Thank You, Beta Testers! Ally Solos Glasses Are Here! (Early Access)

[Kevin Chao]

Hi Kevin Chao,    We are incredibly grateful for your invaluable feedback and dedication that shaped Ally into the most accessible AI assistant it is today. Your insights have been critical, and we genuinely appreciate your role in helping us refine and evolve Ally.   A New Chapter: Ally Solos Glasses As a direct result of your partnership and contributions, we are thrilled to announce a significant new chapter: the pre-order launch of Ally Solos Glasses.   Experience Hands-Free Ally Ally Solos Glasses offer a lightweight, splash-resistant, and screen-free way to interact with your Ally assistant. Simply by speaking, users can ask Ally Solos Glasses to: Read text from books, signs, menus, or mail. Describe surroundings, people, or scenes. Recognize people, objects, and signs. Answer questions, provide reminders, or check calendars. Converse naturally, with Ally remembering context across turns. All of this happens through subtle open-ear audio, allowing you to stay connected to your surroundings while seamlessly interacting with Ally, which is powered through the Ally app on your phone. It's the same Ally you love, now integrated into your daily life in a whole new, hands-free way.   Your Exclusive Early Access As a special thank you and recognition of your critical role, you receive early, exclusive access to pre-order Ally Solos Glasses starting today. This is your chance to be among the very first to experience this innovation before the public pre-order opens tomorrow, August 14, 2025. To access your early pre-order, please visit: www.ally.me/glasses. Your exclusive access password is: earlybird   The special launch pricing starts at just $399, and includes a one-year subscription of Ally Pro. Estimated to ship by October 2025. Thank you again for being such an integral part of the Ally journey. We are excited for you to experience this next evolution of accessible AI.   Warm regards, The Ally Team

Best Regards,
Kevin Chao

📧 kevin.ev...@agiga.ai
📱 415.226.5026

🕶️ EchoVision AI Smart Glasses – built by, with, and for the blind community: Providing real-time audio descriptions of the visual world.

🔗 Facebook Group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/echovision/

🌐 Website
https://echovision.agiga.ai

📺 Watch EchoVision in Action / Media Coverage
https://echovision.agiga.ai/#news-insights

❓ FAQ
https://echovision.agiga.ai/faq/

[Buddy Brannan]

Yeah, I also got this email. I wonder how this will compare? I’m pretty well set with smart glasses coming though. LOL 

--
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV, WRVB670 - Erie, PA
Email: bu...@brannan.name
Mobile: (814) 431-0962

--
You're receiving this message because you're subscribed to the EchoVision Community Forum.
 
To view the archive or catch up on discussions:
https://groups.google.com/a/agiga.ai/g/echovision-discuss
 
To unsubscribe, send an email to:
echovision-disc...@agiga.ai
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to echovision-disc...@agiga.ai.

[Lynn Lesko]

I am a bit confused. I was not on the zoom call the other day so I don't know if I missed something. But this email from Kevin Chow seems like there is an association with ally. What about the echo vision glasses? Is this an endorsement of the ally glasses? Please clarify.

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 13, 2025, at 11:01 AM, Buddy Brannan <bu...@brannan.name> wrote:

Yeah, I also got this email. I wonder how this will compare? I’m pretty well set with smart glasses coming though. LOL 

[Kevin Chao]

AGIGA.AI has no association or not endorsing Ally Solos, but just sharing news in the wearable glasses space for blind. 

Best Regards,
Kevin Chao

📧 kevin.ev...@agiga.ai
📱 415.226.5026

🕶️ EchoVision AI Smart Glasses – built by, with, and for the blind community: Providing real-time audio descriptions of the visual world.

🔗 Facebook Group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/echovision/

🌐 Website
https://echovision.agiga.ai

📺 Watch EchoVision in Action / Media Coverage
https://echovision.agiga.ai/#news-insights

❓ FAQ
https://echovision.agiga.ai/faq/

[Buddy Brannan]

I think he was forwarding it as an informational thing, although I’m not sure why else. There is no association, I’m fairly certain.

--
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV, WRVB670 - Erie, PA
Email: bu...@brannan.name
Mobile: (814) 431-0962

[Cristobal Munoz]

I mean… Nothing like pumping up the competition. I’m on this list because I pre-ordered these glasses. Not like I wanna hear how awesome these other ones may be instead …

On Aug 13, 2025, at 9:37 AM, Buddy Brannan <bu...@brannan.name> wrote:

I think he was forwarding it as an informational thing, although I’m not sure why else. There is no association, I’m fairly certain.

[Viv A]

Good afternoon. 

I entered the Ally website to purchase the Ally Solos smart glasses. However the early bird special is not $399. It states to be $499 with 40% off from $699. The only available color is light brown. When are the other frame colors going to be available preferably dark gray? I believe for the promotion of the Ally Solos classes there should have been a much higher production.

Warm regards,

Ms. Alvarez

On Aug 13, 2025, at 10:40 AM, Kevin Chao <kevin.ev...@agiga.ai> wrote:



--

[Cristobal Munoz]

A question that should be made to whichever mailing list corresponds to those glasses. 

On Aug 16, 2025, at 11:35 AM, Viv A <ms.alv...@gmail.com> wrote:

Good afternoon. 

[Jeffrey D. Stark]

I will say that I think the Bluetooth rather than wifi element of the solo glasses make them superior. However; the button/way the echos seem to operate is also potentially superior.

