News

Meta Aims to Double, Possibly Even Triple Smart Glasses Production This Year

January 15, 2026 From roadtovr

Meta and EssilorLuxottica are potentially set to double the expected production target for their smart glasses, according to a recent Bloomberg report.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the report maintains Meta has suggested increasing annual capacity to 20 million units by the end of 2026, as the company hopes to seize growing consumer interest in smart glasses.

Additionally, the report maintains that, provided demand is strong, capacity could exceed 30 million units. Talks are said to still be ongoing, Bloomberg says.

Ray-Ban creator EssilorLuxottica noted in February 2025 that it was ramping up production capacity to 10 million annual units by the end of 2026.

Meta Ray-Ban Display & Neural Band | Photo by Road to VR

The 10 million figure already represented a significant push past its 2 million units sold following the 2023 release of the first-gen Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.

Currently, Meta and EssilorLuxottica offer two fundamental smart glasses types: audio-only AI centric frames, styled in both Oakley and Ray-Ban variants, and Meta Ray-Ban Display, which includes a single full-color display embedded in the right lens.

This comes amid news that Meta is pausing the international rollout of the $800 Meta Ray-Ban Display smart glasses, which was set to arrive in the UK, France, Italy and Canada sometime in early this year. The company maintains the pause was due to “unprecedented demand and limited inventory.”

Meanwhile, Meta is laying off around 10 percent of staff at its Reality Labs XR division, according to a New York Times report. The move is seen as a strategic shift, moving focus from VR and its metaverse ambitions to AI and smart glasses.

Meta Waveguide Provider Claims “world’s first” 70° FoV Waveguide

January 9, 2026 From roadtovr

Lumus, the company that developed the waveguide optic used in Meta’s Ray-Ban Display smart glasses, says it has achieved a 70° field-of-view in a new design revealed this week at CES 2026. This conveniently matches the 70° field-of-view that Meta achieved in its ‘Orion’ prototype, but only with the use of novel materials.

The News

Back in 2024, Meta revealed its first AR glasses prototype, codenamed Orion. One of the prototype’s big innovations was its ability to squeeze a 70° field-of-view into such a small form-factor. This was made possible with the use of unique waveguide optics made with silicon carbide, a novel material that enabled the wider field-of-view thanks to its greater refractive index.

Orion porotype AR glasses | Image courtesy Meta

In 2025, Meta talked about the challenges of manufacturing silicon carbide waveguides, affordably, at scale. While the company said progress was being made, it still conceded that the work is ongoing.

“We’ve successfully shown that silicon carbide can flex across electronics and photonics. It’s a material that could have future applications in quantum computing. And we’re seeing signs that it’s possible to significantly reduce the cost. There’s a lot of work left to be done, but the potential upside here is huge,” the company said at the time.

But now Lumus, the company that developed the waveguides in Meta’s Ray-Ban Display glasses says it has achieved a 70° field-of-view in its glass waveguides. The company claims it’s the “world’s first geometric waveguide to surpass a 70° FOV.”

The company announced that it is showing the new ZOE waveguide this week at CES 2026. Renders provided by the company show the company’s latest prototype to include the ZOE optics (though it’s worth noting that Lumus’ prototypes typically do not include on-board battery, compute, or tracking hardware, which would add bulk to any real product based on ZOE).

My Take

My gut tells me it probably isn’t a coincidence that Lumus has been aiming for a 70° field-of-view, which just happens to match what Meta achieved with its Orion prototype. Most likely, the company was tasked (implicitly or maybe even directly) with doing exactly that—proving that its waveguides could reach the 70° benchmark without using silicon carbide.

Beyond simply achieving a 70° field-of-view as a proof-of-concept, Lumus says the ZOE optic is made with the same process as its other glass waveguides. That’s a big deal, because the company has already proven that such waveguides can be manufactured at scale, thanks to the use of its waveguides in Ray-Ban Display, Meta’s first smart glasses with a display.

That means Lumus’ ZOE waveguide is most definitely on the shortlist for what Meta could use in its first pair of wide field-of-view AR glasses, which the company said it hopes to bring to market before 2030.

