News

Samsung Reportedly Working on More Advanced Smart Glasses, Possibly Including a Display

April 23, 2026 From roadtovr

Samsung is reportedly working on a pair of smart glasses that could be more advanced than its forthcoming competitors to Ray-Ban Meta.

Android Authority maintains it’s found evidence of a third pair of smart glasses in the source code of Samsung’s upcoming One UI 9 firmware, revealing a new model number: ‘SM-O500’, code named ‘Haean’.

Notably, two model numbers are already known: ‘SM-O200P’ and ‘SM-O200J’, code named ‘Jinju’, which are likely to be associated with the Android XR-based smart glasses Samsung recently confirmed will release sometime this year.

Those are expected to be similar to Ray-Ban Meta, in that they’ll essentially be ‘audio-only’, including microphones, camera, speakers, but no form of display.

Prototype Android XR smartglasses | Image courtesy Google

As SM-O500 follows the same numbering and lettering scheme as those two known smart glasses models, it could indicate Samsung is already working on ecosystem support for the ostensible next-gen device.

Based off prior rumors, SamMobile further suggests it may even be a display-clad version coming in 2027, similar to Meta Ray-Ban Display ($800) released late last year in the US.

Granted, as Android Authority notes, its source code sweep of One UI 9 isn’t a smoking gun. APK teardowns of the sort can be useful in revealing future releases, but may also not make it to a public release.

What we do know thus far: Google, the creator of Android XR, announced last year it was partnering with Samsung as well as Gentle Monster and US-based eyewear brand Warby Parker to release the company’s first generation of Android XR-based smart glasses.

Google also hopes to release a model with built-in displays for visual output. The company showed off two prototypes last year, including both a monocular and stereoscopic model to demonstrate Android XR’s ability to adapt to multiple hardware configurations.

Still, there’s no release date in sight for any of the Android XR-running smart glasses. The inclusion of ecosystem tie-ins in One UI 9 (based on Android 17) could mean we’ll find out more soon, however. Android 17 is expected to release in June 2026, with One UI 9 expected a month later, which could hold more clues.

Apple’s New CEO Has a Background in VR Headsets, But is Reportedly Bearish on Vision Pro

April 21, 2026 From roadtovr

Apple announced that CEO Tim Cook is stepping down, and John Ternus, a long-time Apple veteran, is set to take his place. As head of hardware engineering, Ternus oversaw the launch of Vision Pro in addition to a slew of core Apple products over the years, although the new CEO may have some reservations about the company’s premium XR headset moving forward.

Fresh out of the University of Pennsylvania, where he majored in mechanical engineering, the soon-to-be Apple CEO actually did a four-year stint at Virtual Research Systems, a now-defunct hardware company making some of the first commercially available VR headsets.

Virtual Research’s PC VR headsets were decidedly of a different era, although they helped spark the latest generation. Just three years prior to the release of Oculus Rift DK1, in 2010 Oculus founder Palmer Luckey even called an owner of a Virtual Research V8 a “lucky bastard”, noting the device’s 60-degree field-of-view was “pretty fantastic” more than a decade after the headset’s release.

Virtual Reality Systems V8 | Image courtesy ResearchGate

Notably, as Ternus was a mechanical engineer at Virtual Research Systems from 1997-2001, he likely worked on the V8, which came out at the tail end of the VR craze of the ’90s.

Leaving Virtual Research Systems in 2001 for Apple, Ternus worked his way up through a number of the company’s hardware teams, contributing to the development of multiple generations of core products, including iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

His biggest role came in 2021, when Ternus became Apple’s Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, taking over from Dan Riccio. As a result, Ternus also inherited the company’s long-term gamble in XR, which spanned more than a decade in the making, as he oversaw Vision Pro’s launch in 2023.

Still, despite his XR lineage, Ternus seems to be skeptical of Vision Pro’s place in Apple’s lineup.

As mentioned by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman last month, Ternus has shown some trepidation around Apple’s previous moves in the past, including the now-cancelled Apple Car project as well as Vision Pro, which has underperformed relative to other hardware launched under Ternus, including the Apple Watch and AirPods.

