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Brilliant Labs Halo

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Brilliant Labs Halo[1][2][3]
Basic Info
VR/AR Augmented Reality
Type Smart glasses
Subtype AI Glasses
Platform iOS, Android (Noa companion app)
Creator Brilliant Labs
Developer Brilliant Labs
Manufacturer Brilliant Labs (contract manufacturing by Foxconn)
Announcement Date 31 July 2025
Release Date Pre-orders opened 31 July 2025; company stated first shipments for early August 2026
Price US$399 (September 2026); US$299 at pre-order launch (July 2025)
Website https://brilliant.xyz/products/halo
Requires iOS or Android smartphone running the Noa app
Predecessor Brilliant Labs Frame
System
Operating System Zephyr OS with a Lua virtual machine
Chipset Alif Semiconductor Balletto B1 (Arm Cortex-M55 CPU, Arm Ethos-U55 NPU)
CPU Arm Cortex-M55
Storage
Storage 1.8 MB MRAM
Memory 2.0 MB SRAM
Display
Display 0.2-inch color OLEDoS micro-display (Guozhao Optoelectronics VGA020)
Peak Brightness Up to 5000 nits (panel rating)
Resolution 640 x 480 pixel panel; 256 x 256 pixel drawable area
Refresh Rate 25-120 Hz (panel rating)
Optics
Ocularity Monocular
IPD Range 58-72 mm
Adjustable Diopter +2 to -6 diopters
Audio
Audio Stereo bone conduction speakers
Microphone Two TDK T5838 MEMS microphones with audio activity detection
Camera 640 x 480 global shutter color camera (PixArt PAG7982J1), 81.2 degree horizontal field of view
Connectivity
Connectivity Bluetooth LE 5.3 to a smartphone; no Wi-Fi
Bluetooth Bluetooth LE 5.3
Power Magnetic charging connector over USB Type-C
Battery Capacity 300 mAh (two 150 mAh lithium-ion button cells)
Battery Life Up to 14 hours (manufacturer claim)
Device
Weight Just over 40 g (manufacturer figure)
Color Black
Sensors Bosch BMA580 3-axis accelerometer with tap detection; QST QMC6308 3-axis magnetometer
Input Voice, tap gestures, button under the left temple arm


Brilliant Labs Halo is a pair of open-source AI glasses developed by Brilliant Labs, the Singapore-based company behind the Brilliant Monocle and the Brilliant Labs Frame.[4] Halo has a single 0.2-inch color micro-OLED display, a low-power camera, two microphones and bone conduction speakers in a black frame that weighs just over 40 g according to the company. It runs Zephyr OS with a Lua scripting environment on an Alif Semiconductor Balletto B1 microcontroller and relies on a paired smartphone for its Noa AI assistant.[1][2][3]

Brilliant Labs announced Halo on 31 July 2025 and opened pre-orders at US$299, with shipping planned for the fourth quarter of 2025.[3][5] The launch slipped repeatedly. The company's product page moved the shipping window to the first quarter of 2026, then to "soon", and by August 2026 stated that the first units were leaving the production line with shipments beginning in early August. The listed price rose to US$349 in November 2025 and to US$399 in July 2026.[6][7][1]

The software side centers on Noa, a conversational agent, a long-term memory system the company calls Narrative, and an experimental "Vibe Mode" that generates small applications for the glasses from spoken descriptions. Brilliant Labs publishes the hardware design files, firmware and software development kits, and released the Halo firmware source on GitHub in August 2026.[3][8]

Reviewed 20 September 2026. Announcement date, price and shipping history against archived and current official product pages; hardware specifications against the official hardware manual; firmware release dates against GitHub; software, partnership and reception claims against the cited press and company sources. About review dates.

Announcement, pricing and shipping

Brilliant Labs unveiled Halo on 31 July 2025 as the successor to Frame, its 2024 glasses, and to Monocle, the clip-on developer kit it released in 2023.[3][5] Pre-orders opened the same day at US$299 in a single matte black color, with the company describing a limited first run and global shipping in late November 2025 on a first come, first served basis.[5][3][9][10] Brilliant Labs marketed the device as the "world's thinnest AI glasses", a claim Tom's Guide quoted in its headline, while Notebookcheck described it as "the world's thinnest open-source glasses".[11][12]

The company followed the announcement with a series of "Road to Halo" blog posts between August and October 2025 that described the design intent: a low-power processor rather than an over-powered one, a small image sensor for AI inference rather than social media capture, no Wi-Fi radio, and battery life aimed at all-day wear.[13][14]

The following table summarizes the price and shipping statements on Brilliant Labs' own product page and social channels.

