The Rokid Glasses set to ship in November boast something smart spec aficionados have been clamoring for — a screen built-into the lens. Set to retail for $600 ($700 including the charging case) the AR-equipped specs will likely be a couple of hundred dollars cheaper than the new Ray-Ban Metas, expected to be the company’s first screen-equipped smart glasses. The word is they’ll be showcased at Meta Connect, September 17-18. The Rokid Glasses raised $900,000 within 48 hours of their global unveiling on Kickstarter, where those who pre-order receive a limited-time discount of 15 to 20 percent. Continue reading Rokid to Launch AR Smart Glasses Featuring Built-In Screen

HTC has entered the smart glasses space with its new Vive Eagle AI-powered eyewear. Since launching in 2016, HTC’s Vive VR headset has accrued an estimated 10 percent global market share — not nearly as much as Meta Quest MR and VR headsets (at 50 percent), Sony PlayStation or even the Apple Vision Pro, but a respectable berth from which to expand to everyday wearables. The Vive Eagle is fully voice controllable and lets users listen to music as well as capture photos and videos with a 12MP ultra-wide camera. The product is available for preorder in Taiwan for the equivalent of about $520. Continue reading HTC Enters Wearables Market with Vive Eagle Smart Glasses

Underscoring its commitment to smart glasses, Meta Platforms has reportedly invested $3.5 billion in EssilorLuxottica SA, the world’s largest manufacturer of eyewear. The move gives Meta around a three percent stake in the Paris-headquartered firm, and expands an existing relationship for brand deals that resulted in the casual Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses released in 2021 and an athlete-focused Oakley Meta HSTN AI line announced last month. Neither Meta nor EssilorLuxottica has publicly commented on the equity buy-in yet, though it has been reported Meta may increase its stake to five percent. Continue reading Meta Investing $3.5B in Smart Glass Partner EssilorLuxottica

Qualcomm has made no secret of its belief that smart glasses are going to be a significant future product, and during the Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California this week, the chipmaker shared its vision for the sector, demonstrating eyewear using its new Snapdragon processor. According to the company, the AR1+ Gen 1 is 26 percent smaller than earlier chips and runs artificial intelligence tools independent of Internet or smartphone connectivity. Qualcomm’s goal is to help smart glasses become “fully independent devices” that can do processing and complete agentic tasks with or without connectivity. Continue reading Qualcomm Chip Could Be a ‘Breakthrough’ for Smart Glasses

Google and Xreal publicly displayed the first eyewear to run Android XR. Developed as Project Aura, the extended reality smart glasses are expected to be available for purchase later this year or in early 2026. Google is also working with Samsung on a headset as part of Project Moohan. Pricing on the Aura glasses wasn’t announced at Google I/O, but they’ll reportedly cost less than the thousand dollar-plus price tags being floated for the Samsung device and Meta’s next-gen smart glasses, code-named Hypernova. At its annual developer conference, Google also showcased glasses being made with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster that won’t feature AR. Continue reading Google Tees-Up Android XR to Take On Meta, Apple Eyewear

Meta has secured rights to the voices of actors Judi Dench, Kristen Bell, John Cena and others for its Meta AI chatbot, a ChatGPT-like digital assistant that is part of the plan for conversational AI as part of the multimodal Llama 3.2. Also revealed at Meta Connect this week was Orion, “the most advanced glasses the world has ever seen,” queued up to become Meta’s “first consumer full holographic AR glasses,” though they won’t be available anytime soon. A low-priced Quest 3 mixed reality headset, the $299 Quest 3S, will be arriving in time for the holidays, however. Continue reading Meta Reveals Orion Concept Glasses, Celeb Voices, Quest 3S

Lumus introduced its second-generation AR eyewear technology, the Z-Lens 2D waveguide, at CES 2023. The Israeli-based supplier for OEMs making AR glasses says the new architecture accommodates AR projector modules that are 50 percent smaller, with outdoor compatible brightness and seamless prescription integration, setting the stage for a new class of AR glasses that are sleeker and more efficient. “In order for AR glasses to penetrate the consumer market in a meaningful way, they need to be impressive both functionally and aesthetically,” said Lumus CEO Ari Grobman. Continue reading CES: Lumus Z-Lens Waveguide Shows Future of AR Glasses

