How to get lyrics on smart glasses

There is a moment every singer with an iPad knows: the second verse is coming, you glance down at the stand, and for a beat the room loses you. Glasses that put the words in your eyeline fix that. Here is what actually works in 2026, what it costs, and what it is like to use.

The problem with the stand

An iPad on a mic stand has to sit about two feet from your face to be readable, which puts it exactly between you and the audience. Every glance down is a break in eye contact, and the glances add up: a request you half know, a bridge you never quite memorised, a lyric that goes blank under lights. Floor-wedge teleprompters solve it for touring acts, but they cost hundreds, need a foot switch, and are one more case to carry.

Smart glasses move the words to where your eyes already are. You look at the room, and the line you need is sitting quietly in your field of view.

Two kinds of glasses, and they are not the same thing

Neither is better in the abstract. A singer who wants nothing on their face beyond a pair of frames wants the G2. A keys player who reads dense charts and does not mind a cable may prefer a wired pair.

What it looks like on stage

On the G2, you see the line you are singing and the line coming next, with the chords above the words. When a song starts with a count-in, the count shows on the lens. As the song moves, the lines roll one at a time, so your eye never has to hunt. Between songs, the next song in the set is a gesture away. You are looking at the back wall, or at the person in the third row, and the words are simply there.

On wired glasses, it is closer to having your iPad floating in front of you: the same performer view QMe shows on the tablet, at whatever size the glasses give you.

How to do it with QMe and Even Realities G2

Four steps, and the fourth one is the only one you repeat.

1. Install QMe on your iPhone or iPadFree from the App Store. Your songs, chords and setlists live here.
2. Install the QMe plugin on your glassesIt is published on Even Realities' own app hub, the same place you get any G2 app.
3. Pair from QMeOpen Glasses Mode in QMe and follow the pairing step. Pairing needs QMe Pro, and the 30 day trial covers it.
4. Pick a song or a setlistPlay from QMe as normal. The words appear on the lens. Run a whole set from the glasses, with gestures to move between songs.

Two details that matter for a gig. Once a setlist has been sent to the glasses it is cached there, so losing wifi mid-set does not lose your words. And brightness is adjustable, because a dim room and a bright stage want different settings. The full walkthrough, including every gesture, is in the manual: Lyrics on Even Realities G2 smart glasses. There is also a short video: Pairing the G2 Glasses.

How to do it with wired display glasses

Plug the glasses into your iPhone or iPad with the cable they came with. QMe recognises a second display and puts the performer view on it. There is no pairing, no account, and nothing travelling over a network.

If you are deciding whether to buy a pair, QMe has a Glasses Preview that shows exactly what the glasses would display, on your normal screen, so you can see it before spending anything. Details in Using wired display glasses with QMe.

Glasses show the words. Something still has to move them.

This is the part people forget. A display, on your face or on a stand, is only half of hands-free. The other half is what advances the lyrics while both your hands are busy. QMe gives you three ways, and you choose per song:

• Voice-follow. QMe listens to you sing and moves with you. It is built for sung lyrics with a clean mic signal. In a band, feed the iPad a dry aux send of the vocal mic from the mixer so QMe hears only the singer; the Instrument Filter helps when that is not possible.
• Tempo scroll. Set the song's BPM and the words roll at that speed.
• A foot pedal or Apple Watch. Any Bluetooth page-turner pedal steps the lines forward. So does the Watch, from your wrist.

All three work with the glasses, and the pedal has its own lines-per-stomp setting for the lens because a small display reads differently from an iPad. See the teleprompter guide for how the modes differ.

What it costs, honestly

The Even Realities G2 is a premium product; check Even's site for current pricing and prescription options. Wired display glasses from XREAL, Viture, RayNeo and Rokid span a wide range. QMe itself is free to download, and glasses pairing is a QMe Pro feature. A new account gets 30 days of full access with no card, which is enough time to try the glasses at a real gig before committing to a subscription.

What is not supported

Meta Ray-Ban Display is not supported, because Meta has not opened publishing to third-party developers. When that changes, so will this. Other wireless smart glasses without a text display, such as audio-only or camera glasses, have nothing to show lyrics on and are not a fit for this.

Questions musicians ask