AR News

Google Teases Next Android XR Device: XREAL’s Upcoming AR Glasses ‘Project Aura’

May 21, 2025 From roadtovr

When it launches later this year, Android XR is coming first to Samsung’s mixed reality headset, Project Moohan. Now, Google has tapped AR glasses creator XREAL to be the second with its newly unveiled Project Aura.

Google announced at its I/O developer event that China-based XREAL will be the second device officially slated to run Android XR, the company’s forthcoming XR operating system currently in developer preview.

Codenamed Project Aura, the companies describe the optical see-through (OST) device as “a portable and tethered device that gives users access to their favorite Android apps, including those that have been built for XR.”

Information is still thin, however XREAL says Project Aura was created in collaboration with Google and chip-maker Qualcomm, and will be made available to developers “soon after” the launch of Project Moohan, which was recently affirmed to arrive later this year.

XREAL hasn’t released specs, although the company has a track record of pairing micro-OLEDs with birdbath optics, which differs from the more expensive waveguide optics seen in devices such as Microsoft HoloLens, Magic Leap One, or Meta’s Orion AR glasses prototype.

Birdbath optics use a curved mirror system for brighter, higher field-of-view (FOV) and lower-cost AR displays, although this typically results in bulkier designs. Waveguides are often thinner and more expensive to manufacture, but provide more wearable form factors with better transparency; waveguides also typically feature a lower FOV, although prototypes like Meta Orion are bucking that trend.

Like the Android XR glasses seen on stage at Google I/O, which are coming from eyewear companies Warby Parker and Gentle Monster, XREAL Project Aura is expected to feature built-in Gemini AI, allowing it do things like real-time translation, AI assistant chats, web searches, object recognition, and displaying contextual info.

Choosing XREAL as its next Android XR hardware partner makes a good deal of sense here. Founded in 2017, XREAL (previously Nreal) has developed a number of AR glasses generations over the years, including its own custom Android launcher, Nebula, to handle native AR experiences on Android devices.

Like previous XREAL devices, Project Aura is meant to be a tethered, and not standalone. It’s uncertain just what external device the device will run Android XR, be it a standard smartphone or dedicated ‘puck’ like XREAL Beam.

That said, XREAL says they’ll be talking more about Project Aura at the Augmented World Expo (AWE) next month, which takes place June 10th – 12th in Long Beach, California. We’re going to present at AWE this year, so check back soon for more on all things XR to come from the event.

Snap Spectacles Offer a Peek into All-day AR with New Geo-location Platform Update

March 17, 2025 From roadtovr

Snap, the company behind Snapchat, introduced its fifth-gen Spectacles AR glasses six months ago, and now the company is releasing a number of new features that aim to improve geo-located AR experiences.

Released in September 2024, Spectacles are still very much a developer kit—the AR glasses only have 45 minutes of standalone battery power—although Snap is one of the few companies out there actively engaging developers to build the sort of mainstay content you might find on the all-day consumer AR glasses of the near future.

While we’re not there yet, Snap announced that developers can start building Lenses (apps) integrating data from GPS, GNSS, compass heading, and custom locations, essentially giving devs access to geo-location data for better outdoor AR experiences.

Snap has highlighted a few sample Lenses to show off the integration, including Utopia Labs’ NavigatAR, which guide users with Snap Map Tiles, and Path Pioneer, which lets users create AR walking courses.

Geo-location data also helped Niantic bring multiplayer to Peridot Beyond, its AR pet simulator exclusively for Spectacles. The recent update also connects Spectacles with the mobile version of Peridot, allowing progression within the AR glasses experience to carry over to mobile.

Similarly, Snap has also worked with Wabisabi to integrate its machine learning model SnapML into Doggo Quest, the gamified dog-walking AR app, letting you overlay digital effects on your pooch as it tracks metrics such as routes and step counts.

Today’s update comes with a few more platform features too, including the ability to easily add leaderboards to Lenses, an AR keyboard for hand-tracked text input, and improved ability to open Lens links from messaging threads.

The update also features three new hand-tracking capabilities—phone detector to identify when a user has a phone in their hands, grab gesture, and refinements to targeting intent to reduce false positives while typing.

Additionally, Snap is kicking off a ‘Spectacles Community Challenges’ on April 1st that lets teams win cash prizes for submitting new or updating existing Lenses, which are judged on engagement, technical excellence, and Lens quality. The company says that each month it’s going to give out over $20,000 to the top five new Lenses, the top five updated Lenses, and top open source Lens.

This follows Snap’s recent bid to bring Spectacles to more than just developers. In January, Snap announced it was making the the fifth-gen device more affordable to students and teachers, bringing the price down to $594 for 12 months of subscription-free access, then $49.50 per month afterward for continued use of the headset.