“When the company has taken swings at big new product categories in recent years, Ternus has often been in the conservative camp,” Gurman says. “He was circumspect about Apple building a car, fearing it would distract the company, drain profits and pull engineers from core products. He was similarly wary of the mixed-reality headset that became the Vision Pro, drawing on his experience of trying to create a virtual-reality head-worn device at a startup in the 1990s. In both of those cases his skepticism was prescient. Apple eventually killed the car, and the Vision Pro has been a bust.”

Slated to take over as CEO once Cook officially steps down this summer, he’s also inheriting the company’s years-long efforts in developing AR glasses, which Cook reportedly hopes they can release before Meta.

“Tim cares about nothing else,” Bloomberg reported last year. “It’s the only thing he’s really spending his time on from a product development standpoint.”

Apple Vision Pro (M5) | Image courtesy Apple

It remains to be seen just how enthusiastic Apple’s new CEO will be on pushing those segment-defining XR devices though. Heading into the second half of the decade, the Cupertino tech giant is ostensibly now balancing ambitions across more segments than ever, including the new consumer-friendly Mac Neo ($600) which is making headway in stripping market share from a host of mid-tier Windows laptops.

Meanwhile, the company’s XR hardware roadmap may be taking a slightly unexpected turn. Last month a separate report from Gurman detailed a move by Apple to more heavily invest in a competitor to Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses—a stark departure from Apple’s initial XR strategy, which supposedly include three distinct categories: an iPhone-tethered AR headset with wireless controller, a high-end mixed reality headset, and standalone AR glasses.

Whatever the case, Ternus’s entry as CEO marks a decisive next chapter as the company. And we’ll be watching to see how he ultimately views Vision Pro, be it a dead end or a launchpad to sleeker, more consumer-friendly XR devices in the future. As it is, we’re still waiting to hear more about the reported follow-ups to Vision Pro, which supply chain leaks suggest could include two new headsets.

Bigscreen Reveals New Halo Strap Design for ‘Beyond 2’ PC VR Headset, Shipping Starts in June

April 17, 2026 From roadtovr

Bigscreen has revealed a major redesign to Bigscreen Beyond 2’s long-promised halo headstrap mount, which the company says will begin shipping out starting in June.

After months of waiting, Bigscreen has finally shown off the long-awaited Halo Mount for Beyond 2 and 2e, its thin and light PC VR headset which shipped in March 2025.

According to a company blog post, improvements over the old Halo Mount design include a new clip-on mechanism which requires no adhesives, as well as support for third-party accessories thanks to an M3 brass-threaded screw hole for mods.

It also features an improved flip-up mechanism, extra USB extension for better cable travel, and easier vertical adjustment for better forehead positioning, the company says.

Bigscreen’s newly redesigned Halo Mount | Image courtesy Bigscreen

“After a year of iterating on prototypes, we built the first production versions of the Halo Mount last year,” Bigscreen explains. “The early units (commonly known as “DVTs”) met most but not all of our goals. We shipped these DVTs to customers for testing and received both positive and negative feedback.”

Then, in December, the company says it made the call at “a very significant financial cost” to delay the Halo Mount’s mass production due to negative feedback from testers, which prompted the company to go back to the drawing board. See the previous Halo Mount design below:

Bigscreen’s previous Halo Mount design | Image courtesy Bigscreen

Now, Bigscreen says it’s aiming to ship a “small volume” first batch in June, with a greater run of 10,000 units starting in July. The Halo Mount is currently available for pre-order, priced at $180/€169.

“Due to the large volume of demand for the Halo Mount, it will take a couple of months to complete all Halo Mount preorders,” Bigscreen says. “We expect to achieve this goal by the end of the summer, and will have sufficient inventory for fast shipping thereafter.”

Notably, Bigscreen’s Halo Mount can be used with any Beyond strap, including the supplied Soft Strap, optional Audio Strap, as well as third-party modded straps, such as Apple Vision Pro’s Knit Band.