Granted, field-of-view isn’t everything. When it comes to optics, everything is a tradeoff. Increased field-of-view can impact brightness, PPD, and various visual artifacts. Without being able to see the new ZOE optic for myself, it’s hard to say whether or not Lumus has something truly new here, or if they’ve simply boosted field-of-view by trading other downsides.

I expect I’ll have a chance to see the ZOE optic later this year at AWE 2026 where I usually meet with Lumus to see their latest developments. In the meantime, I’ve also reached out to the company to learn more about how it reached the 70° field-of-view and what tradeoffs it did or didn’t have to make to get there.

New Reference Design From Key Manufacturer Shows What to Expect From MR Headsets in 2026

January 8, 2026 From roadtovr

A Chinese company which mass produces many of the best known headsets in the industry has shared a new compact MR headset reference design which sets expectations for 2026.

Goertek is a little-known but massively important player in the XR industry. The company is a key enabler in the production of XR headsets as it provides reference designs which function as blueprints for consumer companies to build headsets, and handles mass production for some of the best known headsets in the industry.

At CES 2026, Goertek revealed its latest MR headset reference design. Reference designs like this act as a blueprint for any company that wants to put their own spin on the device and take it to market. Rather than a prototype—which might use novel materials or techniques that aren’t yet mass producible—reference designs like this represent a fully functional set of ready-to-manufacture components with tangible costs and delivery dates.

There isn’t a lot of info available on the reference design yet, except what has been officially stated by Goertek:

An Ultra-Lightweight MR Reference Design showcases system-level optimizations, reducing the weight of a 4K MR headset to approximately 100 grams. It delivers retinal-level clarity (38 PPD) within a 100-degree field of view, with Video See-Through (VST) and 6DoF [tracking].

We’ve reached out to Goertek for details, but in the meantime many questions remain.

Considering the incredible 100g weight of the headset, it seems almost certain that this reference design does not include on-board compute or battery. For comparison, Quest 3, even with a soft strap, weighs in at 515g.

That means the headset would need to rely on a tethered compute/battery pack, or some other host device, to function. This would follow the trend of headsets like Vision Pro and Galaxy XR which both offload the battery weight to a tethered battery.

Adding to the confusion, Goertek calling the headset an “MR reference design” would generally be understood to mean a standalone device, but in the one photo we’ve been able to find of the device in use so far (courtesy CNFOL), it appears to be part of the company’s “PCVR Software Suite” display station, and looks to be tethered directly to the PC in front of the user.

In any case, the reference design shows us what kind of resolution and field-of-view can be expected from headsets in 2026 with this compact form-factor, even if the design doesn’t have its own compute/battery.

Likely the reference design is meant to show the form-factor while leaving it up to customer companies to decide if they would bring it to market as a standalone or tethered headset.

Panasonic Ends Collaboration with Shiftall on MeganeX Series VR Headsets

January 8, 2026 From roadtovr

Shiftall, the Japan-based VR hardware startup, is no longer working with Panasonic on its MeganeX series of thin and light PC VR headsets.

Initially acquired by Panasonic in 2018, Shiftall developed a number of devices as the company’s ad hoc internal skunk works, including the first MeganeX PC VR headset, HaritoraX wireless body trackers, FlipVR motion controllers, and mutalk soundproof microphones.

While Panasonic sold off Shiftall in early 2024, the companies continued to collaborate on the MeganeX headset series.

Shiftall MeganeX “8K” Mark 2 | Image courtesy Shiftall

Now, according to a Shiftall press statement (via Mogura), Panasonic is officially no longer involved with development of MeganeX as of December 2025.

“As a result, Panasonic will transfer the MeganeX series business assets to Shiftall,” the company says, machine translated from Japanese. “And from 2026 onwards, Shiftall will continue to develop, sell and provide customer support (for both businesses and individuals) for the MeganeX series.”

Shiftall’s latest PC VR headset is the MeganeX “8K” Mark II, a follow-up to its thin and light PC VR headset originally launched late last year, the MeganeX superlight “8K”.

MeganeX “8K” Mark II contains the same 3,552 × 3,840 per-eye micro-OLEDs as superlight, supporting up to 90 Hz refresh, and the same SteamVR tracking standard, which requires the user to buy SteamVR 1.0/2.0 base stations separately.