While Snap’s Spectacles remain a developer-focused device, these updates signal the company’s long-term ambition for mainstream AR adoption, where it will notably be competing with companies like Meta, Apple and Google. Better geo-located experiences are undoubtedly a vital piece of the puzzle to making AR glasses a daily necessity rather than a niche tool.

Meta Reveals Next Generation Aria Glasses for Research and Experimentation

February 27, 2025 From roadtovr

Meta today revealed its next-gen glasses, Aria Gen 2, which the company intends to release to third-party researchers working on machine perception systems, AI and robotics.

The company revealed its first iteration of Project Aria back in 2020, showing off a sensor-rich pair of glasses which the company used internally to train its machine perception systems, ultimately tackling some of the most complex issues in creating practical, all-day augmented reality glasses of the future.

Since then, Meta’s first-gen Aria has found its way outside of company offices; early collaborations with BMW and a number of universities followed, including Carnegie Mellon, IIIT Hyderabad, University of Bristol, and University of Iowa, which used the glasses to tackle the a host of machine perception challenges.

Now, Meta has revealed Aria Gen 2. Like the first-gen device, Gen 2 doesn’t include displays of any type, though it now houses an upgraded sensor suite, including an RGB camera, position-tracking cameras, eye-tracking cameras, spatial microphones, IMUs, barometer, magnetometer, GNSS, and custom Meta silicon.

New to Aria Gen 2 are two new sensors embedded in the device’s nosepad: a photoplethysmogram (PPG) sensor for measuring heart rate and a contact microphone to distinguish the wearer’s voice from that of bystanders.

What’s more, Meta touts the 75g device’s all-day usability—making for 6-8 hours of active use—and its a foldable design.

The increasingly AI-rich device also features a slate of on-device machine perception systems, such as hand and eye-tracking, speech recognition, and simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) tracking for positional awareness.

Meta envisions the Aria’s SLAM tracking will allow users to internally map and navigate indoor areas that don’t have good or detailed GPS coverage—aka, a visual positioning system (VPS) that could equally help you get around a city street and a find specific item in a store.

The company isn’t ready to distribute Aria Gen 2 just yet, although Meta says it will share more details over the coming months, which is slated to target both commercial and academic researchers.

One such early collaboration was with Envision, which announced in October it was working with Meta to provide Aria with a ‘Personal Accessibility Assistant’ to help blind and low-vision users navigate indoor spaces, locate items, and essentially act as a pair of ‘seeing eye’ glasses.

Envision and Meta showed off their latest work in a video (seen above), revealing how Aria Gen 2’s SLAM tracking and spatial audio can assist a blind user to navigate a supermarket by following a spatially correct homing ping that the user perceives as emanating from the correct area, which guides them to the desired item, such as a red onion, or Granny Smith apple.

This comes as Meta continues its push to release its first commercial AR device, which not only needs all of those systems highlighted in Aria, but also the ability to display stereo-correct information in a slim, all-day wearable package. It’s no small feat, considering displays have much higher compute and power requirements relative to Aria’s various machine perception systems.

One of Meta’s biggest ‘light house’ moments was the reveal of its AR prototype Orion in September, which does feature those compute and power-hungry display, yet still fitting into an impressively slim form-factor, owing to its separate wireless compute unit.

Orion, or rather an Orion-like AR device, isn’t going on sale anytime soon though. The internal prototype itself cost Meta nearly $10,000 per unit to build due to its difficult to scale silicon carbide lenses, which notably feature a class-leading 70 degree field-of-view (FOV).

Still, the race is heating up to get all of the right components and use cases up to snuff to release a commercial product, which is aiming to supplant smartphones as the dominant mobile computing platform. Meta hopes to launch such AR glasses before 2030, with other major companies hoping to do the same, including Apple, Samsung, and Google.

Oculus Founder’s Defense Company is Taking Over Microsoft’s Military AR Headset Project

February 12, 2025 From roadtovr

Palmer Luckey’s defense company Anduril is taking over Microsoft’s beleaguered Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) program, which seeks to produce battlefield AR headsets for the United States Army.

Although couched as a “partnership” of sorts, Anduril says the deal—still pending Department of Defense approval—includes assuming oversight of production of IVAS, including future development of hardware and software, and delivery timelines.

Microsoft Azure will also serve as Anduril’s preferred cloud for AI workloads, which the firms say will ensure “high resiliency, sophisticated capabilities, flexibility and advanced security.”

According to information obtained by Breaking Defense, Anduril could be tasked with producing a limited number of the latest IVAS devices designed by Microsoft ahead of possible cancellation of the contract.