Additionally, it can be used with all facial interfaces offered by Bigscreen, including the Custom-Fit Cushion and the Universal-Fit Cushion, as well as without a cushion for greater peripheral vision.

As a part of the update, the company also announced that Beyond 2 and Beyond 2e orders are generally shipping within 1–3 business days, with most Universal-Fit configurations sometimes shipping the same day, following major improvements in production and logistics.

Due to recent supply chain disruptions linked to Middle East conflicts and rising air freight costs, which the company says has caused temporary shortages of the Crystal Clear Beyond 2e and Universal-Fit Cushions, shipping times for those units have been delayed by 2–4 weeks.

Bigscreen says these issues are being resolved and expects normal shipping speeds to resume by late April.

Monkeys Navigate Virtual Worlds Using Thought Alone in New BCI Study

April 17, 2026 From roadtovr

University researchers at KU Leuven in Belgium have shown that monkeys can navigate complex virtual environments using a brain-computer interface (BCI) setup, which remarkably involves relatively little user training.

As reported in New Scientist, three rhesus macaques were implanted with Utah array BCI devices containing 96 electrodes in each of three brain regions: the primary motor cortex and the dorsal and ventral premotor cortices.

While the primary motor cortex is involved in voluntary movement, a region of the brain Elon Musk’s Neuralink taps into through its various animal research models and recent human clinical trials, the premotor cortices are thought to be dedicated to planning, organizing, and initiating those movements.

The key innovation isn’t the hardware itself though, as Utah arrays are widely used in research when reading neuronal activity, but rather the method the study goes about decoding that information, and making it actionable in 3D environments.

In the study, which was lead by KU Leuven’s Peter Janssen, the rhesus macaques were initially trained once from a short passive observation phase, and then were given a variety of virtual tasks while wearing 3D shutter glasses and monitor with stereoscopic images. Tasks included moving various objects in a virtual space, including a sphere, a monkey avatar, and even themselves via a first-person perspective.

As noted by New Scientist, many previous human trials involve asking people to actively think of a physical movement, like raising or lowering a finger to move a cursor on a screen, which is then translated to on-screen movement. Janssen believes however the study’s specific placement of the BCI has accessed what could be a more intuitive connection to movement, potentially requiring less training.

“We cannot ask these monkeys, of course, but we just think that it’s a more intuitive way of controlling an a computer, basically,” Janssen tells New Scientist, who notes that current methods can feel as foreign to implant recipients as “trying to move your ears.”

While the study hopes to pave the way for similar results in humans, which could unlock things like controlling electric wheelchairs, Janssen also believes it could allow people with paralysis to intuitively navigate virtual worlds.

“There’s a bit of work necessary to know exactly where to implant a human because a lot of these areas are not very well known in humans, where they are exactly,” Janssen says. “But once we figure that out, it should be possible. It should actually be easier because you can explain to the human what they are supposed to do.”

Snap Confirms Mass Layoffs Ahead of Next-gen ‘Specs’ AR Glasses Rollout

April 15, 2026 From roadtovr

Snap is laying off around 1,000 employees, the Snapchat parent confirmed today. Specs Inc., its recently formed AR glasses subsidiary, is reportedly not being affected, however, as the cuts are aimed at further insulating the traditional Snapchat business from its new AR subsidiary.

Spiegel announced the news in an internal memo, published by Business Insider, which is confirmed to affect 1,000 team members, including 16% of Snap’s full-time employees. Spiegel also confirmed Snap has now closed more than 300 open roles.

“Last fall, I described Snap as facing a crucible moment, requiring a new way of working that is faster and more efficient, while pivoting towards profitable growth,” Spiegel says in the memo. “Over the past several months, we have carefully reviewed the work required to best serve our community and partners, and made tough choices to prioritize the investments we believe are most likely to create long-term value. As a result of these changes, we expect to reduce our annualized cost base by more than $500 million by the second half of 2026, helping to establish a clearer path to net-income profitability.”

Snap Spectacles (gen 5) | Image courtesy Snap Inc

While Spiegel hasn’t confirmed the fate of Specs Inc. specifically, according to a report by Alex Heath’s Sources the company’s AR glasses subsidiary is slated to actually add employees ahead of launch of its sixth-gen Specs AR glasses, which is expected sometime this fall.

