INMO International Technology Limited has recalled its AIR3 smart glasses after receiving 10 reports of overheating, including a burning sensation on the wearer’s face and on the left side of the ear. The Consumer Product Safety Commission says the left temple, the arm that runs along the head, can overheat during extended use, and a burn from it could cause serious injury or death. About 1,643 pairs were sold in the United States, and about 120 more were sold in Canada.
The remedy is a free repair, including a software update to version V3.16 that INMO will help owners install online.
The AIR3 notice: temple, ear and a $900 to $1,300 price
Recall 26-797, which the commission issued on September 24, 2026, states that the firm has received 10 reports of the AIR3 glasses overheating, with reports of burning sensations to the face and the left side of the ear. The glasses are black, carry “AIR3” and “INMO” labeling on the right temple, and are marketed for AI translation, productivity assistance and media streaming.
They were sold on Amazon.com, Inmoxr.com and Kickstarter.com from December 2025 through August 2026 for between $900 and $1,300. The count is small next to the mass-market recalls CPSC announced the same month: about 1,643 units in the United States, with about 120 more sold in Canada, for a combined 1,763 pairs across the two countries. INMO’s support line is 888-212-9620 and its email is [email protected], and the company directs owners to its recall page on inmoxr.com.
A wearable’s thermal path from chip to skin
A pair of glasses has almost no room to shed heat. Writing in Electronic Design, Mike Housholder, vice president of marketing at the chipmaker xMEMS Labs, describes AI glasses as packing processors, cameras, sensors, wireless radios and display engines within millimeters of each other, with the heat then trapped by a boundary layer of warm air around the frame. His account is that of a vendor selling a cooling chip, so it reads as an industry perspective and not a finding about INMO. He argues that traditional passive cooling such as heat spreaders and graphite layers falls short because the limiting factor is convection at the frame’s surface, and says continuous AI processing and high-resolution video already face duration restrictions for that reason.
Housholder also gives the limit that wearables are designed around: skin-contact device temperatures are capped at about 48 degrees Celsius, while manufacturers typically target 41 to 42 degrees for comfort. A temple that rests against the skin for hours has to stay under that ceiling continuously, not just at a moment’s peak, because, as he puts it, the device “rarely has a chance to cool.”
Another trade source, ElectronicSpecifier, identifies the temples and nose bridge as the primary heat dissipation points because they touch skin directly. Designers there are described as distributing heat-generating parts across both temple arms rather than clustering them, using frame materials as heat spreaders and limiting video capture time to prevent sustained thermal buildup.
The CPSC notice describes only the left temple. It does not say whether the right temple runs cooler, which components sit in each arm, or what workload triggers the heat beyond “extended use,” and Android Authority’s coverage by Matt Horne notes that the recall gives no explanation for what causes the left temple to overheat.
Standards, the V3.16 update and the unanswered cause
Safety certification for wearables usually runs through IEC 62368-1, which a testing firm, Product Safety Inc., describes as “more risk assessment than rulebook.” Its page says wearables sit on the skin for 12 to 16 hours a day and must be tested so they cannot get hot enough to cause discomfort, with battery safety and durability tested alongside. Its guidance suggests keeping maximum temperatures cooler than that of a laptop even in extreme conditions, and says testing typically takes six to eight weeks, but it gives no numeric temperature limits.
The recall’s remedy is more specific than its diagnosis. The remedy is a free repair of the AIR3 glasses: owners should stop using the glasses and contact INMO, which will help them update to version V3.16 online. Neither the CPSC notice nor Android Authority’s report on the recall says what the update changes inside the glasses, so whether the fix is a throttle on processing, a charging limit or a firmware correction to a sensor is unknown.
The notice counts 10 reports of overheating against roughly 1,763 pairs sold across the United States and Canada, and those 10 reports, each a burning sensation on the face or the left ear, are what the notice documents.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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