Xiaomi Mijia Smart Audio Glasses - What The Hell Are Those! ( Pilot Style )
These are the Xiaomi mid-year smart audio glasses, and these are for anyone who doesn't want to put earbuds in their ears or wear over-ear headphones. One of the big advantages of a product like this is that, on top of the audio solution, they also offer eye protection. So if you're going on holiday, this could be a good little setup for you.
I have used smart glasses in the past, and one of the best use cases from my personal experience was when I was on holiday, and I was just sort of chilling next to the beach or on a sunbed or in a hot tub. It's great to actually be able to hear everything that's going on around you, whilst shielding your eyes and being able to hear people speaking to you. These sunglasses right here are some of my favourites right now, and let me show you the style of them. They're very, very similar to these pilot-style media glasses. So these are actually very much my style of glasses.
Unboxing & First Look
So first out of the box is the carry case, and I believe the glasses are actually in there. They look quite nice. Before we get to these, let's see what else is in the box. I believe that this is the charging dock adapter thing, and a charging cable. Those two bits are all attached to the two arms on the glasses. loads of paperwork in here and more plastic, and we have a cleaning cloth, quite a nice one, and an extremely chunky book. That's how the glasses look. The lenses are replaceable, so you can put in prescription lenses. Looking at the picture, I actually thought the arms on these would be quite a bit chunkier than this, so I'm quite pleased to see that they're not.
The material used here on the side is called N7 coating, which apparently rejects water pretty well. You've got these nice little ridges around the gold parts of the frame, and there's the mic right here, and there's another one on the other side in the same place. So that appears to be four speakers: two back here and then two underneath, closer to your ears. So that's quite nice. The charging connector just magnetises onto the ends of the arms. Pretty comfortable. It does kind of make me look like a blind man, the lenses being fully black like that. I usually go for this kind of tinted gradient style.
Design, Build & Comfort
The weight of these glasses is approximately 40.4 g, which is nice and lightweight. Shall we say, at the point where it meets the temple is the thinnest and is 5 mm. And that's important because when you are wearing them, you don't want them kind of sticking out at the side of your head too far, because that will make them look definitely less stylish. These glasses have titanium alloy frames, and they use a high-durability piano-wire hinge, which has been tested for 15,000 flexes. So they're pretty durable.
If you are planning to take these to the beach or sit by a pool or listen to music using these, you'll be happy to know that they do have an IP54 rating for dust and splash resistance, and you could use these whilst riding a bike or going for a run, and this rating will also protect them from sweat. So these have a quick-release system integrated into the design, which would actually allow you to switch the pilot-style frame for another one. The great thing about these glasses is that they actually have pretty good sunglass lenses in them. They have an official UV 400 protection, and they actually block out 99.99% of ultraviolet light.
Connectivity & Controls
So when it comes to connecting the glasses to the app, it does use Google Fast Pair. So your glasses should pop up straight away when you first plug them in. As well as being able to listen to audio through the glasses, you can also record audio by pushing and holding on the right side. You can switch tracks by sliding back and forward and adjust volume. And there are two different listening modes. So there is the normal mode, and then there's the privacy mode. And with the privacy mode on, it will use some noise rejection techniques to stop sound leakage from the speakers. So, within the Xiaomi smart glasses app, you can access your recordings if you've done any.
You can record phone calls as well, which is kind of cool. Within the app, you can also adjust the gesture settings and remap things as you would prefer. These are the default settings right here, so you've got swipes, push and hold, and taps on either side. There is another feature within the app that allows notifications to be read out loud through the glasses. There's also a Find My Glasses feature here within the app, and the Bluetooth codec built into these glasses allows for dual pairing, so if you wanted to, you could connect these to your phone and your computer at the same time.
You can, of course, then pick up phone calls on your phone or even take conference calls via your laptop. They also have wear-detect sensors built in, so when you put them on, they will know that they're on your head and will allow audio to play through. And when you take them off, they will know that they're not being worn and can power down after a certain amount of time.
Audio Quality & Use Cases
So, something to keep in mind if you are considering buying a pair of glasses like this is that the audio quality will never compare to AirPods or over-ear headphones because of the distance of the drivers from your ears, and then also the sound leakage.
So, first impressions of the audio quality: there isn't much bass, but the clarity is really nice, and the spaciousness of the audio is nice. I think this could be perfect for podcasts and things like that. The sound quality is very good in the mid and high frequencies, not much bass, good spatial audio qualities to it, and volume is pretty decent as well.
Microphones, Calls & Recording
If you do plan to use these glasses for voice calls, you'll be happy to know there are actually four built-in microphones, which have been strategically placed to reduce wind distortion. And when you do decide to record audio via the media glasses, there is actually an LED notification light to let people know that you are, in fact, recording. The voice when it says "recording star" is kind of hilarious. I don't know if you guys can see the LED light, but there should be a notification LED light somewhere on the glasses that lets people know that you are, in fact, recording audio.
Battery Life & Charging
When it comes to battery life, there are actually two battery cells at the ends of both arms, and they are 140 mAh batteries, and these glasses can run for up to 13 hours if just listening to music, and nine hours of continuous talk time – and that's a pretty long phone call.
When it comes to recharging the media glasses, use the magnetic adapter and plug it into a USB charging cable, and the full recharge time on these takes around an hour, with a quick ten-minute charge giving you up to four hours of audio playback.
And although these are different from Xiaomi's previously released eyeglasses, what you can actually do is map the tap on the side, or push and hold on the side to Gemini and then communicate with Gemini via the glasses, which essentially turns them into kind of AI glasses, although they won't be able to see what you're looking at.
Sound Leakage & Mic Test
I want to give you guys a little demo of what sound leakage is like when you're not using privacy mode. Then I'll switch on the privacy mode, and you can hear the difference. So this is kind of a comfortable listening volume. Now I'm going to activate the privacy mode and play the same song at the same volume.
Watch the video for the audio and sound test
The audio sounds a little more muted but still audible. Let me know if you can hear a massive difference between privacy mode and the default mode. Now I'm going to do a quick mic test for you guys so you can hear what they sound like if you do use them for phone calls or conference calls. This device features various microphones, including noise-rejection microphones. Is it doing a good job? Let me know in the comments.
Price
The current price on these at the time of this video is £179.