The report further maintains Snap was unable to secure a proposed $1 billion to fund its Specs division, although the company is still hoping to raise capital once its AR glasses release.

The next-gen Specs AR glasses are slated to be revealed “in the next couple of months, loosely modeled on Apple’s Vision Pro rollout, followed by a consumer release in the fall,” Heath writes.

The comes weeks after Irenic Capital Management, which holds economic interest of about 2.5% in Snap, put pressure on the company to either spin off or shut down Specs Inc.

According to a Reuters last month, the activist investor also called on Snap to consider cutting costs through layoffs and to buy back more discounted stock, among other moves, which at the time of this writing seems to be the course the company has taken.

This follows recent news that Specs Inc. and chip maker Qualcomm have signed a multi-year partnership for Snap’s upcoming AR glasses, with Qualcomm pledging Snapdragon chips for future iterations—seemingly signaling confidence that Snap is betting on the success of Specs.

Read the full memo from Snap CEO Evan Spiegel below, courtesy Business Insider:

Dear Team,

Today we are announcing changes that will impact approximately 1,000 team members at Snap, including 16% of our full time employees, in addition to closing more than 300 open roles. This is an incredibly difficult decision, and I am deeply sorry to the colleagues who will be leaving us. You have made important contributions to Snap, and we are committed to supporting you through this transition.

Last fall, I described Snap as facing a crucible moment, requiring a new way of working that is faster and more efficient, while pivoting towards profitable growth. Over the past several months, we have carefully reviewed the work required to best serve our community and partners, and made tough choices to prioritize the investments we believe are most likely to create long-term value. As a result of these changes, we expect to reduce our annualized cost base by more than $500 million by the second half of 2026, helping to establish a clearer path to net-income profitability.

While these changes are necessary to realize Snap’s long-term potential, we believe that rapid advancements in artificial intelligence enable our teams to reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers. We have already witnessed small squads leveraging AI tools to drive meaningful progress across several important initiatives, including Snapchat+, enhanced ad platform performance, and efficiency improvements in our Snap Lite infrastructure.

If you are part of our North America team, please work from home today. In the US, impacted team members will receive an email notification within the next hour, including information about next steps. For non-US locations, you will receive additional details about next steps from leadership and HR.

To our departing colleagues: thank you. Your hard work has helped shape Snap, and we are deeply grateful for your contributions. For U.S.-based team members who are leaving, we will provide four months of severance, healthcare coverage, and equity vesting, along with career transition support.

Outside the U.S., we will follow local processes and seek to provide comparable support aligned with local norms.

To everyone continuing on this journey: change of this magnitude and at this speed is never easy and it will not be seamless. Thank you for your resilience, compassion, and commitment to one another, and to the community and partners we serve. Our responsibility is to move forward with clarity, empathy, and determination as we build a faster, stronger, and more durable Snap for the long term.

Evan

Meta’s Reported Plan to Add Facial Recognition to Smart Glasses Slammed by ACLU-led Coalition

April 15, 2026 From roadtovr

An ACLU-led coalition representing more than 70 civil liberties advocacy groups are pushing back against Meta’s reported plans to bring facial recognition to its smart glasses.

The New York Times initially reported in February that Meta is currently exploring who should be recognizable through its smart glasses, as the company ostensibly hopes to bring some form of facial recognition to Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses.

According to the NYT report, possible options include “recognizing people a user knows because they are connected on a Meta platform, and identifying people whom the user may not know but who have a public account on a Meta site like Instagram.”

Now, as reported by Wired, an ACLU-led coalition hopes to oppose those plans, which the group says could turn Meta’s smart glasses into ad hoc “surveillance glasses,” capable of endangering consumers and vulnerable communities, and broadly undermining civil rights and civil liberties.

Ray-Ban Meta ‘Scriber’ model | Image courtesy Meta, EssilorLuxottica

The group, which also includes the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), Fight for the Future, Access Now, and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, issued an open letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday urging the company to stop and publicly disavow its plans.

