MILAN — A new player in the growing smart glasses category is bound to fuel competition in that market, which HSBC Holdings Plc analysts estimate will generate $200 billion by 2040.
House of Modo — already the owner of the Modo, Eco and Italia Independent brands — is launching EyeFly.
“The ‘real estate’ [space] we have as a category on people’s faces gives us a tremendous opportunity because technology is set to be a fundamental [asset] in the future,” Alessandro Lanaro, House of Modo founder and global chief executive officer, told WWD.
“We embarked on R&D two years ago with the goal of figuring out if we could make a meaningful contribution to this market, especially by leveraging our core values of design, functionality and innovation,” Lanaro said.
“After exploring various tweaks and refinements to make the user experience as seamless as possible, we developed a technology that we think made sense for the market. The most important thing was ensuring that the product wasn’t just a [tech] gadget to wear on your face, but rather a pair of glasses with this added functionality… We pushed the wearability of the glasses to the same level as premium eyewear on the market, adding integrated technology,” he said.
EyeFly is being unveiled at the upcoming edition of eyewear trade show Mido in Milan, which kicks off Saturday and runs through Feb. 2. House of Modo will later take the brand Stateside, participating at Vision Expo in Orlando, Fla., on March 11 to 14.
The first collection comprises four models available in both optical and sunglasses versions. The latter will be offered with either polarized or photochromic lenses. At Mido, the Pantos round-shaped model will be showcased in three colorways: light gray, olive green and black.
EyeFly’s smart eyewear integrates open-ear audio, built-in microphones supporting calls and voice interactions, hand-free connectivity, and touch-sensitive temples to enable one-tap controls. They are equipped with a modular temple system allowing smart audio temples to be swapped for standard ones when needed or preferred.
“The dual functionality of offering two products in one — tech-enabled and standard glasses — gives us a crucial competitive advantage,” Lanaro opined.
The EyeFly eyewear needs no app to run and connects via Bluetooth to smartphones, allowing users to listen to music, take calls, follow navigation, or interact with their devices’ built-in AI assistants, from Apple’s Siri to Google Assistant.
Compared to competitors on the market — namely the EssilorLuxottica-owned RayBan Meta and Oakley Meta — EyeFly does not feature cameras or video recording capabilities. This was a deliberate choice.
“We thought about this at length, and after speaking with many of our wholesale partners, we realized there’s a natural skepticism toward glasses with cameras, and beyond that, it makes the product feel a bit clunky. So, we lightened up the experience, focusing only on the essential technologies… to create a product with specific and precise functionality,” Lanaro explained.
EyeFly eyewear will retail at an average of $200 in the U.S.
“Our product is universal, not just in terms of price but also wearability. We believe we can become a major alternative to what’s currently on the market,” Lanaro said. “It’s the ‘low-hanging fruit’ for the smart glasses category, which we believe will help us open up the market and bring smart eyewear to a wider audience,” he said.
A pair of EyeFly smart glasses.
Courtesy of EyeFly
Launching a new brand rather than introducing smart glasses as part of one of the labels in the House of Modo portfolio is both the result of the company’s confidence about its potential success and the prerequisite to achieve it.
“We believe this category will become so important for us that it required its own DNA… This new brand will become our tech platform for a range of products,” Lanaro explained.
“What we’ve achieved here [with the first model] was designed specifically with everyday wearers of glasses in mind. We’ve streamlined it so that no one can even tell it’s tech-enabled eyewear… [but] we’re already working on R&D for other uses of the technology, such as in sports, where we see video functionality being more relevant compared to everyday eyewear,” he offered.
The executive established Modo in New York in 1990 operating the namesake brand. In 2009 the firm introduced the Eco label, anticipating consumers’ demand for sustainable eyewear.
The group acquired Lapo Elkann’s Italia Independent brand in 2023, in a transaction pegged at 1 million euros. The sale did not involve Italia Independent Group SpA, the publicly listed company that operated the eyewear firm until before the transaction.
Modo’s sales surpassed 100 million euros in 2024, the most recent financial figure available. Its brands are currently distributed to about 20,000 wholesale doors in 80 countries.
As reported, last October a pool of investors led by the London-based Valiant Asset Management Ltd., an alternative credit investment firm focused on the Western European corporate middle market, invested $100 million into House of Modo to acquire an undisclosed minority stake.
