News

Bigscreen Reveals ‘VRChat Edition’ of Beyond 2e PC VR Headset, Releasing in September

July 17, 2025 From roadtovr

Bigscreen unveiled a new ‘VRChat Edition’ of its slim and light Beyond 2e PC VR headset, which the company says is specifically designed for die-hard users of VR’s most popular social platform.

Bigscreen began shipping the first production units of Beyond 2 late last month, which includes both the standard Beyond 2 and its eye-tracking enabled variant, Beyond 2e.

Now, the company announced it’s also launching an exclusive VRChat Edition of the Beyond 2e, slated to start shipping out sometime in September 2025.

As far as specs go, the VRChat Edition is virtually the same as the standard Beyond 2e, including it eye-tracking sensors, 2,560 × 2,560 micro-OLED displays, and 116° diagonal FOV, thanks to the inclusion of new pancake lenses—all of it weighing in at 107g.

Now available for pre-order for $1,269—just $50 more than the standard Beyond 2e—the upcoming VRChat Edition does however promise a few differences, notably including a translucent Atomic Purple shell and hand-drawn packaging artwork.

Note: you’ll need a VR-ready PC to run any of Bigscreen’s headsets, including the new Beyond 2e VRChat Edition, as well as SteamVR base stations, controllers, and optional trackers for body tracking in VRChat. Find out here if your PC is VR-ready.

Purchase also includes exclusive VRChat digital items, including VRChat stickers and badges for profiles. Bigscreen says more features are planned for the VRChat Edition in the future, which includes including “some rare giveaway drops.”

While orders are slated to start shipping in September, current preorder holders can actually request an upgrade to the VRChat Edition by contacting support (support@bigscreenvr.com).

In the meantime, you can check out a deep dive with Bigscreen founder and CEO Darshan Shankar and VRChat Head of Community Tupper in an hour-long discussion that touches on everything from the improvements in Bigscreen’s latest headset, to why eye-tracking is important in VRChat.

Beyond Military, Meta is Eyeing an XR Expansion into the Medical Field

July 14, 2025 From roadtovr

It was announced recently that Meta is partnering with military tech company Anduril to bring XR technology to the battlefield. New job listings indicate the company is also looking to expand its XR tech into the medical field.

Meta is of course best known for in the XR space for its consumer VR and MR headsets like the Rift and Quest, but the company also thinks its XR tech has a bigger role to play. While Meta has dabbled in the education and enterprise spaces with its headsets for years, the company is now starting to think seriously about the medical field.

New job listings from Reality Labs (Meta’s XR division) show the company wants to fill roles relating to regulatory approval for XR medical products.

“We’re seeking a regulatory affairs specialist to join our medical devices compliance team. You will get to work on wearables and Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) applications for the US and worldwide approvals,” reads the listing for ‘Medical Devices, Regulatory Specialist‘. “You will work on cutting-edge wearable technologies, including augmented reality glasses, wrist wearables, and other innovative devices.”

“Collaborate proactively and establish strategic relationships with external stakeholders (Notified Bodies, FDA, Competent Authorities and other regulatory bodies) to ensure that requirements are known early during strategy development, enabling rapid market access to Meta Reality Labs products,” reads the listing for ‘Medical Devices Regulatory Affairs Strategy Specialist‘.

It’s unclear exactly which products or services Meta is hoping to bring into the medical space. However, augmented reality glasses like the company’s Orion prototype seem like a natural fit. While there are certainly established medical uses for VR and MR headsets, AR glasses have an advantage in real-world awareness and fidelity thanks to see-through lenses rather than passthrough; this is important for social reasons (doctors being able to look their patients in the eye) and fidelity (a surgeon having an unfiltered view of an operation).

Beyond wearable devices, Meta is also likely to explore the use of conversational artificial intelligence as an aid to medical workers, and it’s wrist-worn input devices as a means of hands-free input.

Considering the often extensive regulatory hurdles in the medical landscape, it could be years yet before we see exactly what Meta plans to bring to market in this field.