“People should be able to move through their daily lives without fear that stalkers, scammers, abusers, federal agents, and activists across the political spectrum are silently and invisibly verifying their identities and potentially matching their names to a wealth of readily available data about their habits, hobbies, relationships, health, and behaviors,” the letter reads.

Meta Ray-Ban Display Glasses & Neural Band | Image courtesy Meta

“It isn’t hard to see how easily this technology could be abused by corporations, private individuals, and the government to target immigrants, LGBTQIA+ people, and other vulnerable groups,” an ACLU petition adds. “It also puts domestic violence and stalking survivors at risk and could even be used to go after protestors or people who criticize the government.”

Meta has bowed to public pressure before, albeit after years of costly litigation. As mentioned by Wired, in November 2021 the company ended Facebook’s photo-tagging system and said it would delete the facial recognition templates of more than a billion users, which at the time was called “a company-wide move to limit the use of facial recognition in our products.”

Neither Meta, nor its hardware partner EssilorLuxottica responded to Wired’s request for comment.

This follows news in February that Meta’s smart glasses partner EssilorLuxottica sold over seven million smart glasses in 2025 alone; that year the companies not only shipped a hardware refresh of Ray-Ban Meta, but also Oakley Meta HSTN, Oakley Meta Vanguard, and the $800 Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses—the company’s first smart glasses to include a heads-up display.

It’s not just Meta making smart glasses though. Meanwhile, a rash of competitors are currently preparing their own smart glasses for consumer release; Google, Samsung and Amazon have all announced their own devices, while Apple is also reportedly developing multiple pairs.

One of VR’s Most Modular Headsets Gets a Little Less Modular Following Key Component Switch

April 14, 2026 From roadtovr

Pimax recently announced it was being forced to change a key component in all Crystal Super PC VR headsets and display accessories moving forward, effectively making one of VR’s most modular headsets decidedly less so.

The News

Crystal Super is renowned for being highly modular thanks to its ability to swap optical engines, which includes a 50 PPD, 57 PPD, micro-OLED, and ultrawide (140° FOV) modules.

Launched just last year, Crystal Super initially shipped with a custom 70-pin connector, which married up to all of those accessories on offer. Simply swap out a module, and you suddenly have a PC VR headset with a higher pixel density, better clarity, or wider field-of-view.

Now, Pimax says in a blog post its supplier for those 70-pin connectors is discontinuing the part, which has left the company in the lurch, forcing it to change the key component that made its optical display ecosystem so modular in the first place.

Pimax Crystal Super Optical Engine | Image courtesy Pimax

In the blog post, Pimax says it’s now allocated “all remaining stock of this connector to the Crystal Super to ensure compatibility with all optical engine variants,” noting that there will now be two (incompatible) variants of the Crystal Super in production and circulation.

Pimax says it’s going to ameliorate this by matching headsets and optical engines at the time of purchase, which it’s doing both from the factory with full kits and by matching user-provided headset serial numbers when headset owners return to buy single modules.

While Pimax bought all of the last remaining stock of those original 70-pin connectors and maintains it has “ample inventory”, it’s admittedly a number that will only get smaller. Pimax’s Head of Communication Jaap Grolleman is optimistic though that supplies will last.

“Based on previous headset sales and survey data (and sales estimations), we think we have enough stock to supply current (70-pin) Crystal Super owners with matching optical engines throughout their product lifetime,” Jaap Grolleman tells Road to VR.

Pimax Crystal Super | Image courtesy Pimax

“This was also one of the reasons why we delayed the Crystal Super Lighthouse, as that model swapped the 70-pin for a USB-C connector—and it’s also one of the reasons that now new Crystal Super headsets are produced with the new pin; to keep enough stock of the 70-pin for optical engine production for those owners,” Grolleman says.

A very real wrinkle in all of this: there’s no visual indicator of which pin style you might have just by looking at it, which puts the onus entirely on the user. Although Pimax’s solution is to simply provide the headset’s serial number when ordering directly from the company, that makes buying on the secondhand market a bit more tricky.

