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XR startup Immersed announced it’s nearing launch of its long-promised work-focused standalone VR headset, Visor.

The News

Immersed sent out an email (courtesy Reddit user ‘aline-works’) to pre-order customers over the weekend announcing that the company is locking in shipping timelines.

Next month, the company says we can expect an update that will “cover where we are on the production ramp and what to expect next for your pre-order.”

The company says that due to the global component crisis, which has seen RAM and storage skyrocket in price, Visor is raising its floor price of $500 (Standard 4K Edition) to $700 for pre-order customers and purchasers after July 31st.

As a work-focused standalone VR headset based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chipset, Visor boasts dual 4K microOLED displays, hand & eye tracking, color passthrough, 6 DoF tracking, and an included three-hour extended battery.

Notably, the $800 Founder’s Edition, which will see the same $200 bump later this month, is said to ship “6 months before Standard Visor 4K,” the company maintains on the headset’s pre-order page, which could point to at least those customers receiving headsets in the near future.

That price however doesn’t include the required ‘Visor Plus’ subscription, which is an additional $40 per month for a 24 month period, or $60 per month for 12 months. This also includes access to the company’s own ‘Curator Professional AI Assistant’.

The shipping update has been a long time coming. Immersed began taking pre-orders in September 2023. In October 2024, Immersed said the hardware was largely complete, but it wanted more time to improve quality control and polish the overall experience rather than rush Visor.

Then, in March 2025, In the company issued its second shipping update wherein Immersed said the shipment of the more expensive Founder’s Edition Visors would be “another month or two,” as the fulfillment schedule was then on “the order of weeks, not quarters.”

That post was subsequently edited, walking back the shipping quote, instead noting that “[p]rogress continues on Founder’s Edition deliveries as we work through fulfillment.”

My Take

Immersed has attracted a bulk of its $38 million runway from pre-IPO crowd investment, with only $4.5 million coming from traditional VCs. That’s a substantial amount of good will in Immersed’s ability to deliver, or at least enough people who believe they’re getting in on the ground floor of the next big thing.

But now approaching late 2026, the landscape is changing. Sometime this year we’ll be getting Valve’s Steam Machine, admittedly not a work-focused thin and light headset like Visor. And at some point, Pico will also release its Project Swan puck-tethered thin and light headset; rumors also allege Meta is cooking up its own puck-tethered competitor for release in 2027, codenamed ‘Phoenix’.

Besides Steam Frame, Pico and Meta’s headsets are likely gunning for the productivity segment too. And even if either company markets more toward gaming, the overlap in function between them is bound to draw direct comparisons, which simply wouldn’t have been the case in 2024.

Still, and it’s unfortunate to say, in the current VR funding hellscape, now more than ever, we really need to see it to believe it.

South Korean eyewear brand Gentle Monster is set to launch its first pair of smart glasses this fall, and it’s hoping to make waves with a rash of new physical retail locations across North America and Europe.

The News

As reported by Maeil Business Newspaper, Gentle Monster is set to dramatically increase its overseas stores within the next five years. While Gentle Monster currently operates a total of 86 stores globally, 36 of which are in Korea, the Seoul-based company aims to open 10 more non-Korean locations by the end of this year, with plans to expand that number to a total of 200 within three to five years.

Gentle Monster’s rapid expansion outside of its Korean home turf comes at a critical moment, as the company hopes to drive global brand growth off the back of its upcoming smart glasses, the result of a partnership between Google and Samsung.

Much like Meta Ray-Ban, Gentle Monster’s smart glasses include a built-in camera for video and photo capture, audio input and output, and a a big focus on AI integration, although it will be one of the first smart glasses to run Google’s Android XR operating system and its Gemini AI.

“We plan to increase the number of North American stores from the current eight to more than 10 by the end of this year,” a Gentle Monster spokesperson told Maeil Business Newspaper. “We will actively market AI glasses to become a new growth engine in addition to existing eyewear.”

While North America and Europe are undoubtedly set to be a big focus for Gentle Monster, the company also aims to expand retail across Asia, including Korea, Japan, China, and Taiwan.

This follows a $100 million investment by Google in Gentle Monster’s parent company IICOMBINED, giving Google a 4% stake in the company.