CREAL Secures $8.9M Funding to Miniaturize Light Field Display for AR Glasses

July 11, 2025 From roadtovr

Switzerland-based light field display startup CREAL announced its closed a $8.9 million equity funding round, which the company says will accelerate the miniaturization of its light field module for AR glasses.

The equity funding round was led by ZEISS, the Germany-based optical systems and optoelectronics company, with participation from new and existing investors, including members of the UBS private investor network.

This brings the company’s overall funding to $32 million, with previous investors including Swisscom Ventures, Verve Ventures, and DAA Capital Partners.

In a press statement, Creal says funds will accelerate its mission to deliver “natural, comfortable, and healthy visual digital experiences by advancing its proprietary light field display.”

Integrated into AR glasses, light field displays can recreate the way light naturally enters our eyes, enabling more realistic depth perception and reducing eye strain by allowing proper focus cues at different distances. You can learn more about light fields in our explainer below:

Light fields are significant to AR and VR because they’re a genuine representation of how light exists in the real world, and how we perceive it. Unfortunately they’re difficult to capture or generate, and arguably even harder to display.

Every AR and VR headset on the market today uses some tricks to try to make our eyes interpret what we’re seeing as if it’s actually there in front of us. Most headsets are using basic stereoscopy and that’s about it—the 3D effect gives a sense of depth to what’s otherwise a scene projected onto a flat plane at a fixed focal length.

Such headsets support vergence (the movement of both eyes to fuse two images into one image with depth), but not accommodation (the dynamic focus of each individual eye). That means that while your eyes are constantly changing their vergence, the accommodation is stuck in one place. Normally these two eye functions work unconsciously in sync, hence the so-called ‘vergence-accommodation conflict’ when they don’t.

Some headsets include ‘varifocal’ approaches, dynamically shifting the focal length based on where you’re looking (with eye-tracking), such as Magic Leap One as well as older Meta prototype VR headsets—supporting a larger number of focal lengths. Even so, these varifocal approaches still have some inherent issues that arise because they aren’t actually displaying light fields.

“As AI reshapes how we work and create, AR is poised to become the killer interface to this new era,” says Tomas Sluka, CEO and co-founder of Creal. “But if we’re going to wear AR glasses all day, they must imperatively be healthy, comfortable, and natural to use. That’s why we’re focused on delivering AR glasses that uniquely project digital imagery with real-world depth — fully supporting the natural focusing mechanism of the human eye. This is one of the key foundations for immersive spatial computing.”

Creal says the fresh funding round will help the Écublens, Switzerland-based company continue R&D on its AR light field module, which the company aims to integrate into lightweight, fashionable AR glasses—first for enterprise, and later for consumers.

This also includes ongoing support of a licensing agreement with Zeiss, kicked off in late 2024, to bring its light field-based vision care platform to Zeiss, which it will be used in Zeiss’ next-gen diagnostic and treatment devices.

Meta Reportedly Invests $3.5 Billion in EssilorLuxottica, Further Strengthening Smart Glasses Partnership

July 10, 2025 From roadtovr

It was rumored last year that Meta was seeking a minority stake in French-Italian eyewear conglomerate EssilorLuxottica, not only the largest eyewear manufacturer in the world, but also Meta’s partner behind its growing line of smart glasses. Now, a new report suggests the deal has gone through.

Citing people familiar with the matter, a Bloomberg report maintains Meta has acquired just under 3% of EssilorLuxottica, which is suspected to be worth €3 billion (~$3.5 million).

Meta is reportedly considering additional investment in the eyewear maker over time, which could bring its overall stake to around 5%, the people said, who asked to not be named due to ongoing deliberations.

In June 2024, a Wall Street Journal report maintained Meta was considering a stake of about 5% in the eyewear group, although at the time talks were reportedly still in early phases.

Then, three months later, Meta announced it was expanding its smart glasses partnership with EssilorLuxottica into 2030. At the time, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg described its long-term roadmap as giving the companies “the opportunity to turn glasses into the next major technology platform, and make it fashionable in the process.”