Concept testing in 2019, Image courtesy CNBC

Taking over the production also potentially gives Anduril valuable time to work with Army leaders on the program, essentially allowing Luckey’s defense company a head start on competing in IVAS Next, which re-opened the bidding process to other companies on February 11th.

Since the U.S. Army defense contract was awarded in 2019—worth up to $22 billion— Microsoft has faced an uphill battle to ruggedize and adapt the HoloLens 2-based platform to soldiers’ needs.

Early U.S. Army reports maintained the militarized AR headset suffered a host of issues during its prototyping stage, including early reliability issues, user discomfort, difficulties slimming down the form factor, and low field-of-view, which has stymied the project from scaling up to full deployment.

As reported by Inside Defense, IVAS Next’s initial request for information from January 22nd asked applicants how their solutions enabled human-machine integration while mitigating nausea and visual discomfort—largely seen as major issues plaguing Microsoft’s various iterations.

This follows a prior deal to integrate Anduril’s Lattice AI platform into Microsoft’s IVAS, announced in September 2024. Both firms emphasize AI’s role in national security, noting Lattice will provide “rapid AI-enabled situational awareness capabilities to enhance soldier safety and operational effectiveness.”

Meta & Plessey Announce Super Bright, High-efficiency Red MicroLED: an Important Piece in All-day AR

January 16, 2025 From roadtovr

Meta announced in 2020 it was working with UK-based AR display maker Plessey, which was tapped to provide Meta with AR displays over the course of multiple years. Now the companies have announced they’ve developed what they’re deeming “the world’s brightest” red microLED display for AR glasses.

Plessey and Meta say the new red microLED display offers brightness up to 6,000,000 nits at high resolution (<5um>

Blue GaN microLEDs are traditionally more efficient and brighter, while green GaN microLEDs are slightly less efficient than blue, but typically much more efficient than red. All three should be balanced to create a full-color, high-performance AR display, making red color output a limiting factor.

“With the world’s brightest red microLED display, we are one major step closer to making AR glasses a mainstream reality,” says Dr. Keith Strickland, CEO of Plessey, who calls it “a major breakthrough in the development of AR technology.”

Meta’s Orion AR Glasses Prototype | Image courtesy Meta

“We are building the future of human connection and the technology that makes it possible,” says Jason Hartlove, Vice President of Display and Optics at Meta’s Reality Labs. “These types of breakthroughs are crucial to build AR glasses that help people stay more present and empowered in the world with a form factor people actually feel comfortable wearing. Our work with Plessey has pushed the boundaries of what’s previously been possible, and it’s only the beginning–the future is starting to look up.”

As part of its long-term commercial agreement, Plessey says it’s continuing to work with Meta by dedicating its manufacturing operations to support the development of prototypes and new technologies for potential use in the XR category.

This follows the unveiling of Meta’s AR glasses prototype Orion last September, which includes a purported 70 degree field-of-view, silicon carbide waveguides, custom silicon, microLED projectors, wrist-worn electromyography (EMG) band used for hand-tracking, and external wireless compute unit that slips into your pocket.

Although Meta isn’t commercializing Orion, following its unveiling at Connect 2024 Meta CTO and Reality Labs chief Andrew Bosworth said the company will make its AR consumer tech available sometime before 2030, noting that the company aims to make them “affordable and accessible at least in the space of phone, laptop territory.”

Microsoft’s Struggling Military AR Headset Gets Boost From Oculus Founder’s Latest Venture

September 19, 2024 From roadtovr

Anduril Industries, the defense tech company founded by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, announced it’s partnering with Microsoft to boost the company’s militarized, HoloLens 2-based AR headset, which is currently under contract by the United States Army.

The company maintains its Lattice platform, integrated into Microsoft’s Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), will provide soldiers real-time threat detection, aiming to improve battlefield awareness and survivability by looping in data from sources such as drones, ground vehicles, or aerial defense systems, Wired writes.

As noted on the Anduril website, Lattice uses a host of technologies—including sensor fusion, computer vision, edge computing, machine learning and AI—to autonomously parse data from thousands of sensors and data sources into “an intelligent common operating picture in a single pane of glass.”

“Soldiers wearing Lattice-enabled IVAS headsets are rapidly warned of incoming autonomously-detected airborne threats, enhancing survivability in complex, contested environments,” Anduril says in a press release. “The integration of Anduril’s systems, alongside third-party technologies, is set to propel the IVAS mission capabilities forward.”

Luckey, who was ousted from Meta (ex-Facebook) in 2017 following backlash over his donation to a pro-Trump group, emphasized the importance of the collaboration, highlighting its potential to revolutionize military operations.

