I switched my Ray-Ban Metas for L’Atitude 52°N for a month, and while there’s cool features for explorers, it’s no contest

The best AI smart glasses do a lot of things right, but the biggest win for me has been finding out about new places around me. My wife and I’s tour guide in Costa Rica was terrible, but being able to ask my Ray-Ban Metas about what I was looking at gave us all the landmark details I needed in the moment.

It’s this moment that the L’Atitude 52°Ns are purpose-built for, and on paper, you’re getting a solidly stylish pair of specs from the Berlin-based outfit started by former OnePlus engineers.

Don’t get me wrong, the giant statement piece aesthetic won’t be for everyone’s face (definitely not suited to mine), but I can appreciate they look good — standing out from the crowd of Wayfarer wannabes.

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On top of that, the cameras are decent, the speakers are loud and detailed, the live translation is rapid and the AI tour guide does give you a nice extra dimension to the places you go (at the right locations).

But in this economy, paying more money for worse specs with a divisive look is a tough sell, and that’s the problem here. At $399 with a Pro subscription “expected to be under $20,” and a feature set that falls shy of Meta, these already start with quite the disadvantage.

Throw in some ropey touch controls and connectivity issues, and you’re left with glasses that are strong for one very particular person, but don’t hold a candle to the biggest player in the game.

L’Atitude 52°N smart glasses: Cheat sheet

• What is it? This is a pair of display-free smart glasses with built-in camera, speakers and microphone.
• Who is it for? It's aimed towards regular travelers — well timed for vacation season.
• How much does it cost? You can pick up a pair for $399/£349. Keep in mind that all the AI features are free for first 12 months, then you’ll have to unlock them with a monthly subscription that is “expected to be under $20.”
• What is it like to use them? The look may be divisive, but I quite like the statement piece aesthetic going on here. Throw in a decent camera, nice speakers/mic and some of the fastest live translation I’ve seen in smart glasses (alongside a nifty AI tour guide), and you’ve got a solid starting point.
• Any problems? But at a higher price than the Ray-Ban Metas (and a monthly subscription on top of that), an aesthetic that’s definitely not for everyone, some ropey touch control issues and a gigantic cumbersome case, it becomes harder to recommend to anyone outside of those with millions of frequent flyer miles.

L’Atitude 52°N smart glasses: Specs

L’Atitude 52°N smart glasses: The ups

And so, I headed to Heathrow — ready for my travels. Once I was over there, the L’Atitude’s purpose-built form and function really started to make sense.

Eye-catching looks

My Dad calls them the Marmite glasses — either you love ‘em or your hate ‘em (ask your British mates), and I can see his point 100%. On a slimmer, taller face like mine, they just look a bit weirdly oversized. But that doesn’t stop me from being a fan of the look. A good rule of thumb here is if you can rock a pair of aviators, then you’ll be just fine in these too.

The build quality feels nice and premium in the hand and on the face, with strong hinges and a nice upmarket quality to it all. And regardless of this larger size and slightly heavier weight than competition like the Rokid AI Glasses Style, the components are evenly distributed so it doesn’t weigh down on your nose on ears for a nice comfortable wear.

It’s just nice to see different looks being used rather than going the safe Wayfarer direction. Not to say this will be for everyone (it absolutely won’t), and I would’ve preferred a more portable case than the gigantic container you get here (though it does protect them nicely and pack a ton of battery). But for the traveling fashionistas with a penchant for the big statement pieces, these certainly hit that marker.

Hitting the basic fundamentals

For display-free AI glasses, the simplified interface elements have to be strong. That means they need to be able to see well (have a good camera), hear well (strong microphone) and speak well (loud, clear speakers).

The 12MP Sony sensor packed into them produces some decent shots on par with the Ray-Ban Metas, alongside decent low light performance thanks to that image processing chip packed inside too. Meta has an upper hand in video fidelity with up to 3K while these can only go to 1080p — but you can choose your aspect ratio here (not locked to 9:16).

Throw in some impressive audio clarity from the built-in speakers and microphones that are impressively effective at picking up your voice even in moments of loud background noise, and its senses are working well.

Then it’s about ensuring you’ve got a good interface to see what you’re doing with the glasses, and that’s where the L’Atitude app comes in — giving you a nice clean UI for viewing your AI interaction history, import photos/footage, or get into the real unique selling point of these specs.

Your personal AI tour guide

Yes, Goya AI is general purpose and can be helpful for Q&A (though limited compared to Meta AI in its current form, but more on that later). However, outside of the rapid live translation of several languages, the real standout feature here for travelers is the the AI tour guide.

Opening up the guide in the app, you can see the many nearby landmarks it will take you on a tour of. The depth of content will vary based on the place — I got a lot of detail at the National Science Museum, whereas the mosque near Heathrow Airport gave me what amounted to “yes, it is a mosque.”

That being said, though, while it is going to be a limited feature to use on the day-to-day (unless you’re traveling a lot), I have to admit it’s helped me find out new facts about landmarks that I wouldn’t have found out usually.

L’Atitude 52°N smart glasses: The downs

Sounds good, right? Well here’s where it gets a little weird — almost as if the L’Atitudes’ shoot themselves in the foot in a few ways.

Quite a bit of awkwardness

I’m gonna call these the first-time jitters. I saw plenty of them in the first-gen Ray-Ban Meta glasses — things like unreliable touch surfaces on the stems of the glasses, Goya AI prompting being a little weird when it comes to asking for more than one thing, and Bluetooth connectivity issues.

There was a recent firmware update that did clear some of this up, but not all the way, so it’s still a bugbear that happens roughly once every 2-3 times I’ll use them. These are definitely things that can be fixed with updates, but I’ve got to review what I have in front of me.

Priced out of competition

But the real killing blow here of any chances to compete with the Ray-Ban Metas is the way these are priced. If they started at $299, we may have something of a fight on our hands (especially with this company’s attitude towards keeping data private), but offering worse tech specs in a divisive design and a limited AI for $100 more is a rough deal.

Then comes the subscription pricing — stay with me here as it’s a bit convoluted. If you buy the glasses, you get 12 months of the Goya AI Pro plan for free. Afterwards, you’re limited to the vague “100-200 minutes” of AI interactions, a simplified AI Tour Guide and some other restrictions unless you pay the premium fee. This hasn’t been fully confirmed but the company did say it will be “under $20” per month.

It’s a sticky situation financially and a big ask for what these glass offer/are set to offer in the near future. There needs to be a real killer app for the price of these, and at the moment, we don’t have it — just some nice to haves and a pretty pair of glasses.

L’Atitude 52°N smart glasses: Verdict

So I’m left feeling conflicted. In a few ways, these are good smart glasses for the frequent flyers. The aesthetic will split opinion, but these are well-put-together specs with a solid camera, audio and AI interactivity.

But it’s hard to look past the simple fact that you can get better for cheaper, and on top of that, the ground level features are still a bit unreliable. I’m sure these will come in time, but what about the features that make these a solid buy over the Ray-Ban Metas? I’m not so sure.

And while I’m always keen to be constructive and say “this is what you can do to turn these into winners,” I’m honestly struggling to figure out what that fix would be here — the ceiling is being reached in display-free hardware, and it’s onto the AI to keep throwing new features at them. However, as of right now, the glasses are fine, but you can get more bang for your buck.