This comes as the companies prepare to release their latest smart glasses collaboration: Oakley Meta HSTN. Meta and EssilorLuxottica are releasing a limited edition version of device on July 11th, priced at $499, with multiple lens and frame colorways slated to go on sale later this summer.

Oakley Meta HSTN comes with a modest feature bump over the companies’ second-gen Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which launched in 2023. In addition to serving up music, photo and video capture, and AI chats, Oakley Meta HSNT also promises better battery life and higher resolution video capture over the current Ray-Ban Meta generation, offering up to “3K video” from the device’s ultra-wide 12MP camera and a typical battery life of eight hours between recharges via the supplied charging case.

Meanwhile, other tech giants are preparing their own entries into the segment. Google revealed back in May that it was partnering with eyewear makers Warby Parker and Gentle Monster to bring its first Android XR smart glasses to market. Recent industry reports allege Google is also looking to invest $100 million in the South Korea-based Gentle Monster.

Chinese tech giant Xiaomi recently released its Xiaomi AI Glasses, which match many of Oakley Meta HSNT’s biggest features, but also add a few of their own—notably an increased continuous recording cap of 45 minutes and even the option to select electrochromic lenses for variable lens-shading. For now, Xiaomi AI Glasses are only available in China.

Both Samsung and Apple are reportedly looking to launch their own smart glasses at some point in the future too. Separate reports maintain Samsung could release a device this year, and Apple as soon as 2026.

‘Zoom’ App Comes to Quest, Letting You Join Work Meetings as Your Avatar

July 9, 2025 From roadtovr

Meta announced it’s now added an official Zoom app to the Horizon Store, letting you host and join online meetings as your Quest avatar.

This isn’t the first time Quest users could jump into a Zoom call in VR. In 2021, the company integrated Zoom into Horizon Workrooms, its all-in-one immersive collaboration app. That was more focused on face-to-face VR meetings though, which could also allow you to include webcam participants into a single immersive space.

Now, users just looking for Zoom and nothing else can download the standalone app for free, which Meta calls a “seamless extension of the Zoom Workplace app you’ve already been using on your mobile or desktop.”

The new Zoom app lets you participate in meetings as your Horizon Worlds avatar, although not within an immersive environment like Horizon Workrooms. Zoom for Quest essentially projects a 2D video of your avatar to anyone, be it a fellow VR user or a person using a standard webcam.

The question remains whether you’d actually want to join meetings using your Meta avatar. While greatly improved over the years, they’re still just as cartoony as ever—especially in comparison to Apple’s latest Persona avatars coming to Vision OS 26. Notably, Vision Pro has had its own Persona-capable Zoom app since the headset’s initial February 2024 launch.

That said, it’s difficult to argue with free. To start using Zoom on Quest, simply download the Zoom Workplace app from the Horizon Store, and login with the same profile you use on mobile or desktop to get chatting.

Smart Contact Maker Raises $250M Investment at a Whopping $1.35B Valuation

July 9, 2025 From roadtovr

Smart contact lens startup XPANCEO announced it’s secured $250 million in Series A funding, putting its valuation at $1.35 billion and minting it as XR’s most recent unicorn.

The funding round was led by Opportunity Venture (Asia), which led the company’s $40 million Seed round in 2023, bringing its overall funding to $290 million, according to Crunchbase data.

XPANCEO, a UAE-based company, says the new funding will “accelerate the company’s mission to launch the world’s first all-in-one smart contact lens,” which is targeted to arrive by 2026.

While the company’s smart contacts are still in prototyping phase, XPANCEO says they will integrate XR, real-time health monitoring, night vision, and zoom features.

Display System with Sub-0.5 mm Projector | Image courtesy XPANCEO

“Becoming a unicorn is a powerful signal that we’re on the right path,” said Roman Axelrod, founder and Managing Partner at XPANCEO. “In just 24 months, we’ve developed 15 working prototypes, each unlocking a new layer of possibility. Our vision remains the same: to merge all your devices into a single, invisible interface – your eyes.”