“There is no visual difference (and no performance difference), although the pins have a different width. Telling them apart is very difficult for users unless the optical engines are directly compared side by side,” Grolleman says.

Notably, Pimax says you can contact them when encountering compatibility issues with secondhand modules, although that’s going to have to be after the fact since it’s so difficult to tell between the two. Pimax hasn’t said whether more modular optical engines are on the way besides the ones already released.

That said, the pin connector switch is not entirely out of the blue, as the company warned users late last year that sourcing the 70-pin connector could be an issue. Still, Grolleman says around 10 to 20 optical engines with the new connector pin were shipped prior to the company’s announcement, which was released on Monday.

“We knew this change would come in the future, but with multiple teams working in parallel, there was an information gap and the first batch had already been shipped out. We’ll do an internal review, and we’ll also contact these users as soon as possible,” Grolleman says.

My Take

The question isn’t whether this all leads to fragmentation, resale risk, or consumer confusion for Crystal Super, because it plainly does. It’s whether Pimax users are willing to continue to invest in a modular ecosystem that’s been so uncomfortably split mid-generation.

I can’t answer that question for you, although I can highlight this: we don’t know whether the company has plans for more optical engines, which could make issues worse for users with a 70-pin connector headset, as it will strain supplies even further. We also don’t know how long the company expects to produce Crystal Super before it goes onto its next big gamble. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about Pimax over the past decade, there’s always something new on the horizon.

Which is weird. If any other company absolutely borked sourcing a key component like Pimax did with its linchpin connector—undoubtedly putting a big asterisk next to the word “modular” when talking about Crystal Super—it would be a serious sign that something is wrong. But for Pimax, these sort of perpetual teething issues just seems like the price of innovation. So, I just can’t say I’m surprised.

Apple Reportedly Preparing Several Styles of Smart Glasses with Distinct Camera Lens

April 13, 2026 From roadtovr

Apple is ostensibly gearing up to release its first pair of smart glasses next year. A new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman however maintains the Cupertino tech giant is now evaluating several styles and color combinations, as well as a distinct camera lens shape.

The report largely echoes previous rumors, which maintain the device (internally codenamed N50) could be unveiled at the end of 2026 or early 2027, with launch slated for sometime in 2027.

Like Meta’s audio-only smart glasses from Ray-Ban and Oakley though, Apple’s smart glasses are reportedly said to omit any sort of display. Instead, they’ll primarily focus on capturing photos and videos, making phone calls, listening to notifications and music, and interacting with an AI voice assistant—a better version of Siri coming to iOS 27, the report maintains.

According to Bloomberg’s sources, Apple’s design team now has at least four different styles in play, with plans to launch some or all of them. Styes are said to include:

A large rectangular frame, reminiscent of Ray-Ban Wayfarers

A slimmer rectangular design, similar to the glasses worn by Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook

Larger oval or circular frames

A smaller, more refined oval or circular option

The glasses are said to be made from acetate, a higher-quality plastic than the thermoplastic used in Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. Additionally, Apple is reportedly planning “many” color options in addition to exploring “a range of finishes, including black, ocean blue and light brown.”

Unlike Ray-Ban Meta, Apple’s first smart glasses are said to include a new camera lens shape, which Bloomberg maintains will be “vertically oriented oval lenses with surrounding lights,” a break from Meta’s circular camera lens design.

Facebook Ray-Ban Stories (2021) | Image courtesy Meta, EssilorLuxottica

Apple’s forthcoming glasses are reportedly a part of a broader, “three-pronged AI wearables strategy,” which is slated to include new AirPods and a camera-equipped pendant. Like with all of its accessories, Apple hopes to achieve an “instantly recognizable” design, which the company refers to as “icon” internally.

Notably, Apple’s smart glasses plans mark a stark departure from its initial XR strategy when it first formed the product division around a decade ago. Back then, the company reportedly hoped to develop three distinct categories: an iPhone-tethered AR headset with wireless controller, a high-end mixed reality headset, and standalone AR glasses.

