Dymesty AI Glasses: The Worst Smart Glasses Tested

At a glance:

• The Dymesty AI Glasses are widely considered the worst smart glasses tested, with many features failing to work as advertised.
• Key issues include a non-functional voice assistant, unreliable audio recording, poor calendar integration, and subpar audio quality.
• Despite a claimed 48-hour battery life, the glasses are difficult to use, expensive at $399, and offer little value compared to competitors.

Introduction

Murphy’s Law often rings true: anything that can go wrong will go wrong. However, even the famed aerospace engineer Edward A. Murphy Jr. might not have anticipated the Dymesty AI Glasses, which embody this principle to an extreme degree. After extensive testing, these smart glasses stand out as the worst I’ve ever worn. They are half-baked at best, and I would advise against purchasing them. The Dymesty AI Glasses, priced at $399 (though available for $299 at the time of publishing), are designed with AI features in mind. Unlike competitors such as the Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses and the Meta Ray-Ban Display, they lack a camera or screen but include speakers, a microphone, and AI capabilities through a companion app that relies on ChatGPT. I tested the "Cook Edge" style, as opposed to the "Jobs Circle" model, which ironically references Apple given the subsequent frustrations. Theoretically, the glasses should offer translation, music playback, meeting summaries, and hands-free voice assistance. In practice, however, these features are either broken or require such convoluted workarounds that they become functionally useless.

First Impressions

The Dymesty AI Glasses come with a list of pros and cons that highlight their mixed potential. On the positive side, they are lightweight and surprisingly boast good battery life. However, the cons far outweigh these benefits. Almost none of the features work as advertised, and I had to troubleshoot extensively just to get them functioning. The glasses are dorky-looking, expensive, and offer subpar audio. Additionally, Google flags linking them to Gmail as potentially unsafe—a warning that seems justified given my experience. The Dymesty app and hardware together create a product that feels more like a beta test than a finished consumer device.

Feature Failures

The core AI features of the Dymesty AI Glasses are plagued with issues. The voice assistant, a crucial interface, is particularly problematic. On iOS, setting up the voice assistant requires downloading the Dymesty app and creating a Siri shortcut. The intended workflow involves double-pressing the glasses' right arm button and saying "glasses," which should trigger the app to use ChatGPT. However, this rarely works as intended. In testing, the shortcut only functioned when activated via "Hey Siri" on the phone. Double-pressing the button either resulted in Siri ignoring the command or pulling up irrelevant web results about dynasties. This means the only reliable way to use the voice assistant is by saying "Hey Siri" first, which defeats the purpose of hands-free operation. Competitors like Meta require only "Hey Meta" for activation, making the Dymesty approach unnecessarily cumbersome.

Other features are equally unreliable. The AI recorder, which uses ChatGPT to transcribe audio, failed during a 10-minute video call. Despite indicating it was recording, the playback revealed only a three-second clip. The "Schedule Assistant," a calendar app, also failed to integrate with the intelligent assistant. Events entered into the Dymesty calendar could not be accessed by the voice assistant, and even when specifying to use the native calendar, the assistant claimed it had no access. Worse, the event disappeared from the app entirely. Attempts to integrate Gmail were blocked by Google, which warned that the app needed verification for safety. The "Phone Loss Alert" feature, meant to notify when the phone is 8 meters away, only worked when Bluetooth was disconnected, not as intended. The only feature that partially worked was AI translation, which provided accurate transcriptions of Spanish from YouTube videos but waited for complete statements, making real-time conversations stilted.

Hardware and Design

The hardware of the Dymesty AI Glasses is mediocre at best. While they are light—listed as 35g but measured at 41g—this is one of the few positives. The titanium construction contributes to the lightness, but other materials are cheap. The hard plastic nose pads become uncomfortable quickly, and the buttons are small and feel cheap. Unlike the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, these lack a touchpad, relying instead on identical buttons on both arms. These buttons are located on the underside of the arms, making it easy to push the glasses off when pressed. They only offer basic controls (play/pause and voice assistant), lacking volume adjustment—a significant omission. The design is also dorky, and while prescription-compatible, they don't serve as a fashion accessory.

Audio performance is another major downfall. The visible speakers on the arms suggest decent sound, but the fidelity is mediocre, comparable to an underpowered Bluetooth speaker. At home, they are passable, but in noisy environments, they are easily drowned out. Cranking the volume to maximum results in distortion and clipping. Call audio is acceptable, with a friend rating it 8/10, but it picks up a lot of ambient noise due to poor environmental noise cancellation compared to competitors. The audio issues are particularly problematic since audio is a primary use case for smart glasses.

Battery Life

Dymesty claims the glasses offer 48 hours of battery life, but this seems exaggerated. In testing, an hour of music playback at maximum volume drained the battery from 100% to 90%. The app only shows battery in 10% increments, making precise measurement difficult. Assuming linear drain, the glasses might last around 9-10 hours at max volume, which is better than the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 AI glasses (5 hours at consistent music playback). However, this is still far from the claimed 48 hours. The battery is split between the two arms, each with its own battery, which explains the unusual split charging cable. This design requires charging the glasses upside down with two magnetic connectors, which is awkward and sometimes difficult to align. During testing, one speaker would work independently at times, resolved only by a hard reset after troubleshooting with Dymesty. Despite the quirks, battery life is one of the few strengths of the Dymesty AI Glasses.

Conclusion

The Dymesty AI Glasses are a product that fails to deliver on almost every front. They are difficult to use, frustratingly unreliable, and expensive. While they excel in battery life and lightness, these benefits are overshadowed by the dysfunction of their core features. The glasses do not work as a fashion accessory, and the few positives are betrayed by the overall experience. In a market where other AI glasses, though imperfect, offer a more cohesive and functional experience, the Dymesty AI Glasses stand out as the worst tested. Unless you enjoy wasting money on a piece of useless titanium, I would advise steering clear of these glasses.