Meta Pauses International Release of Meta Ray-Ban Display Glasses

January 7, 2026 From roadtovr

Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses seem to be selling too well, as the company announced it’s delaying the international rollout of its first display-clad smart glasses.

The News

Initially released in the US back in September, Meta said it was hoping to bring the $800 smart glasses to a number of regions in early 2026, which includes a single color display embedded in the right lens.

Now, the company says in a blog post it’s decided to “pause” the planned expansion to the UK, France, Italy and Canada, citing “unprecedented demand and limited inventory.”

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

The company characterizes stock as “extremely limited,” noting that its seen an “overwhelming amount of interest, and as a result, product waitlists now extend well into 2026.”

Meta says it will continue to focus on fulfilling orders in the US while they “re-evaluate [the] approach to international availability.”

My Take

I was looking forward to getting my hands on a pair of Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses here in Italy, one of the regions currently on “pause”—which my Corpo-to-English translator says I probably shouldn’t hold my breath.

While Meta Ray-Ban Display can’t do everything promised just yet—and doesn’t actually have an app store—the device can do a fair number of things I was hoping to test out if it fit into my daily life.

After all, it can do everything the audio-only Ray-Ban Meta glasses can do in addition to serving up a viewfinder for taking photos and video, the ability to see and respond to messages via WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram, and give you turn-by-turn walking directions in supported cities.

Turn-by-turn Directions in Meta Ray-Ban Display | Image courtesy Meta

Months after launch, Meta says it’s also now pushed an update that includes a teleprompter, the previously teased EMG handwriting, as well as more cities for pedestrian navigation.

Still, it makes a lot more sense from a manufacturing perspective. Meta needs to go slow and deliberate with Meta Ray-Ban Display though, if only based on the fact that the device has likely been heavily subsidized to not be eye-wateringly expensive out of the gate; the company is no doubt eating the fairly high bill of materials if only based on waveguide wastage rates. No app store also means no app revenue, making the first-gen decidedly more of a large beta test than anything.

So, right now it seems like Meta is deliberately going slow to make sure use cases, distribution, and supply chain are all in place before really cashing in on the second gen—maybe following Quest’s playbook; in 2019, the company released the original Quest only to toss out Quest 2 a year later, making for the company’s best-selling XR device to date—and also leaving everyone who bought the first-gen to upgrade only a year later.

Pimax Dream Air Begins Shipping in “small batches” With Temporary Headstrap

January 7, 2026 From roadtovr

After multiple delays, Pimax has finally begun shipping its next PC VR headset, albeit in “small batches,” which arrive with a fabric headstrap—something of a temporary solution until the company can ship out its official headstrap.

The News

Dream Air is Pimax’s first thing and light PC VR headset, which is set to arrive with Sony’s high-end micro-OLED panels, packing in a 13.6MP (3,840 × 3,552) per-eye resolution.

Now, Pimax told Road to VR that it actually began shipping Dream Air in “small batches” before the end of the year for the purposes of external beta testing.

While official shipments are set to kick off sometime this month, a few users have already received Dream Air with what Jaap Grolleman, Pimax’s Head of Communications, describes as a stopgap measure to get the first units out the door.

“We’re still working on the final backstrap, but we don’t want to make that a showstopper to start shipping and start collecting feedback on the headset,” Grolleman said in a recent video.

Pimax Dream Air 2D Strap | Image courtesy Pimax

Those early batches of Pimax Dream Air are shipping with what the company calls its “2D headstrap”, as it’s made out of fabric, with Grolleman noting that it’s “perfectly fine to use, even in long sessions as it hugs your head from behind and slightly above.”

A “3D headstrap”—more of an Apple Vision Pro-inspired knit affair—is said to arrive later to who initially received the 2D strap with their order.

Pimax hasn’t provided info on when the 3D strap will arrive, or when the company will cut off shipments including the 2D strap.

Pimax Dream Air 3D Strap | Image courtesy Pimax

Notably, Pimax says it’s also developing a “hard backstrap,” which includes off-ear audio, which will be available sometime after Dream Air begins its wider rollout.