The company has only released two iterations of Vision Pro though—ostensibly a different product from the high-end MR headset the company envisioned. Meanwhile, industry insiders suggest Apple is years away from the release of standalone AR glasses, making its audio-only smart glasses a first step of many.

Confused about the smart glasses and AR glasses? Check out our handy primer on the key differences here.

Snap & Qualcomm Announce Long-term Partnership, Affirm 2026 Launch for ‘Specs’ Consumer AR Glasses

April 10, 2026 From roadtovr

Snap’s new XR subsidiary Specs Inc and Qualcomm announced a multi-year partnership for Snap’s upcoming AR glasses, with Qualcomm pledging Snapdragon chips for future iterations. The companies also reaffirmed that Snap’s next-gen Specs are coming “later this year.”

Specs Inc, which was formed by Snap in January to handle its XR efforts, is working with Qualcomm in what the companies call a “long-term strategic roadmap” which aims to rapidly bring things like “on-device AI, cutting-edge graphics, and advanced multiuser digital experiences,” the companies said in a joint press statement.

“Snap Inc. and Qualcomm Technologies have a strong track record of powering advanced immersive technology. This agreement builds on more than five years of innovation and collaboration, as Snapdragon platforms have powered multiple previous generations of Snap’s Spectacles,” the companies said.

Snap’s sixth gen Specs are looking to appeal to consumers while also possibly also frontrunning its largest competitors, including Meta, Samsung, Google, and Apple.

While Snap hasn’t shown off its next-gen Specs yet, the company seems to be leaning heavily into the device’s built-in AI, something that “uses its understanding of you and your world to help get things done on your behalf while protecting and respecting your privacy,” Snap said earlier this year.

“The next era of computing will be defined by devices that understand what you see, hear and say as well as context, and respond instantly to the world around you,” said Qualcomm President and CEO Cristiano Amon. “Our work on future generations of Specs will enable power-efficient interactive AR devices that deliver agentic experiences that feel natural, intuitive and integrate seamlessly into daily life.”

Aiming for release sometime this year, the next iteration of Spec will technically be the company’s second pair of AR glasses, following its fifth-gen release in 2024.

Besides Snap noting the new AR device will be smaller and lighter, feature see-through AR optics, and be powered by some form of Snapdragon XR SoC, its specs are largely still a mystery.

Confused about the smart glasses and AR glasses? Check out our handy primer on the key differences here.

Android XR Update Adds Deep Enterprise Support, Auto-3D Conversion & More

April 9, 2026 From roadtovr

Samsung and Google announced a major software update to Galaxy XR, the Android XR-based headset, which includes deep enterprise support, automatic 3D conversion of photos and videos, and more.

One of the biggest bits in the update, now available on Samsung Galaxy XR, is the inclusion of Android Enterprise, the Google-led initiative that includes built-in security, management, and app deployment tools for workplace-focused Android devices.

This includes support for fully managed deployments with flexible enrollment options like zero-touch, QR setup, and DPC provisioning, aimed at making large-scale rollouts easier.

It also includes enterprise app management, robust device controls, and hardware-level security to protect sensitive data and meet compliance standards, the company says in a press statement.

In addition to enterprise features, the latest Android XR update also includes improvements targeting everyday usability, such as customizable virtual keyboard positioning, desktop session restore for up to three apps after reboot, expanded accessibility tools such as single-eye tracking, and improved spatial alignment of on-screen content.

What’s more, the Android XR update now brings auto spatialization to Chrome and YouTube, which automatically converts 2D media into immersive 3D experiences. This comes in addition to the previously available auto spatalization feature for Google Photos.

Notably, as a part of the new update, Android XR is now set to receive regular software updates, including security patches, for up to five years.

Released in October 2025 for $1,800, Samsung Galaxy XR looks to fill a middle ground of price and features between Meta Quest 3 ($500) and Apple Vision Pro ($3,500).

Much like how Vision Pro taps into the library of iOS apps in addition to native visionOS apps, Android XR-based Galaxy XR makes use of Android’s vast app ecosystem. Still, Galaxy XR is only the first full-feature XR headset to adopt Android XR, seems to be filling out software features as we speak.