Apple has reportedly registered the name xrOS in association with its upcoming extended reality eyewear, expected to be released in 2023. The xrOS moniker represents a switch from another operating system’s name, realityOS, that had been used internally with regard to the device. Whatever the new system is eventually called, the highly anticipated gear will be Apple’s first major debut in a new product category since the Apple Watch was introduced in 2015. Apple’s wearables division contributed more than $41 billion to the company’s bottom line in the last fiscal year, accounting for about 10 percent of its overall sales revenue. Continue reading Apple Registers xrOS, Likely to Power Mixed Reality Headset

Sometimes you see a product idea that is so obvious you wonder why no one created it sooner. French company Fittingbox has developed an augmented reality app and a 3D model database that lets you try on new frames for eyewear without taking off your old glasses, so you can actually see what you look like as you try them on. Diminished reality is a subset of augmented reality focused on removing, rather than adding, elements of what you see and hear. The Fittingbox app uses the selfie camera on a smartphone to scan the face of the customer. It then recognizes and removes the wearer’s glasses from the 3D modeled image. Continue reading CES: Fittingbox Demonstrates Unexpectedly Useful AR App

Next year, Apple is expected to unveil a glasses-like wearable that will be its big follow-up to the iPhone. This headset is expected to offer layers of information, objects and data spread to augment reality. Although Apple has remained mum on its plans for smart glasses, CEO Tim Cook is not shy about referencing AR and its “critically important” role in the company’s future, in September describing himself to a YouTube influencer as “AR fan #1,” and in a separate interview calling augmented reality one of the “very few profound technologies.” Continue reading Apple’s Next Major Product Could Involve Augmented Reality

Facebook and Luxottica Group’s luxury sunglass manufacturer Ray-Ban unveiled new smart glasses that enable the user to record via cameras hidden in the frame. The Ray-Ban glasses — priced at $299 — are based on the classic Wayfarer model, with the addition of a very small recording light, two 5-megapixel cameras, three microphones and four gigabytes of storage. The glasses, which will come in 20 style combinations and either clear or prescription lenses, are powered by Facebook technology. Both Facebook and Ray-Ban parent Luxottica stated that, “privacy is built into the product.” Continue reading Facebook and Ray-Ban Team Up on Next-Gen Smart Glasses

During CES we saw a number of VR and AR headsets that illustrate the emerging trends and most recent developments in this space. LetinAR showcased its PinMR optical solution with glasses that leverage 11 pinhole micromirrors per eye in order to deliver a clear and bright image. Panasonic demonstrated a prototype of its new VR headset with micro OLED 2,048 x 2,048 resolution, HDR and spatial audio. Human Capable presented its lightweight and affordable glasses expected to ship Q2 this year, while Pimax showed an updated tethered HMD with native 4K per eye display. And Nreal showed significant improvement to the brightness of its AR display. Continue reading CES Features the Latest Advances in VR and AR Headsets

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Magic Leap, Microsoft and Snap are among the Big Tech companies working on creating smart glasses that we can wear everywhere — and that may even replace our smartphones. Currently, glasses are too big (and expensive), but in time are expected to achieve a sleeker form factor and come down in price. Smart glasses promise to dramatically shift how we engage with the world, and some advocates believe we will eventually be able to replace every screen we use with a single pair of glasses. Continue reading Big Tech Companies Make Progress on AR Smart Glasses

After unveiling its first-generation of brightly-colored Spectacles in 2016, followed by a more conservative second edition following two years of reengineering, Snap Inc. is about to debut Spectacles 3 — with hopes the eyewear will be more financially successful than the first version, which left the company with $40 million in unsold revenue. The second version offered better hardware, better design, as well as a high-end all-black version. Now, Spectacles 3, priced at $380 and marketed as a “limited edition launch,” will be offered with steel frames, classic details and two HD cameras for capturing footage with depth. Continue reading Snap Inc. to Ship Third-Gen Spectacles as a Limited Edition

Snap Inc. is planning to launch a second version of its video recording glasses this fall followed by a more ambitious version in 2019 that will include two cameras and other features. In addition to new colors and water resistance, the second version aims to fix bugs and provide needed performance improvements. The potential price tag would be around $300, which is more than double the $130 cost of the first version. News of additional versions comes just months after Snap announced it lost $40 million on the original. Continue reading Snap Planning to Release Updated Spectacles Later This Year