HTC is now in the AI smart glasses race. Thomas Dexmier, VP of Sales and Marketing at HTC VIVE, came on the Metavertising Podcast to talk about Vive Eagle, the company's first pair. We recorded a few days before they went on sale in Europe.

Thomas has been at HTC for more than 15 years. Smartphones, then Vive and VR, now this. He says 2026 feels a lot like 2016, with one big difference. Back then HTC was asking people to step into the technology. This time the technology has to disappear into something people already wear on their face all day.

We go through the hardware: 49 grams, Zeiss lenses, a 12MP camera that shoots 3K video, 32GB of storage, 4GB of RAM, four microphones and open-ear speakers. The part I find more interesting is what HTC decided not to do, which is lock you into one AI. Vive AI sits on top as the experience layer, you pick between models like GPT and Gemini, and developers can point the SDK at their own enterprise LLM.

Then privacy, which is where every smart glasses conversation ends up right now. The recording LED is enforced in hardware, so covering it up does not get you a secret camera. Sensors know when the glasses come off your face. And if I am recording you and you are not happy about it, you can say "stop recording" out loud and Eagle stops, in English, French, German or Spanish. I had not seen that anywhere else, and it is one of the better answers I have heard to the camera problem.

We also talk about why opticians and Silmo Paris matter more to this launch than a shelf in a consumer electronics store, and why Thomas thinks the B2B side may end up bigger than consumer. Underneath all of it sits a question I keep coming back to. The industry has spent 20 years monetising the screen. What happens when the interface is your voice?

Vive Eagle went on sale on 3 September and ships from 21 September, starting at 469 euros, or 559 euros with the photochromic Zeiss lenses.

In this episode:

• Why AI smart glasses have to be glasses first and technology second
• Launching VR in 2016 versus launching AI glasses in 2026
• HTC's case for letting you choose your own AI model
• SDK access, enterprise LLMs and the B2B use cases HTC is already seeing
• Hardware enforced privacy and the "stop recording" command
• Opticians, telcos and Silmo Paris: selling glasses, not gadgets
• Frames, colours and the three Zeiss lens configurations
• Whether smart glasses really are the computing platform after the smartphone

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Follow Metavertising for conversations with the people building immersive tech and smart glasses.

• Connect with Thomas Dexmier
• Connect with Ely Santos
• Details on the HTC VIVE Eagle: https://www.vive.com

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