My Take

I was wondering how Gentle Monster would appeal to the North American and European market ever since Google announced it was working with it and US-based Warby Parker. I’ve never physically seen a pair of Gentle Monster glasses outside of Asia, so I basically assumed Samsung would take the lead, physically selling both the smart glasses from Gentle Monster and Warby Parker via its comparatively larger retail presence, leaving the two smaller brands to essentially sell primarily online and at its less numerous physical locations.

It seems though the recent Google investment has given the rapidly growing K-brand reason enough to take a lead, which maybe shouldn’t be so surprising given just how well K-anything is doing nowadays.

What’s especially interesting though is that Gentle Monster appears to not only want a leadership position in the global eyewear market in general, but sees to its smart glasses as the impetus. It’s a sort of confidence I didn’t expect from the company with only one pair of smart glasses on the roster thus far, although I imagine we can expect that to change in short order if it wants to take on a growing pack of rivals.

Speaking of rivals: as the result of a long-term partnership with EssilorLuxottica, Meta has released multiple generations of Ray-Ban and now Oakley-branded smart glasses. That tight partnership may be changing though, as Meta even released its own cheaper ‘Meta Glasses’ frames, starting at $300.

Meanwhile, EssilorLuxottica seems to be making inroads to develop its own XR hardware, as the Franco-Italian eyewear giant recently partnered with Applied Materials in a long-term joint development agreement that will accelerate the commercialization of next-gen optical systems for AR and AI-powered smart glasses. EssilorLuxottica also recently acquired mixed reality headset creator Lynx, which was creating a competitor to Meta Quest.

A host of other brands have also seen the obvious growth potential for the audio-only smart glasses segment, which seems fairly logical since it’s very clearly a cheaper-to-produce accessory and not a hardware platform as such at this point; no costly displays, relatively small compute footprint, and no need for any sort of app store at this point, since it’s all about interactions with AI, taking photo/video, and using the few approved integrations, like listening to Spotify.

That said, there are also a growing number of startups eschewing cameras altogether by offering display-only glasses, such as MemoMind and Even Realities, although they admittedly feel like a niche that the biggest brands on planet Earth may skip over, as the training data alone from their camera-first, AI-flavored smart glasses is just too rich to pass up.

Lynx, the France-based XR hardware startup, has been acquired by global eyewear conglomerate EssilorLuxottica.

In a public email to backers, Lynx founder and CEO Stan Larroque confirmed the acquisition, which was rumored to have taken place two weeks ago.

This includes “[a]ll the IP, assets and most of the team is now transitioning from a startup to this big company,” Larroque says in the email, adding that “it might take a few months for the operations to be smooth again, pending all legal approvals.”

Larroque isn’t making the move to EssilorLuxottica alongside other staff however, concluding his eight years building the startup, as he reveals he’s moving to Paris-based drone company Parrot to take on “a key leadership role” alongside Parrot founder and CEO Henri Seydoux.

Larroque further confirmed with Road to VR that the deal is “a formal acquisition, meaning they get everything, the name, the domain, the databases, code, 3D files, manufacturing know-how, etc. And most of the team is already employed now at EssilorLuxottica.”

There’s no word on what will actually happen to Lynx-R2 though, the company’s still-unreleased mixed reality standalone announced earlier this year. Given EssilorLuxottica’s close partnership with Meta vis-à-vis Ray-Ban and Oakley Meta smart glasses, the company’s Quest competitor may have little future under its new owner.

While financial details of the acquisition are still under wraps, it seemingly couldn’t have come at a better time. In March, Lynx parent company SL Process entered judicial liquidation proceedings following a ruling by the Economic Activities Court of Nanterre, France, which essentially meant restructuring efforts had failed and survival was no longer viable, as assets and IP are typically sold off to cover debts.

Founded in 2019 after raising an initial $2 million seed round, the Paris-based startup made a splash with a 2021 Kickstarter campaign for its first-gen R1 standalone headset, raising more than $800,000 from backers. In 2022, Lynx garnered a $4 million Series A round led by social VR platform developer Somnium Space.

Still, for a hardware company, a little over $6 million is nothing more than a shoestring budget, something Larroque often lamented about online, calling the fundraising environment in Europe “excruciating.”

Although smart phones will soon require user-removable batteries in the EU, the European Commission is moving to exempt wearables, which includes smartwatches, fitness trackers, and smart glasses.

As reported by Politico, a so-called “legislative tweak” has cleared the way for US-based companies like Meta to keep the EU market in sight.