Date Listed price (USD) Shipping statement by Brilliant Labs Source
31 July 2025 299 Pre-orders open; shipping "Q4 2025 before the holidays", first come, first served [10]
September 2025 299 Page states the launch price rises to US$349 on 1 November 2025; shipping still Q4 2025 [15]
January 2026 349 Shipping to early beta testers "begins in December 2025 with general availability scheduled for January 2026"; product listing says "Shipping starts Q1 2026" [6]
March 2026 349 "Halo will begin shipping in Q1 2026" [16]
April 2026 349 "Shipping starts soon" [17]
18 July 2026 349, rising to 399 Company post: "With shipping just around the corner, Halo will move from $349 to its regular price of $399" [7]
August to September 2026 399 "The first Halo units are rolling off the production line now, with shipments beginning in early August" [1]

As of 20 September 2026 the product page still carried the early-August shipping statement and listed Halo at US$399, with a note that import taxes may apply at delivery.[1] Prescription, sunglass, astigmatism and Transitions lenses are sold separately through a partnership with SmartBuyGlasses, which Engadget reported covers more than 100 countries.[5][18]

In a May 2026 interview with EE Journal, Brilliant Labs chief executive Bobak Tavangar said Halo was being mass-produced by Foxconn.[19]

Design and hardware

Form factor

Halo is a wayfarer-style pair of black glasses. Engadget contrasted the shape with the Panto-style Frame, and Pocket-lint compared the look to ordinary square frames sold by online eyeglass retailers.[5][20] Brilliant Labs gives the weight as "just over 40g" and designed the frame for an interpupillary distance range of 58-72 mm, recommending that buyers check their fit with an eye-measurement app before ordering.[1] A single button under the left temple arm handles power, pairing and user-programmable functions.[2]

The official hardware manual describes the internal architecture, publishes a hardware block diagram, and offers a 3D model of the full assembly (front, both lenses and both temple arms) for download in STL format.[2]

Display and optics

The display is a 0.2-inch full-color OLED-on-silicon micro-display, the VGA020 from Guozhao Optoelectronics, mounted at the top of the frame. The panel has 640 x 480 RGB pixels at a 6.3 micrometer pixel pitch, and the manufacturer rates it at a 10000:1 contrast ratio, up to 5000 nits peak brightness and a 25-120 Hz refresh rate. Halo's firmware exposes a 256 x 256 pixel drawable area. Unlike Frame, the display has no double buffer, so draw calls take effect immediately.[2]

The optical approach differs from Frame, which embedded a microdisplay and beam splitter in a thick lens. Hackaday described Halo's design as a small display module in the frame that the wearer looks up into, giving a glanceable readout rather than a see-through overlay.[21] EE Journal's Max Maxfield wrote that the image appears as a floating virtual screen when the wearer tilts their head down and drops out of view when looking straight ahead.[19] The display optic is adjustable from +2 to -6 diopters to suit wearers who need vision correction, and the standard lenses have an anti-reflective coating.[1][3] Brilliant Labs does not publish a field-of-view figure for the display.

Camera and sensors

Brilliant Labs describes the front sensor as a low-power optical sensor for AI inference rather than a photography camera.[1][13] The hardware manual identifies it as the PixArt Imaging PAG7982J1, a VGA color module with a global shutter that captures 640 x 480 images with an 81.2 degree horizontal field of view and draws 40 mW at full frame rate. Images pass through a configurable libmpix processing pipeline.[2]

Motion sensing combines a Bosch BMA580 triaxial 16-bit accelerometer with on-chip single, double and triple tap detection and a QST QMC6308 3-axis magnetometer. The microcontroller converts their readings into angular values for head position, and an accelerometer interrupt line allows always-on tap detection for navigating on-glasses interfaces.[2]