Since its 2023 seed round, XPANCEO says its fleet of prototypes include a lens for AR vision, a smart lens with intraocular pressure (IOP) sensing for glaucoma monitoring, a biochemical lens capable of measuring health parameters such as glucose directly from tear fluid, and a lens capable of real-time wireless charging and data reading.

Other prototypes feature nanoparticle-enhanced lenses for night vision and color correction, as well as lenses designed for 3D imaging, the company says.

Smart Сontact Lens with Wireless Powering Companion | Image courtesy XPANCEO

Headed by serial entrepreneur Roman Axelrod and physicist Dr. Valentyn S. Volkov, XPANCEO has grown rapidly since its 2021 founding, expanding from 50 to 100 scientists, engineers, and business leaders. Meanwhile, its lab has expanded to support the increasing scope of its research, the company says.

Over the years, XPANCEO has collaborated with a number of institutions, including the University of Manchester, the National University of Singapore, Donostia International Physics Center, and the University of Dubai.

High-Sensitivity Compact IOP Sensor | Image courtesy XPANCEO

XPANCEO’s new unicorn status puts it alongside some of the most ambitious XR projects to date: AR headset company Magic Leap first broke the $1 billion valuation mark in 2014 with a $542 million Series B investment led by Google, putting it at a max of $6.4 billion valuation in 2018 following its landmark investment by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF).

Earlier this year, immersive web content company Infinite Reality announced it raised $3 billion from a private investor to build its “vision for the next generation of the internet,” bringing the company’s valuation to $12.25 billion.

Apple Acquires Digital Avatar Company TrueMeeting to Bolster Vision Pro Personas

July 8, 2025 From roadtovr

Apple quietly acquired 3D avatar company TrueMeeting in January, which could help bolster the company’s digital Personas on Vision Pro.

French language outlet MacGeneration first spotted the news via a European Commission filing, which includes a non-confidential summary of mergers and acquisitions.

Details of the acquisition are still thin, however it appears Apple acquired the Tel Aviv and Silicon Valley-based company in January 2025, obtaining its 3D avatar tech stack and hiring a number of its employees.

Founded in 2019 as CommonGround-AI, TrueMeeting developed an application that allows a person to scan their face with a smartphone and engage in avatar-based video chats with or without the need of an XR headset.

And it’s possible we’ve already seen some of the improvements TrueMeeting has brought to the table in Apple’s latest iteration of Personas.

At the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, Apple announced it was rolling out a significant visual upgrade to its Persona avatars on Vision Pro in VisionOS 26. We went hands-on with the new, improved Personas, which is currently in developer preview and slated to arrive on Vision Pro sometime later this fall.

In our hands-on, Road to VR’s Ben Lang notes that “[s]kin looks much more detailed; I was particularly impressed with how it captured my stubble. Hair on the head is more detailed too.”

Continuing: “But maybe even more than that, Apple’s Persona system captures the motion of the face with impressive detail. You can see me moving my face in uncommon and asymmetrical ways, but the results still look nuanced and realistic.”

Additionally, MacGeneration discovered that Apple also acquired AI startup WhyLabs, which develops and operates tools to monitor and analyze machine learning models and data pipelines. Essentially, WhyLabs monitors generative AI so that they don’t overstep bounds, tracking for real-time drifts, hallucinations, and other bugs of conversational AI.

Apple Reportedly Has Numerous XR Headsets & Glasses Coming Between Now & 2028

June 30, 2025 From roadtovr

Independent tech analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reports that Apple’s XR and smart glasses roadmap will feature multiple XR devices, including a spec-bumped Vision Pro slated to release later this year. At the far end of the spectrum, Kuo also says Apple is making AR glasses, reportedly coming in 2028.

Kuo is a long-time tech analyst and respected figure in Apple product leaks. In a new blogpost, Kuo has laid out a timeline for a number of Apple XR releases, ostensibly based on various supply chain leaks.

Kuo reports that a new Vision Pro featuring the company’s M5 chip is scheduled for mass production in Q3 2025, with 150,000–200,000 units expected to ship. This next Vision Pro is reportedly upgrading the chip from M2 to M5, but will otherwise retain the original specs.

