Phone calls on smart glasses — what the other person hears.

How a phone call works on smart glasses

Short version: yes, you can take phone calls with smart glasses, and the mechanism is the same one a Bluetooth headset uses. The glasses pair with your phone, the phone keeps doing the phone part — the SIM, the carrier, the dialler, the contacts — and the frame handles the two ends you would otherwise hold to your head.

• The caller’s voice plays through open-ear speakers in the temples, which sit above the ear and point sound down into it without sealing the canal.
• Your voice goes in through the microphones in the frame and out to the phone over Bluetooth. On OXIVUE frames that link is Bluetooth 5.4.
• The phone stays in a pocket or a bag, within Bluetooth range. There is no SIM in the glasses; walk away from the phone and the call does not follow you.

Because the call is an ordinary phone call, anything that uses the phone’s audio works the same way: a WhatsApp or FaceTime audio call, the audio of a video meeting, a voice note. The glasses do not need a special app for calls; the companion app is for capture, translation and settings. If you want the wider picture of what the phone does and does not do for the frame, see do smart glasses need a phone.

The microphones decide the call

On a call you never hear your own glasses from the outside. The person who does is the caller, and what they hear is almost entirely down to the microphones: how close they sit to your mouth, how many there are, and what the frame does with wind and background noise before your voice leaves it. That is why “smart glasses microphone” is the question behind “smart glasses call quality”.

A frame has a disadvantage there that earbuds with a stem do not: the microphones sit on the frame front and temples, a little further from your mouth, and in open air. Wind across a microphone port is the classic failure, and it is physics, not firmware — the motorcycle guide is blunt about what that means at speed.

The hardware aimed at that problem is listed on one frame in our current line. The M14’s spec row reads open-ear φ13 driver · dual-mic ENC + bone-conduction mic. In plain terms:

• Dual-mic ENC (environmental noise cancellation) uses two microphones to separate your voice from the sound around you, and works on the outgoing side — it is for the caller, not for you.
• A bone-conduction microphonepicks up your voice as vibration through the frame’s contact with your head rather than through the air, which is the path wind has a hard time getting into.

The M08, M02C and M08C list open-ear directional audio and do not list ENC or a bone-conduction microphone on their spec sheets. They take calls perfectly well indoors, in a car with the windows up or on a walk down a quiet street. We are not going to put a decibel number on the difference; we have not published one, and a noise-reduction figure without a test method behind it would be decoration.

Call time, frame by frame

The second thing a call-heavy day runs into is the battery. Every frame below charges from a cable in about 2 hours; none of them charges from a pocket case the way earbuds do. The row that matters for calls is the middle one of the playback figure.

Read it as two different kinds of frame. The M08 family is listening-biased: a long podcast day and a few calls. The M14 is call-biased: a day of calls on the move with less music. The same battery budget is spent in opposite directions, which is why the comparison pageshows the playback row in full rather than a single “battery life” number.

The M14 is also a different object: a 52 g wrap-around shield with an IPX4 splash rating, built for cycling and the road rather than the office. If your calls happen at a desk, that weight and shape buy you nothing, and the 4 hours on an M08-family frame are the better trade.

What the caller hears — and what the room hears

The callerhears your voice through the frame’s microphones. In a quiet room that is a normal headset call. In a crowd, in traffic or in wind, the microphones hear those too, and that is exactly where the M14’s noise-cancelling pair and bone-conduction microphone are aimed.

Youhear the caller through speakers that do not seal your ear. That is the point of the design: you still hear the traffic, the door and the person who just walked up. It is also the limit. On a loud train or in a busy bar, nothing is blocking the room, so the caller’s voice competes with it and you turn the volume up.

The people next to you hear your half of the conversation, as with any phone call, and at high volume in a quiet room they hear a little of the caller. At normal volume the directional speakers keep leakage modest. If a call is confidential, the phone at your ear or a sealed earbud is still the more private option.

Smart glasses or earbuds for phone calls?

An honest comparison, because the right answer for some readers is to keep their earbuds. We only fill in our own column with numbers; earbuds vary too much by model to summarise.

The pattern: glasses win on the long, low-key call you take while doing something else — walking, cooking, driving with the phone mounted — because there is nothing to put in or take out and your ears stay open. Earbuds win on the loud commute and the call you need to hear every word of. How this plays out on a daily train or walk is in our commuting guide.

Call by call: where glasses work and where they do not

• At a desk or in a meeting room.Works well on any frame. This is the M08C’s territory — its line is “For the call you’re already having” — and our meetings guide covers the transcription and etiquette side.
• Walking in town.Works on any frame; ears open for traffic. Traffic noise reaches the microphones too, so the M14’s noise reduction earns its keep here if you do this daily.
• On a bike or a motorbike. Wind is the enemy of every open microphone. The M14 is the frame in our line built for it; even so, the motorcycle guide tells interstate riders to buy a helmet intercom.
• On a loud train or plane. The weak spot. Take the call on earbuds or the handset.
• Across a language. A phone call and live translation are different features; translation runs through the companion app and a connection. Details in the translation guide.

Bottom line

Any pair of audio smart glasses takes phone calls; the phone does the calling and the frame is the headset. Choose on the two rows that decide the call. If you talk for hours a day or take calls outdoors, the OXIVUE M14 at $199 is the call-first frame in our line: 7 hours of calls, dual-mic ENC and a bone-conduction microphone. If your calls happen indoors and you want eyewear that fits an office, the M08C at $169 gives 4 hours of calls in a gold or silver trim; the M08 at $149 is the same call budget for less. Every spec side by side on the comparison page.

Frequently asked questions