Audio

Two TDK T5838 MEMS microphones provide 68 dBA signal-to-noise ratio and a 133 dB SPL acoustic overload point. They support several power modes, from a 310 microampere high-quality mode down to a 20 microampere always-on mode used for audio activity detection wake-up, and the standard firmware records PCM and LC3 formats at configurable sample rates.[2]

Output is through stereo bone conduction speakers from Thor Innovation, driven by a Texas Instruments TPA2011D1 3.2 W Class-D amplifier. Audio streams from the phone to Halo over a dedicated Bluetooth characteristic that bypasses the Lua virtual machine to reduce latency.[2]

Processor, memory and connectivity

Halo's main processor is the Balletto B1 from Alif Semiconductor, a wireless microcontroller with a 32-bit Arm Cortex-M55 CPU, an Arm Ethos-U55 neural processing unit, 1.8 MB of MRAM flash storage, 2.0 MB of SRAM and Bluetooth LE 5.3.[2] Alif rates the combination at up to 46 GOPS of on-device AI performance and supplies it in a 3.9 mm x 3.9 mm package, which Alif says helped Brilliant Labs keep the frame thin.[22][19] There is no Wi-Fi radio; the glasses depend on a Bluetooth link to a phone.[13]

On 11 March 2026 Brilliant Labs and Alif announced a partnership to co-develop custom silicon for future generations of AI glasses. The joint press release said the B1 in Halo handles real-time translation and the AI memory system on the device and cited up to 14 hours of battery life.[23][24]

Power and battery

Two Grepow GRP1654M1 lithium-ion button cells of 150 mAh each give a total capacity of 300 mAh at 3.7 V nominal. A Texas Instruments BQ25170 linear charger manages charging between 0 and 45 degrees Celsius with a thermistor for temperature protection, and the cells are rated for more than 1000 charge cycles. Charging is through a magnetic connector over USB Type-C.[2] Brilliant Labs claims up to 14 hours of battery life at typical use; this figure is the company's own and has not been reported from independent testing.[3][12]

Software and features

Noa

Noa is Brilliant Labs' assistant, carried over from Frame and reworked for Halo. On Halo it takes input from the camera and microphones and holds spoken conversations about what the wearer sees and hears, including translation across what the company says are more than 20 languages.[3][10] The glasses themselves run only lightweight tasks such as audio activity detection; according to Tavangar's EE Journal interview, speech and image inference runs on the paired smartphone's neural processor and only embeddings are sent to the cloud for higher-level reasoning and memory retrieval.[19]

Noa's services are tiered. At launch Brilliant Labs described a free Basic tier with slower, cost-optimized question answering, memory and a daily cap, and a Plus tier with real-time conversation. Pre-order customers were promised free beta access to Plus.[10] By January 2026 the product page listed Noa+ at US$19.99 per month and said the free tier had a smaller daily allowance.[6][16]

In September 2025 Brilliant Labs announced a partnership with Liquid AI to run the LFM2-VL-450M vision-language model for real-time scene description from the camera feed. Liquid AI said the model combines an 86 million parameter vision encoder with a 350 million parameter language model and runs without cloud dependency.[25]

Narrative memory

Narrative is the name Brilliant Labs gives to Noa's long-term memory. The company says Noa analyzes the wearer's daily conversations and surroundings to build a private knowledge base that can be queried later, for example to recall details of a meeting or where an object was left.[5][19] Pocket-lint quoted the company's statement that "all rich media required for Noa" is "immediately converted into an irreversible mathematical representation", with no raw audio, video or images stored or shared with third parties.[20] A company blog post in October 2025 said memories are machine-encoded and stored on encrypted servers with no rich media retained.[26] Tavangar compared the approach to fingerprint systems that keep extracted features rather than a complete image.[19] Engadget reported that the wearer can disable the microphone, camera or the glasses entirely by voice command.[5]

Vibe Mode and mini apps

Vibe Mode is an experimental feature in which the wearer describes an application aloud and Noa generates a small program for the glasses. Brilliant Labs said users can share and remix these creations through its app or website.[20][3] The product page in 2026 refers to these as "Miniapps" distributed through a Brilliant Labs App Store, available free out of the box with daily usage caps.[1]