As for Dream Air SE—the cheaper variant which uses 6.5MP (2,560 × 2,560) per-eye displays—Pimax says small batches will begin shipping out in February 2026.

Pimax initially announced Dream Air last December, as it hoped to enter the emergent thin and light PC VR headset segment, which includes entries such as Bigscreen Beyond and Shiftall MaganeX Superlight 8K. The headset however suffered a number of delays following its planned May 2025 launch.

My Take

If you’ve been following Pimax, you already know this is how they operate: official announcements and initial shipping dates feel more like walking into a brainstorming session, as the company often changes designs, specs, and release windows multiple times before official release. Along the way, the company usually tends to announce other devices, making the reporting process more like taking apart a watch to see what time it is.

On the face of it, you might think that’s fairly amateurish behavior, but Pimax has proven to do what few companies can: publicly iterate with the expectation that it will eventually deliver.

It’s been that way ever since the company funded its original 2017 Pimax “4K” headset via Kickstarter—back when Pimax announced it was releasing the first consumer-oriented wide-FOV PC VR headset alongside a bevy of modular accessories. Some of those never came, and some arrived two years later.

Okay, maybe that was amateurish, but the company is still here, and still serving up competitive hardware, which says something.

Magic Leap Signs Deal with Taiwan’s Pegatron, Strengthening AR Manufacturing Position

January 5, 2026 From roadtovr

Magic Leap announced a manufacturing partnership with Pegatron, a major global electronics manufacturer, to scale production of AR glasses components, including Magic Leap’s waveguide technology.

The News

Under the agreement outlined in a press statement, Pegatron will apply its manufacturing capabilities to help turn Magic Leap’s optical designs into mass-produced components.

Taiwan-based Pegatron specializes in developing and producing computing, communications, and consumer electronics for major brands, in addition to being the parent company of PC component company ASRock.

Details are still under wraps, however Magic Leap Product and Partner Development exec Jade Meskill says the partnership will create “a clear path to bring AR components to market at scale.”

“This collaboration reflects the growing maturity of the AR ecosystem,” said Jason Cheng, Vice Chairman at Pegatron. “By combining Magic Leap’s component-level expertise with Pegatron’s manufacturing infrastructure, we can support more efficient pathways from development to production.”

This follows the announcement in October that Magic Leap was entering into a multi-year AR hardware partnership with Google.

My Take

Despite early market missteps that saw millions (if not billions) go to the development of its ML 1 and ML 2 headsets, Magic Leap seems to be making good on its pivot from AR headset creator to major AR component player, as the company is leveraging its designs, know-how and catalogue of patents to stay in the fight.

And despite the years of grinding, it’s a fight that still hasn’t really heated up just yet, as companies like Meta, Apple and Google are still in deep in preparation to create their own AR glasses (note: not smart glasses) for release sometime before 2030.

Still, if the coming AR revolution is anything like the smartphone revolution of the early 2000s, there will potentially be a lot of players beyond those three tech giants to spin up competition when AR components eventually get cheaper with economies of scale.

And while we’re not there yet, Magic Leap seems to have found a solid raison d’être in the meantime, and a much better shot at one day becoming profitable as a result.

‘VRChat’ Breaks Concurrent User Record on New Year’s Eve

January 5, 2026 From roadtovr

VRChat’s head of community says the popular social VR platform set a new concurrent user record over the New Year’s Eve celebrations.

The News

As first reported by UploadVR, VRChat’s head of community ‘Tupper’ detailed concurrent user numbers as they rolled in across the various Western Hemisphere time zones during the platform’s annual 24-hour NYE celebration, making for a peak of 148,886 concurrent users during the Central Time Zone ball drop.

Here’s the full breakdown, courtesy Tupper, which includes all supported platforms:

Across the board for US TZs:

ET: 147,226

CT: 148,886

MT: 141,184

PT: 127,708

Notably, Tupper says that also Japan’s had “a strong showing,” although they declined to details the exact numbers, noting however “it did surprise me.”

Additionally, Tupper says that recent “normal weekend” numbers float around 120-125k concurrent users at peaks.