Kuo maintains the iterative approach is based on Vision Pro’s current position as a niche product, as the company hopes to use the next version to maintain market presence, reduce component stock, and further refine XR applications.

Next, Kuo says Apple is preparing a much lighter headset, reportedly called ‘Vision Air’, set to release in Q3 2027. Vision Air is said to be dramatically lighter at over 40% less than the current Vision Pro, which weighs in at 21.2–22.9 ounces (600–650 g), excluding the battery.

Kuo maintains Vision Air will include plastic lenses, magnesium alloys, fewer sensors, a top-tier iPhone chip, and be priced significantly lower to appeal to broader users.

The true next-gen Vision device is said to be ‘Vision Pro 2’ though, which Kuo says could arrive in 2H 2028, replete with a full redesign, Mac-grade chip, reduced weight, and a lower price, signaling Apple’s shift to move away from niche XR products and move toward mainstream adoption.

Meanwhile, Kuo says Apple is investing heavily in smart glasses.

A Ray-Ban-like, audio-first wearable is expected to arrive in Q2 2027, Kuo says, noting that the company is hoping to manufacture 3–5 million units—ostensibly a significant push towards making its first smart glasses a mainstream success.

Oakley Meta HSTN | Image courtesy Meta, EssilorLuxottica

Like Ray-Ban Meta, and the recently unveiled Oakley Meta HSTN, Apple’s smart glasses are said to have no display, rather offering audio playback, photo and video capture, an AI assistant, and both gesture and voice controls.

Arguably the biggest claim among Kuo’s timeline is the mention of Apple XR Glasses, which the analyst maintains will include a color display (LCoS + waveguide) and AI features, making it the first true AR glasses from the company. Kuo says Apple is targeting release in 2H 2028, with a lighter variant being developed in parallel.

This follows reports of Apple potentially scraping a more casual XR glasses-type viewer, which would be tethered to Apple devices and use birdbath optics. The device was originally planned for release in Q2 2026, but Kuo maintains it was paused in late 2024 due to insufficient differentiation, especially around weight.

Granted, Apple is one of the most opaque black boxes in tech for a reason. The company historically announces products on stage, which typically also comes with a price and release date attached. While Kuo has a fairly reliable track record of reporting insider knowledge of Vision Pro, we’re taking this data dump with an equally-sized grain of salt.

Bigscreen Beyond 2 Starts First Wave of Shipping, Aims for Immediate Fulfillment by September

June 27, 2025 From roadtovr

Bigscreen announced it’s officially begun shipping the first production units of Beyond 2, the company’s latest slim and light PC VR headset.

Following a recent production delay, the company says in a blogpost that Beyond 2 headsets are now shipping, noting that due to a backlog of pre-orders, fulfillment will continue through August and beyond.

Bigscreen says that new orders placed today are expected to ship between August and September, with the goal of clearing the backlog by late September and transitioning to near-immediate fulfillment.

This includes both versions currently on sale—Beyond 2 and Beyond 2e—the later of which includes eye-tracking. Beyond 2 is priced at $1,019 and Beyond 2e at $1,219, both of which can be purchased direct from Bigscreen.

And Beyond 2 has proven to be pretty popular with pre-order customers. The company said during its March pre-order launch that its first 24 hours of sales outsold the original Beyond by “more than the first four months”.

Additionally, Bigscreen now says that more units were sold in the first 11 days than all Beyond 1 units sold in its first year. This has prompted the company to expand manufacturing at its Los Angeles factory, as well as hire new technicians and customer support staff. Bigscreen says it’s additionally deployed engineers to overseas suppliers to supervise production.

As for its other products, the company says that orders with the optional Custom-Fit Cushions placed through May 7th will ship by mid-August, while Halo Mount orders will begin shipping in late September or October due to manufacturing delays.

What’s more, customers who ordered a Beyond 1 and haven’t received a unit yet will automatically be upgraded to Beyond 2, putting them first in line for shipments, which is expected to complete by July 25th, Bigscreen says.