Open source and developer tools

Brilliant Labs publishes Halo's design files and code on GitHub.[1] The firmware is a Zephyr RTOS application for the Balletto B1 with a Lua 5.4 runtime for on-device apps, LE Audio style voice pipelines with on-device echo cancellation, a MIPI-DSI display driver and Bluetooth over-the-air updates through MCUboot. Owners can build modified firmware and flash it wirelessly with no cable or vendor tool. Brilliant Labs' own code is under the Apache-2.0 license, while the Alif SDK portions use Alif's software license, which permits source redistribution but restricts use to Alif silicon, so the repository as a whole is not uniformly Apache-2.0.[8] The public repository was created on 19 August 2026 with firmware release 0.8.8, followed by 0.8.9 on 26 August and 0.8.10 on 17 September 2026.[27]

The Brilliant SDK supports both Halo and Frame from Python, Flutter (Android and iOS) and WebBluetooth/TypeScript under a BSD 3-Clause license, and includes a Halo emulator that runs device-side Lua apps without hardware.[28] Tavangar told EE Journal that the hardware, firmware, software and smartphone apps are all open source and that the company's developer community across three product generations exceeded 13,000 people on GitHub and Discord.[19]

Reception

Coverage at announcement focused on the price, weight and battery claims. Road to VR's Scott Hayden framed the US$299 pre-order price and 14-hour battery rating against the company's earlier developer-oriented Monocle and Frame.[3] Hackaday's Donald Papp called the new display module a departure from Frame's prism-in-lens approach and noted the company's record of thorough documentation.[21]

Antony Vitillo of The Ghost Howls praised the claimed 14-hour battery life, which he contrasted with the roughly four hours of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, and the weight of just over 40 g, but questioned the comfort of a monocular display, the fashion appeal relative to Ray-Ban Meta, and whether voice-generated apps would leave room for a developer ecosystem.[29] In his May 2026 EE Journal piece, Max Maxfield quoted Tavangar's position that Halo aims at "delivering useful information just when it's needed" rather than covering the whole field of view with graphics.[19]

