September 2025, the company announced a partnership with Liquid AI to use LFM2-VL-450M, a model that understands images and text. With its 450 million parameters, it does not run on a microcontroller of this class. More likely, it runs on the phone or on a server.

One clue points that way: according to AI Wiki’s notes, the store states that the features are free with daily usage caps. Nobody caps a computation that costs nothing.

Audio: bone conduction, discreet but limited

Two bone conduction transducers housed in the temples transmit sound by vibration, leaving the ears free. The technique suits an assistant’s voice, not music: bass is always lacking with this method. Two microphones pick up your requests.

An optical sensor, not a camera

The camera is a global shutter sensor with 640 x 480 pixels, or 0.3 megapixels, with a horizontal field of view of 81.2° according to AR Compare. Road to VR specifies that it is used for AI analysis and not for video capture. The Brilliant Labs Halo is therefore not a pair of glasses for filming a concert or a match.

The link with the phone goes through Bluetooth 5.3, with no Wi-Fi and no cellular chip.

Open source: what Brilliant Labs has actually published

Openness is the brand’s central argument. For months it remained theoretical: the documentation said the firmware was coming soon, with an empty link. That changed during the summer of 2026.

Open-source AI glasses, finally in practice

The halo-firmware repository is now public on GitHub. It contains the Zephyr real-time system adapted to the Alif chip, a Lua engine for on-board applications and over-the-air updates via Bluetooth.

The development kit, published under a BSD licence, lets you write companion apps for iPhone and Android, notably with Flutter. The electronic schematics of the Brilliant Labs Halo had not yet been published according to AI Wiki’s notes from early August.

What that changes for you

If you do not code, the benefit is indirect. Third parties can check what the sensors are doing, and a community can maintain the code if the company disappears. The brand’s Discord server had nearly 14,000 members in early August 2026, for a company that said it relied on five people in May.

Battery life of the Brilliant Labs Halo: 14 hours promised, still to be verified

The brand claims up to fourteen hours of use for the Brilliant Labs Halo, against six hours of mixed use for the Meta Ray-Ban Display. The figure should be read with caution.

Two 150 mAh cells

The battery is made up of two 150 mAh cells, or 300 mAh in total. That is less than a smartwatch. Lasting fourteen hours assumes that the display rarely lights up and that the chip sleeps most of the time.

A day at the office with a few questions for Noa has nothing in common with an afternoon of continuous translation with the optical sensor active. No reviewer has measured these scenarios yet.

Charging and case: details still unclear

The sources consulted describe neither the charging method, nor whether a charging case exists, nor the time needed for a full charge. Where power cuts are common, the small capacity works in your favour: a pocket power bank is enough for several full charges.

Software: Noa, Narrative and Vibe Mode, the three bets of the Halo

The system is built on Zephyr, a free real-time kernel, topped by a Lua layer. The user only sees the companion app and three features.

• Noa: a conversational agent that answers by voice, drawing on what the glasses see and hear.
• Narrative: a long-term memory that retains names, the topics discussed and the objects encountered.
• Vibe Mode: creating small apps simply by describing them out loud.

Noa and Narrative: an assistant that remembers

Narrative is the most ambitious feature. You run into someone you met six months ago, and the glasses whisper their first name and the subject of your last conversation. The system is said to keep neither sound nor image, only an abstract representation. Nobody has yet described its reliability independently.

Vibe Mode: programming by voice

The brand gives an example: asking for a navigation app that shows the next three turns. Noa writes the code and installs it on the glasses. The feature, presented as experimental, produces a Lua script that anyone can correct.

Subscription: free with caps, paid plan on hold

At the announcement, two tiers were planned: basic Noa, free, and a Plus plan. In December 2025, the latter was listed at $19.99 per month (about €18, or about 12,000 FCFA). The current store talks about included features with daily limits, without naming a paid offer. The languages supported by Noa are not detailed in the sources consulted.

Privacy: the central promise, still to be audited

This is where the Brilliant Labs Halo wants to stand apart from Meta, whose glasses feed servers.