Notably, the company assured customers back in April that its latest PC VR headset wouldn’t increase in price due to tariffs, which have been levied by the US government on many goods manufactured in China.

Xiaomi Unveils China’s Answer to Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses with a Few Killer Features

June 26, 2025 From roadtovr

Today at Xiaomi’s ‘Human x Car x Home’ event, the Chinese tech giant revealed its answer to Meta and EssilorLuxottica’s series of smart glasses: Xiaomi AI Glasses.

Reports from late last year alleged Xiaomi was partnering with China-based ODM Goertek to produce a new generation of AI-assisted smart glasses, which was rumored to “fully benchmark” against Ray-Ban Meta—notably not officially available in China.

Now, Xiaomi has unveiled its first Xiaomi AI Glasses, which include onboard Hyper XiaoAi voice assistant, 12MP camera with electronic image stabilization (EIS), five mics, two speakers—all of it driven by a low-power BES2700 Bluetooth audio chip and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon AR1. So far, that’s pretty toe-to-toe with Ray-Ban Meta and the recently unveiled Oakley Meta HSTN glasses.

And like Meta’s smart glasses, Xiaomi AI Glasses don’t include displays of any kind, instead relying on voice and touch input to interact with Hyper XiaoAI. It also boasts foreign language text translation in addition to photo and video capture, which can be toggled either with a voice prompt or tap of the frames.

Xiaomi rates the glasses’ 263mAh silicon-carbon battery at 8.6 hours of use, which the company says can include things like 15 one-minute video recordings, 50 photo shots, 90 minutes of Bluetooth calls, or 20 minutes of XiaoAi voice conversations. Those are just mixed use estimates though, as Xiaomi says it can last up to 21 hours in standby mode, 7 hours of music listening, and 45 minutes of continuous video capture.

One of the most interesting native features though is the ability to simply look at an Alipay QR code, which are ubiquitous across the country, and pay for goods and services with a vocal prompt. Xiaomi says the feature is expected to arrive as an OTA update in September 2025.

The device is set to launch today in China, although global availability is still in question at this time. Xiaomi says the glasses were “optimized for Asian face shapes,” which may rule out a broader global launch for this particular version.

While there’s only a singular frame shape to choose from, it will be offered in three colors—black, and semi-transparent tortoiseshell brown and parrot green—in addition to three lens options, which aim to beat Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta in cool factor.

The base model with clear lenses is priced at ¥1,999 RMB (~$280 USD), while customers can also choose electrochromic shaded lenses at ¥2,699 RMB (~$380 USD) and colored electrochromic shaded lenses at ¥2,999 RMB (~$420 USD).

Xiaomi’s electrochromic lenses allow for gradual shading depending on the user’s comfort, letting you change the intensity of shading by touching the right frame. Notably, the company says its base model can optionally include prescription lenses through its online and offline partners.

This makes Xiaomi AI Glasses the company’s first mass-produced smart glasses with cameras marketed under the Xiaomi brand.

Many of Xiaomi’s earlier glasses—such as the Mijia Smart Audio Glasses 2—were only sold in China and lacked camera sensors entirely, save the limited release device Mijia Glasses Camera from 2022, which featured a 50 MP primary and 8 MP periscope camera, and micro-OLED heads-up display.

Here are the specs we’ve gathered so far from Xiaomi’s presentation. We’ll be filling in more as information comes in:

Camera	12MP
Lens	ƒ/2.2 large aperture \| 105° angle lens
Photo & Video capture	4,032 x 3,024 photos \| 2K/30FPS video recording \| EIS video stabilization
Video length	45 minute continuous recording cap
Weight	40 g
Charging	USB Type-C
Charging time	45 minutes
Battery	263mAh silicon-carbon battery
Battery life	8.6 hours of mixed use
Audio	two frame-mounted speakers
Mics	4 mics + 1 bone conduction mic
Design	Foldable design

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According to Chinese language outlet Vrtuoluo, the device has already seen strong initial interest on e-commerce platform JD.com, totaling over 25,000 reservations made as of 9:30 AM CST (local time here).

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