These assessments were based on announcement materials and demonstrations rather than on retail units; the company's product page still described shipping as forthcoming in April 2026 and gave early August 2026 as the start of shipments.[17][1]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 "Halo". Brilliant Labs. https://brilliant.xyz/products/halo. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 "Halo Hardware Manual". Brilliant Documentation. Brilliant Labs. https://docs.brilliant.xyz/halo/hardware/. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 Scott Hayden (2025-08-01). "Brilliant Labs Unveils All-day Smart Glasses with Color Display, Pre-orders Launch at $300". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/brilliant-labs-halo-smart-glasses-price-release-date/. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  4. ↑ Rita Liao (2024-02-08). "AR glasses with multimodal AI nets funding from Pokémon GO creator". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/08/ar-glasses-with-multimodal-ai-attracts-funding-from-pokemon-go-founder/. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 Daniel Cooper (2025-07-31). "Brilliant Labs launches its second-generation smart glasses". Engadget. https://www.engadget.com/wearables/brilliant-labs-launches-its-second-generation-smart-glasses-130000032.html. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 "Halo (archived product page, January 2026)". Brilliant Labs. Internet Archive Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20260102201149/https://brilliant.xyz/products/halo. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Brilliant Labs (2026-07-18). "We're incredibly excited to get Halo into your hands". X. https://x.com/brilliantlabsAR/status/2078304140426698991. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "halo-firmware: Firmware for Halo, Brilliant Labs' AI glasses". GitHub. Brilliant Labs. https://github.com/brilliantlabsAR/halo-firmware. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  9. ↑ Kurt Knutsson (2025-08-04). "World's thinnest AI glasses feature built-in AI assistant". Fox News. https://www.foxnews.com/tech/worlds-thinnest-ai-glasses-feature-built-in-ai-assistant.print. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 "Halo (archived product page, August 2025)". Brilliant Labs. Internet Archive Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20250801104041/https://brilliant.xyz/products/halo. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  11. ↑ Darragh Murphy (2025-07-31). "Brilliant Labs unveils Halo, the 'world's thinnest AI glasses' - and it wants to be your everyday specs". Tom's Guide. https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/smart-glasses/brilliant-labs-unveils-halo-the-worlds-thinnest-ai-glasses-and-it-wants-to-be-your-everyday-specs. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Abhinav Fating (2025-07-31). "Brilliant Labs unveils new Halo AI smart glasses with built-in display, lightweight design and 14 hours of runtime". Notebookcheck. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Brilliant-Labs-unveils-new-Halo-AI-smart-glasses-with-built-in-display-lightweight-design-and-14-hours-of-runtime.1073945.0.html. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 "Road to Halo - Part 3 of 4". Brilliant Labs. 2025-08-26. https://brilliant.xyz/blogs/announcements/road-to-halo-part-3-of-4. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  14. ↑ "Road to Halo - Part 1 of 4". Brilliant Labs. 2025-08-13. https://brilliant.xyz/blogs/announcements/road-to-halo-part-1-of-4. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  15. ↑ "Halo (archived product page, September 2025)". Brilliant Labs. Internet Archive Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20250905133249/https://brilliant.xyz/products/halo. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 "Halo (archived product page, March 2026)". Brilliant Labs. Internet Archive Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20260303123819/https://brilliant.xyz/products/halo. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "Halo (archived product page, April 2026)". Brilliant Labs. Internet Archive Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20260416130457/https://brilliant.xyz/products/halo. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  18. ↑ Sam Sprigg (2025-07-31). "Brilliant Labs Launches Halo AI Glasses with Built-in Display". Auganix. https://www.auganix.org/xr-news-brilliant-labs-halo-ai-glasses/. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 19.3 19.4 19.5 19.6 19.7 Max Maxfield (2026-05-14). "AI+AR Glasses That Remember Where You Left Your Keys". EE Journal. https://www.eejournal.com/article/aiar-glasses-that-remember-where-you-left-your-keys/. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 Ian Carlos Campbell (2025-07-31). "Brilliant Labs Halo smart glasses want you to vibe code your own apps". Pocket-lint. https://www.pocket-lint.com/brilliant-labs-halo-smart-glasses/. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Donald Papp (2025-08-04). "Brilliant Labs Has New Smart Glasses, With A New Display". Hackaday. https://hackaday.com/2025/08/04/brilliant-labs-has-new-smart-glasses-with-a-new-display/. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  22. ↑ "Powering The Future Of Smart Glasses: How Alif's Balletto B1 Enables Halo By Brilliant Labs". Alif Semiconductor. https://alifsemi.com/powering-the-future-of-smart-glasses-how-alifs-balletto-b1-enables-halo-by-brilliant-labs/. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  23. ↑ "Brilliant Labs and Alif Semiconductor Partner on Development of New Technologies for Next-Generation AI-Powered Smart Glasses". VentureBeat. Business Wire. 2026-03-11. https://venturebeat.com/business/brilliant-labs-and-alif-semiconductor-partner-on-development-of-new-technologies-for-next-generation-ai-powered-smart-glasses. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  24. ↑ Asma Adhimi (2026-03-16). "Brilliant Labs and Alif Semiconductor partner on AI silicon for smart glasses". eeNews Europe. https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/brilliant-labs-and-alif-semiconductor-partner-on-ai-silicon-for-smart-glasses/. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  25. ↑ "Brilliant Labs Partners With Liquid AI to Bring Vision-Language Tech to Your Glasses". Liquid AI. 2025-09-15. https://www.liquid.ai/press/brilliant-labs-partners-with-liquid-ai-to-bring-vision-language-tech-to-your-glasses. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  26. ↑ "Road to Halo - Part 5". Brilliant Labs. 2025-10-11. https://brilliant.xyz/blogs/announcements/road-to-halo-part-5. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  27. ↑ "Releases: brilliantlabsAR/halo-firmware". GitHub. Brilliant Labs. https://github.com/brilliantlabsAR/halo-firmware/releases. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  28. ↑ "brilliant_sdk: All Brilliant SDKs in one monorepo". GitHub. Brilliant Labs. https://github.com/brilliantlabsAR/brilliant_sdk. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  29. ↑ Antony Vitillo (2025-07-31). "Brilliant Labs launches Halo: AI smartglasses that last all day". The Ghost Howls. https://skarredghost.com/2025/07/31/brilliant-labs-halo/. Retrieved 2026-09-20.


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