“This project is my top priority at Anduril, and it has been for some time now. It’s one of the Army’s most critical programs being fielded in the near future, with the goal of getting the right data to the right people at the right time,” Luckey says. “This is Anduril’s bread and butter, and we’ve been building the backbone for this for years. I can’t wait to show our customers what’s next — I’m incredibly excited about what’s to come.”

Notably, Luckey announced earlier this summer that he was developing a new XR headset, which he later revealed at AWE 2024 in June would be “driven by military requirements, but also going to be used for non-military stuff.” We still haven’t seen the headset in question.

Microsoft Struggles to Scale IVAS

Microsoft’s HoloLens 2-based IVAS has faced a number of challenges since it was first awarded the U.S. Army defense contract in 2019, worth up to $22 billion.

According to Breaking Defense, in 2019 the Pentagon’s testing arm reported that early units garnered poor ratings during initial field testing, which was primarily due to reliability and ruggedness concerns, specifically citing a lack of rain resistance. At the time, IVAS was seemingly based on off-the-shelf units, augmented with additional sensors.

In 2022, newer, more ruggedized versions reportedly received another round of negative field testing, owing to issues with the device’s low-light and thermal imaging performance, as well as soldiers’ experience with headaches, eye strain, and nausea.

Then, in late 2023, 1.2 versions of IVAS demonstrated critical improvements in “reliability, low light sensor performance, and form factor,” a U.S. Army spokesperson told Bloomberg at the time, further stating that “soldier feedback was positive.”

Still, the U.S. Army hasn’t ordered Microsoft to scale up its IVAS efforts despite continuous improvements, which more recently included replacing 1.2’s helmet-style form factor with a less cumbersome flip-up display, reportedly shrinking the 70-degree field of view to 60-degrees in the process, but also providing better clarity.

Furthermore, a recent report from Breaking Defense suggests the U.S. Army is preparing a new open competition, called “IVAS Next”, meaning Microsoft’s IVAS could be replaced entirely if it’s outcompeted by other manufacturers, such as Kopin—or even Anduril if it decides to enter. Industry solicitation could happen later this year, Breaking Defense reports, so it’s possible we’ll learn more then.

Meta Extends Ray-Ban Partnership into 2030 to Make Smartglasses Fashionable

September 19, 2024 From roadtovr

Meta and eyewear conglomerate EssilorLuxottica announced they’re expanding their smartglasses partnership into 2030, which promises to see further development of “multi-generational smart eyewear products” from the companies.

Working together since 2019, Meta and EssilorLuxottica released the first-gen Facebook Ray-Ban Stories glasses back in 2021, later launching the follow-up Ray-Ban Meta Glasses in fall 2023, which included improved cameras, audio and more design options.

Notably, Ray-Ban Meta Glasses don’t include displays, instead offering input through voice assistant and touch on the glasses’ struts for things like taking pictures, videos, and listening to music. Since the launch of its second-gen Ray-Ban smartglasses, Meta has also released AI-powered object recognition from Microsoft’s Bing.

Meta Ray-Ban Glasses, Image courtesy Meta, EssilorLuxottica

Besides Ray-Ban, EssilorLuxottica also owns Oakley, Persol, Oliver Peoples, and Vogue Eyewear, as well as eyewear retailers LensCrafters, Pearle Vision, and Sunglass Hut.

“The incredible work we’ve done with Meta, still in its early stages, has already proven to be an important milestone in our journey to making glasses the gateway to the connected world,” EssilorLuxottica CEO Francesco Milleri says in a press statement, further noting the company is looking forward to “continuing to chart the future of the category together.”

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed excitement about the companies “long term roadmap ahead,” noting Meta and the Italian-French luxury eyewear group have “the opportunity to turn glasses into the next major technology platform, and make it fashionable in the process.”

This follows a report from June that Reality Labs, Meta’s XR division formed in 2020, was reorganized to better serve its wearables category.

An alleged internal memo from Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth, Meta CTO and head of Reality Labs, maintained the company was “doubling down on finding a strong product market fit for wearable Meta AI, building a business around it, and expanding the audience. Our north star to overlay digital content seamlessly onto the physical world remains the same, but the steps on that path just got a lot more exciting.”

Then, in July, the Wall Street Journal reported that Meta was considering a minority stake of about 5% in the company, worth an estimated €4.33 billion euros (~$4.73 billion). At the time of this writing, the deal still hasn’t been confirmed, however it’s clear Meta is well on its way to deepening ties to EssilorLuxottica in effort to make smartglasses, and possibly AR glasses, an undeniably fashionable accessory.