Chamelo has established itself as the first big name in tint-shifting electrochromic glasses, with products like the Dusk Classic and the Music Shield that can change from dark to nearly transparent. With the Aura, Chamelo expands to multi-color fashion tints. These glasses let you instantly flip between clear, red, blue, and purple lenses with a simple tap. The Aura glasses are extremely cool to use, but at $385, they’re quite expensive and the tints don't reduce eye strain or get as dark as most sunglasses. They also don't have any other smart glasses features like music playback, app control, a camera, or a display. That said, if you love the concept and the aesthetic, they might be your ideal accessory.

Design: Premium Build, Subjective Style

The Aura glasses have a rimless frame and black temples with gold accents depicting the Sun emerging from a solar eclipse, and a matching gold tone on the bridge and hinges. They're made from TP-90 thermoplastic, stainless steel, and titanium, and weigh just 40 grams (1.3 ounces). The lenses are rectangular in a slightly pinched-in aviator style. The bridge features metal nose pads, which I find preferable to replaceable silicone pads since they always wear down. While the frame doesn’t have spring hinges, I found it light and comfortable on my large head.

Style is subjective, but I don’t love the design. I just don’t think the rimless lenses or gold accents really suit my face shape or how I usually dress. The rimless style has been slowly growing on me, but the star accents on the front feel a bit extra. They might be perfect for you, though. I’d love to see an all-black design, or even a prismatic pair with Chamelo Prime frames (which are currently only available with dimmable, and not color-changing, lenses).

Chamelo noted that the Aura is rimless not just as a design choice but because it’s easier to engineer and manufacture prescription lenses with electrochromatic film without rims. The company will likely have full-rim prescription glasses down the line, but for now, it’s rimless-only.

It's worth noting the Aura has a feature we haven't seen in any of Chamelo’s glasses before: Prescription lens support. The Aura RX bumps the price up another $199 to a hefty $584 and takes 30 days after ordering to manufacture, but you won’t find any other way to get vision-sharpening lenses that change colors at a touch.

For this review, I tested a finalized version of the standard Aura and an early preproduction Aura RX unit in my prescription. Until I can test a finalized version of the Aura RX and verify the reliability of its electronics, the score here only applies to the standard Aura.

The high-end materials should ensure durability, but the Aura is still a pair of smart glasses with electronics (transmitters and receivers) built into the temples and delicate tinting films in the lenses. Those components are nestled inside the thermoplastic temples and sandwiched between layers of nylon for non-RX plano lenses or MR-7 1.67 material for prescription lenses, so the Aura should be able to handle most bumps and drops. They aren't nearly as resilient as non-smart glasses with mostly titanium frames, so don’t bend the arms or bridge. You also shouldn’t submerge the glasses in water; they are rated IPX4, so you can gently rinse them off.

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

Each temple has a set of charging connectors located on the bottom edges, right behind the hinges. Both temples need to be connected to the included charger because each one separately powers a lens, and they aren’t electrically connected to each other. Instead of running a wire through the bridge, Chamelo uses a very short-range 2.4GHz wireless connection to sync the temples together. It seems like an odd choice, but it does keep the bridge simple and sturdier than it would be with a tiny, fragile wire running through it.

I didn’t experience any connectivity issues between the lenses with the standard Aura. However, on the preproduction Aura RX I tested, the two lenses seemed to desynchronize after a while, causing the left lens to lose its tint after a few seconds. It's likely a fluke of preproduction assembly, and I'm eager to test the finalized Aura RX to confirm that, so stay tuned for more on that model.

According to Chamelo, the Aura's batteries provide up to 47 hours of color changing, but exactly what that means isn't clear, considering you'll probably be tapping to switch tints whenever you feel like it rather than at any regular, consistent pace. The batteries charge to 80% in 30 minutes, though, so you probably won't be left with glasses that don't change color if you remember to occasionally plug them in.

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

The Aura is controlled with a single tap on the tiny touch-sensitive control nub on the right temple. This cycles through the four tints. There’s no app control or sliding panel to adjust opacity like on the Dusk Classic or the Music Shield.

Besides the charging cable, the Aura comes with a flip-top hard case that safely protects the glasses and a microfiber cleaning cloth. The case is just big enough to hold both the glasses and the charging cable, but since there isn’t a separate pocket for the cable, you’ll occasionally have to fiddle with it to get both to fit.

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

Changing Colors

Your four tint options are Crystal, Violet (purple), Indigo (blue), and Ruby (red-pink). Crystal is the closest mode to a neutral color, but it’s still a little brownish-red rather than truly untinted. It’s also slightly dim; it lets 65% of light pass through, which can make wearing the glasses indoors a bit uncomfortable if the room is dim, while the other colors allow as little as 20% light transmission. Still, even the darkest modes are lighter than dedicated sunglasses. Your eyes will be safe in any mode, because like most tinted glasses, the Aura has 100% UVA/UVB protection.

The tints are all very clearly for style. The colors are simply meant to look cool rather than reduce eye strain like computer glasses do. These tints are toggled modes and can’t be adjusted like the Chamelo Dusk or Music Shield monochrome lenses. 

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

The 65% light transmission when set to Crystal made my modestly lit apartment a bit too dark, but wearing the glasses outside under partly cloudy or overcast conditions was comfortable. I found the tint insufficient for blocking out direct sunlight under clear skies in the middle of the day, but I’m also fairly light-sensitive and you might think that level of light blocking is enough.

While the tints aren’t extreme in one direction or the other, they are varied enough to give you four different looks from one pair of glasses. I found the color-changing feature especially handy while driving in variable weather conditions during the day (do not wear them while driving at night).

Speaking of tapping to change tint, that’s the big gimmick of the Aura, and it is genuinely cool, letting you change the lens color depending on your mood or outfit. It really is fun to flip between colors, and the switching is nearly instantaneous, too, changing as soon as you tap. Conventional photochromic lenses like Transitions can take minutes shifting under different levels of sunlight, and have no direct user control. 

Prescription Lenses

I have a fairly light prescription (-0.75 and -1.50), and the early Aura RX unit I tested matched that mostly well, but seemingly not precisely. My distance vision was sharpened, but not quite as much as my regular non-smart glasses. While the prescription didn’t seem as sharp as my other glasses, they did correct my vision enough to make driving feel better than with my naked eyes.

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

Chamelo noted that my left eye prescription is actually slightly under the advised range of what lenses the company can easily produce, which can explain the imperfect view. If your prescription is within the +/- 1.0 to 6.0 range, you should be covered.

Chamelo has a 30-day return policy and a one-year warranty for manufacturer’s defects that applies to all Aura models, including RX.