 

Envision has been a mixed bag and their last glasses were a huge cost for a poor product. The ally app isn’t very impressive either compared to equivalent ai apps.

 

 

[Amanda Heal]

Having owned the envision glasses myself, and tried to use ally once on my phone, I think this is very accurate assessment.

Regards

Amanda Heal

Sent from my iPhone

On 29 Aug 2025, at 9:27 AM, Jeffrey D. Stark <jds.li...@gmail.com> wrote:



I will say that I think the Bluetooth rather than wifi element of the solo glasses make them superior. However; the button/way the echos seem to operate is also potentially superior.

 

Envision has been a mixed bag and their last glasses were a huge cost for a poor product. The ally app isn’t very impressive either compared to equivalent ai apps.

 

 

--

[Buddy Brannan]

I can’t really agree about bluetooth vs. wifi. With the Meta glasses, I would constantly get an error about a poor connection from the Meta glasses (using a Whatsapp to Aira), when the wifi connection was fine. The only other thing connected to bluetooth at the time was my Dexcom G7 CGM sensor, and that only connects briefly every few minutes. There just isn’t enough bandwidth over bluetooth for the sort of video resolution required, I don’t think. 

--
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV, WRVB670 - Erie, PA
Email: bu...@brannan.name
Mobile: (814) 431-0962

On Aug 28, 2025, at 7:26 PM, Jeffrey D. Stark <jds.li...@gmail.com> wrote:

I will say that I think the Bluetooth rather than wifi element of the solo glasses make them superior. However; the button/way the echos seem to operate is also potentially superior.

 

Envision has been a mixed bag and their last glasses were a huge cost for a poor product. The ally app isn’t very impressive either compared to equivalent ai apps.

 

 

[David Csercsics]

Wifi is without question more stable than bluetooth. All wireless sucks, but Bluetooth sucks more! It's short range, and very flaky usually. AI in general is vapourware, and I've yet to see it give me anything useful. It's a poorly marketed database lookup, not anything intelligent. But if I can get these glasses to read text as it actually appears, then that's really all I care about, anything else is a bonus. All existing glasses are terrible at reading text, and terrible for picture or scene descriptions. I don't want a summary or a fake version of reality, I want what's actually there. And right now, nobody's delivering that. The ally stuff seems more focused on personality. I want to ruthlessly abuse my tech like the tool that it is! Not be polite or have a relationship with it! As troublesome as humans are to deal with, the bots that are created by humans with flawed human data, are much worse. It's a tool, not anything intelligent. But until we destroy the AI rubbish, it's what we got to work with, so let's abuse it for all it's worth! Making this stuff break is the only way forward. Once we point out that it doesn't actually do what it says on the tin, we can get rid of it! The other option is for me to be proven wrong and I can get something useful from this stuff. But so far nothing with AI in it is at all helpful.

[James Ver Huel]

I agree!

[Kevin Chao]

Q: Wifi is without question more stable than bluetooth. All wireless sucks, but Bluetooth sucks more! It's short range, and very flaky usually.
A: This is the reason why EchoVision  uses Wi-Fi.

Q: AI in general is vapourware, and I've yet to see it give me anything useful. It's a poorly marketed database lookup, not anything intelligent.
A: AGIGA is about empowering every life via EchoVision that is helpful, useful, and affordable intelligent AI wearable glasses. The thousands of blind people that had face-on demo and has been field testing feels that these are all true with EchoVision.

Q: But if I can get these glasses to read text as it actually appears, then that's really all I care about, anything else is a bonus.
A: EchoVision does OCR text recognition of reading text as it actually appears on the page.

Q: All existing glasses are terrible at reading text, and terrible for picture or scene descriptions.
A: the thousands of blind people  who had face-on demo of EchoVision and are field testing would disagree and express positive productive experiences with text, picture, and scene description.

Q:  I don't want a summary or a fake version of reality, I want what's actually there.
A: Sounds like you want EchoVision.

Q:   And right now, nobody's delivering that.
A: AGIGA has EchoVision to our alpha testers, will soon to beta testers, and will be shipping publicly Oct 29.

Q: The ally stuff seems more focused on personality. I want to ruthlessly abuse my tech like the tool that it is! Not be polite or have a relationship with it! As troublesome as humans are to deal with, the bots that are created by humans with flawed human data, are much worse. It's a tool, not anything intelligent. But until we destroy the AI rubbish, it's what we got to work with, so let's abuse it for all it's worth! Making this stuff break is the only way forward. Once we point out that it doesn't actually do what it says on the tin, we can get rid of it! The other option is for me to be proven wrong and I can get something useful from this stuff. But so far nothing with AI in it is at all helpful.
A: You'll be delightfully and pleasantly proven wrong with EchoVision and experience helpful and useful AGIGA.AI. 

Best Regards,
Kevin Chao

📧 kevin.ev...@agiga.ai
📱 415.226.5026

🕶️ EchoVision AI Smart Glasses – built by, with, and for the blind community: Providing real-time audio descriptions of the visual world.

🔗 Facebook Group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/echovision/

🌐 Website
https://echovision.agiga.ai

📺 Watch EchoVision in Action / Media Coverage
https://echovision.agiga.ai/#news-insights

❓ FAQ
https://echovision.agiga.ai/faq/