Last year, HTC launched the Vive Eagle, a pair of smart glasses designed to go toe-to-toe with Meta’s own lineup. But after the initial launch in HTC’s home territory of Taiwan, the company went silent, leaving folks outside wondering when they’d get the chance to try them. Now, a full year later, the company is rolling Vive Eagle out in North America, Europe, the UK and Australia. And we’ll finally get the chance to see if they’re a worthy alternative to the other glasses on the market.

The lengthy journey to the West hasn’t changed the Vive Eagle in a material way, with the spec list more or less the same as it has been. Inside, you’ll find a Snapdragon AR Gen 1, 4GB RAM, 32GB storage and a 235mAh battery with a promised standby time of 36 hours. There’s a 12-megapixel front-facing camera and HTC says it’s taken plenty of precautions to prevent the notification LED from being disabled. It added that the glasses won’t record if they’re not being worn, and if a bystander says “stop filming,” any recording will turn off.

Naturally, one of the big selling points is accessing an AI, and users can choose between OpenAI or Gemini depending on the task at hand. HTC adds that any data collected is not going to be used to train its own models, and your requests are anonymized to prevent profiling. The AI will speak to you via a pair of open-ear stereo speakers embedded in the glasses, which will also let you listen to music or podcasts as you go about your day.

HTC Vive Eagle is available in two different shapes, square or panto, and a variety of translucent colors including Black, Coffee and Berry. It ships with Zeiss lenses (either clear, tinted or adaptive) and HTC says it’s easy enough to add prescription lenses after the fact. If you’re in the US, then you’l be able to buy the Vive Eagle from today, with prices starting at $499 without any fancy lenses. In Europe and the UK, shipments will begin on September 21st, with the base model setting you back €469 / £429.