Mentra’s first smart glasses are open-source and come with their own app store

Mentra will soon start shipping its first smart glasses, the Mentra Live. At first glance, there’s nothing obvious setting Mentra’s glasses apart from its more well-known competitors, but they come with their own dedicated app store, and employ an open-source OS with an SDK that developers have had access to since early 2025.

Mentra says the MiniApp Store is the first app store of its nature for smart glasses, and it will be available to iOS and Android users through the Mentra app. It might be a bit of a reach to call it the smartphone-ification of smart glasses at this early stage, but that seems to be Mentra’s aim. Apps might do something as simple as saving hand-written notes on the fly, but a more specific example is "Chess Cheater," which will use the front-facing camera and AI to analyze your position and literally whisper ...