What the brand promises

According to its press releases, the audio and images captured by the Brilliant Labs Halo are converted on the device into an irreversible mathematical representation. No raw recording is stored or passed on to third parties. The sensors can be switched off by voice.

What remains to be proven

The first reservation concerns the people around you: glasses that listen in order to feed a memory also capture the words of the people you talk to, who have signed nothing. None of the sources consulted mentions an activity light. In Europe, the GDPR applies as soon as this data leaves a strictly personal setting.

The second has to do with the architecture. If part of the processing goes through servers, everything depends on what is sent to them. The open code makes the question verifiable, but no independent audit has been published to date.

Brilliant Labs Halo price and availability in France and Europe

There is neither an official price in euros nor a French distributor. The Brilliant Labs Halo can only be ordered on the Brilliant Labs product page, in dollars, with international shipping.

Brilliant Labs Halo: price and history of the increases

The price has gone up twice in a year:

• 31 July 2025: announcement and pre-orders at $299 (about €275, or about 180,000 FCFA), with delivery promised for late November 2025.
• 15 December 2025: increase to $349 (about €321, or about 211,000 FCFA), with general availability announced for January 2026.
• March 2026: delivery announced for the first quarter, a deadline missed once again.
• July and August 2026: mass production announced on 23 July, first shipments promised for early August, price raised to $399 (about €367, or about 241,000 FCFA).

For a French buyer, the 20% VAT collected on import has to be added. The bill then comes close to €440 (about 289,000 FCFA) before shipping, according to our estimate. That is the price of a pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses bought in a shop, minus the warranty.

Brilliant Labs Halo release date: where do deliveries stand?

As of 3 October 2026, the situation is confused. The AR Compare catalogue records shipments starting in August 2026. Wearable Index notes on the same date that the store still shows shipping as imminent, even though the early August deadline has passed.

An order placed today therefore has no firm delivery date. The company has raised only about 6 million dollars, notably from Brendan Iribe, co-founder of Oculus. That is not much for making hardware.

What about Africa?

No retailer distributes these glasses in Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire or Senegal, and direct delivery needs to be checked when ordering. The safest route remains a relative in Europe or a freight forwarder, with customs duties on top. If something breaks, the return is at your own expense.

There is no question of network bands: the glasses only talk to the phone over Bluetooth. The assistant, on the other hand, needs a decent data connection on that phone.

Amazon.fr, Fnac, Darty and Cdiscount, the main French retailers, do not list the product. The only reliable source is the manufacturer’s website.

Pros and cons

The pros

• About 40 g and the look of classic glasses.
• A colour display, audio, microphones and an optical sensor for less than $400.
• Firmware and development kit published.
• Built-in dioptre adjustment, prescription lenses possible.
• Privacy: an approach opposite to Meta’s, verifiable in the code.

The cons

• Nine months late and a price raised from $299 to $399.
• No independent review published to date.
• No photos or video, and sound that is limited for music.
• Brightness, IP rating and charging method not documented in the sources consulted.
• Import purchase only, with no local after-sales service.

An alternative to the Ray-Ban Meta, really?

The Brilliant Labs Halo meets a different need from the Ray-Ban Meta. For filming, listening to music and buying in a shop with a warranty, Meta’s Gen 2 remains the sensible choice. If the display comes first and the budget allows, the Meta Ray-Ban Display is more polished. For a virtual screen for work or films, look at Xreal.

Conclusion: should you buy the Brilliant Labs Halo?

Not yet, unless you know exactly why you want it. Hardware that weighs 40 g, a display, published code and a price below half that of Meta’s display glasses: the proposition makes sense.

The execution, though, has not been judged yet. A year of delays, two price increases and a tiny team call for caution. Developers can order with their eyes open. Everyone else is better off waiting for the first independent reviews. We will update this Brilliant Labs Halo page, score included, as soon as they exist.

Frequently asked questions

For the opposite approach, immersive and unapologetic, read our page on the Steam Frame. And tell us in the comments if you have received your Brilliant Labs Halo.