My Take

VRChat doesn’t regularly publish user figures, or user breakdowns across platforms, which is a real shame since it could be one of the best ways of telling just how well VR is doing overall during these post-holiday periods—right as a flock of new users is coming in to try the massive, free and extremely well-known social VR platform.

And yes, while I tend to call it a social VR platform, VRChat is actually much more than that nowadays, as it also undoubtedly pulls in a significant share of users across flatscreen, which include PC, Android, and iOS.

As it is, engagement doesn’t appear to be slowing down on PC, according to data obtained from SteamDB. Above, you can see the massive bump in 2018 leading up to recenrt ~75,000 concurrent users connected through the Steam version of the app. Notably, those local peaks always coincide with the holiday season.

That said, all platforms eventually plateau, although it’s difficult to say when that might be for VRChat. It’s still attracting a lot of maker talent, thanks to its flexible user-generated content platform, and is still the go-to place for a variety of Internet subcultures.

Google is Rolling out Photorealistic ‘Likeness’ Avatars on Android XR to Compete with Apple’s ‘Personas’

December 11, 2025 From roadtovr

Google is starting to roll out new photorealistic avatars which they call “Likeness”. Similar to Apple’s Personas, Likeness avatars are generated by scanning a user’s face, then animated it with input from the sensors on a headset. The avatars can be used to represent the user in video call apps, but Google doesn’t yet have a way to have spatial meetings with other Likeness avatars.

The News

Google is launching its own photorealistic avatars called Likeness avatars, for use on compatible Android XR headsets. The idea is similar to Apple’s Persona avatars: scan the user’s face to create a realistic representation, then use the headset’s on-board cameras to animate the scan as realistically as possible.

Likenesses take a slightly different (and probably more user-friendly) approach for the initial face scan; rather than scanning by holding a headset out in front of your face, Google instead released a Likeness (beta) Android app to let people scan themselves with their phone instead. Holding your phone in front of your face for a scan is definitely a bit easier than awkwardly holding a whole headset with both hands.

According to Google, the Likeness (beta) app is only compatible with Google Pixel 8 or newer, Samsung Galaxy S23 or newer, or Samsung Z Fold5 or newer. Without a compatible device, you can’t create a Likeness avatar, meaning Android XR users with an iPhone (or unsupported Android phone) won’t be able to scan themselves. One benefit of Apple’s approach to scanning with the headset itself is that anyone can use a Persona avatar on Vision Pro regardless of what kind of phone they have.

Image courtesy Google

Like Apple’s approach, Likeness avatars can be used generically as a ‘virtual webcam’. That makes them widely compatible with most video call apps that expect a front-facing camera, like Google Meet, Zoom, Messenger, etc.

And just like Apple, the first ‘beta’ iteration of Likeness avatars are 2D only. They are presented as a 2D representation with no way to transmit them in a spatial format, or have a ‘spatial meeting’, like Vision Pro can do with spatial FaceTime calls. However, Google says it’s working on spatial meetings for the future.

My Take

Photorealistic avatars on XR headsets are a great value-add because of the ability to use video call apps naturally. Apple’s Personas are currently the state-of-the-art as far as consumer-available photorealistic avatars, and the company has shown that it’s possible to cross over the uncanny valley with this approach to avatars.

During a recent meeting with Google, I joined a demo video call on Google Meet with one of the participants using a Likeness avatar. From a photorealism standpoint, the results look impressive, and facial movements look convincing too. However, because I didn’t personally know the individual using the Likeness, I was unfamiliar with their actual idiolect, which makes it impossible for me to judge the accuracy of the facial motion. Still, facial motion only needs to be plausibly realistic to be passable in many circumstances, and that’s been achieved from what I can see.

Image courtesy Google

While it’s a bummer that there’s no ‘spatial meeting’ yet for Android XR (allowing users to chat face-to-face with fully spatial Likeness avatars), Google made the right choice in prioritizing virtual webcam usage at the start. It’s less impressive than spatial meetings, but more widely useful and compatible with existing services and apps.

There’s probably no chance we’ll see spatial calls between Likeness avatars and Persona avatars any time soon, but virtual webcam compatibility makes it trivial for both kinds of avatars to chat across headsets.

One thing worth noting is that Likeness avatars probably won’t be compatible with all Android XR devices. Forthcoming ‘Android XR’ smartglasses (which don’t run anything close to the full-blown version of Android XR) don’t have the power or sensors necessary to render or animate a Likeness avatar. Similarly, devices like XREAL Aura (which does run full-blown Android XR), might have the power but don’t have the sensors (eye and mouth tracking cameras) to animate a Likeness avatar.

It’s possible that Google could make Likeness avatars compatible with these devices by doing simulated eye movements and audio-based lip-sync. Although those technologies are already widely in use for more cartoonish avatars, they’re likely to fall deep into the uncanny valley when applied to photorealistic face scans. So I doubt Google will take that approach.

With the introduction of Likeness avatars, Google also has the same challenge I pointed out recently regarding Apple’s Persona avatars: as headsets get smaller, how will they bring this level of avatar fidelity to smaller headsets that have even less room for the cameras that are essential for these kinds of avatars?

Meta Delays Puck-Tethered XR Headset to 2027, Next Quest “Large Upgrade” to Current Gen

December 10, 2025 From roadtovr

Meta may be pushing back the release of an upcoming XR headset that tethers to a pocketable compute puck. Meanwhile, the company says its next-gen Quest will be a “large upgrade” over the current generation.

The News

Meta supposedly planned to release the device, codenamed ‘Phoenix’, in the second half of 2026, which is said to include a goggle-like form factor—also slated to offload compute and battery to a puck-like unit tethered to the headset.

Now, according to internal memos obtained by Business Insider, the release timeline of Phoenix has been pushed back to the first half of 2027.

Maher Saba, VP of Reality Labs Foundation, announced the change in an internal memo released December 4th, further noting that the decision arose from a meeting with Reality Labs leaders and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Successive XR prototypes | Image courtesy Meta

Saba maintained that the project should be “focused on making the business sustainable and taking extra time to deliver our experiences with higher quality.”

“Based on that, many teams in RL will need to adjust their plans and timelines,” Saba added. “Extending timelines is not an opportunity for us to add more features or take on additional work.”

A separate memo from metaverse leaders Gabriel Aul and Ryan Cairns added that the release date was pushed back in order to “give us a lot more breathing room to get the details right.”

Continuing: “There’s a lot coming in hot with tight bring-up schedules and big changes to our core UX, and we won’t compromise on landing a fully polished and reliable experience,” the memo said.

Additionally, Aul and Cairns’ memo maintained the company is currently working on its next-gen Quest, which is said to focus on immersive gaming. It’s also said to represent a “large upgrade” in capabilities from current devices, and will “significantly improve unit economics.”

Meta is reportedly also planning to release what Business Insider maintains will be a new “limited edition” XR device in 2026, codenamed ‘Malibu 2’. It’s uncertain what sort of device Malibu 2 is at this time.

My Take

It’s difficult to say what the next Quest will shape up to be. Meta tends to run competing prototypes to see what fits best in the market, and may have a different strategy than anyone expects.

Here’s my current hunch: Quest 3S represents the company’s best chance to reach the low end of the market at $300 (cheaper on sale), and it may be in that position for at least another year. I don’t expect a cheap and cheerful headset from Meta for a while, even with the claim that the next Quest will “significantly improve unit economics.” Relative to what? Quest 3S? A potential Quest Pro 2? We simply don’t know.

Meta’s next real headset (not the limited edition thing) may likely be a high-end headset—think around $800 or $1,000 range—which ought to keep some hardcore Quest platform adherents on the upgrade pathway while possibly offering competition some new(ish) faces: namely Samsung Galaxy XR, Valve’s Steam Frame, and the current Apple Vision Pro M5 refresh. Okay, that’s less of a hunch, and more of a consensus from what everyone’s heard.

What is marginally more certain though is Meta doesn’t seem to be in the manufacturing stage just yet of anything, at least not according to the most recent supply chain leaks, or lack thereof, so I’d expect for a lot more hubbub midway through next year. Whatever the case, I’ve got my eye out for all of the above.