In a statement, a European Commission spokesperson maintained it “has not given in to anyone’s pressure,” as its proposals “follow a broad public consultation with consumer associations, industry stakeholders and the Member States.”

According to the spokesperson, the exemption “is not about regulating one specific product” but “to ensure safer consumer and industrial products in cases where opening a device could create safety risks or where technical limits make consumer access unrealistic.”

That said, the European Parliament and individual governments have a two-month period to object to the tweak before it’s entered into the Official Journal of the EU. Once entered, it’s only a 20 day wait until the bill is in force, putting official legislation in play possibly sometime in late November or early December.

While that’s cleared the way for companies like Meta, Google, Samsung and Apple to release smart glasses in the EU (and likely also AR glasses) materially unchanged, European regulators and lawmakers are increasingly discussing smart glasses’ role in data privacy and surveillance.

Politico notes the European Data Protection Board, which gathers privacy regulators across Europe, has ordered a report into smart glasses, likely to be finalized this summer. From there, EU lawmakers will assess actions.

“Europe should not dilute consumer protections. Smart glasses are already raising important concerns about privacy, security and consumer choice. Exemptions from EU battery removability rules should remain exactly that: genuine exceptions based on clear technical and safety evidence, not industry pressure. Exempting these devices … risks setting a dangerous precedent,” said Cláudio Texeira, head of digital policy at Europe’s largest consumer protection group BEUC.

This follows Meta’s recent class action lawsuit in the US over privacy concerns tied to its Ray-Ban smart glasses, wherein the company is accused of sending private camera footage to a Kenya-based subcontractor for manual review to train its AI models.

Allegations stem from an investigative report from Sweden’s Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten, which is said to have uncovered a subcontractor in Kenya tasked with reviewing and labeling images and videos uploaded from the glasses.

Lenovo has reportedly closed its XR business unit in the US, according to a report by Skarred Ghost.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the report maintains Lenovo has shuttered its business-oriented XR unit in the US. As per the report, most of the affected employees were let go, while a minority have been offered other positions within the company.

It’s uncertain how many have been affected. Lenovo has however confirmed, at least in partial, that the company is taking its XR efforts in a new direction:

“As the XR market evolves, we see stronger momentum and broader consumer adoption around AI-enabled wearables. As a result, Lenovo is transitioning from a business-first XR strategy under our ThinkReality brand to a more consumer-focused approach within Motorola,” Lenovo says in a statement obtained by Skarred Ghost.

The company says it’s creating a “more centralized organization” which will focus on AI-powered consumer wearables and delivering what it calls a “unified Personal AI experience across multiple devices — from AI PCs and tablets to smartphones and wearables.”

While not a core XR leader, Lenovo has produced a number of VR and AR headsets over the years, starting with the launch of its Windows Mixed Reality headset in 2016, which was released alongside other top OEMs, such as HP, Samsung, Dell, and Acer.

The company also released the Mirage Solo VR standalone in 2018, manufactured the Rift S for Meta (then Oculus) in 2019, a Lenovo Classroom 2 VR headset built in partnership with Pico in 2020, and its ThinkReality A3 AR glasses for enterprise in 2021.

Lenovo’s most recent XR headset, released in 2023, was its ThinkReality VRX mixed reality device, one of the first enterprise-oriented headsets to adopt pancake-style optics. Additionally, the company released its second-gen Lenovo Legion tethered display glasses in 2025.

Following Apple’s announcement that VisionOS 27 will support third-party motion controllers for Vision Pro, the company has published a set of technical specifications and requirements for third-parties building such controllers.

Published in the latest version of Apple’s Accessory Design Guidelines for Apple Devices, a new section called Spatial Accessories offers an in-depth technical explanation of exactly how third-party motion controllers for Vision Pro should be built and how they should interface with the headset.

The 74-page section covers everything from what hardware a tracked accessory must include, to exactly what wavelength and radiance each LED must meet, to an example main logic board layout for a motion controller.

In section 20.9.2, the document further explores a complete example of a third-party motion controller for Vision Pro, which Apple used in the developer session about Spatial Accessories from last month’s WWDC.

Vision Pro launched with what seemed like a very intentional lack of support for motion controllers. But after two years on the market, it seems the company got enough feedback to go from eschewing motion controllers completely to taking a surprisingly open approach to allowing third parties to bring their own controllers to the platform.

Apple is hiking the price of essentially all of its devices, which includes the already very pricy Vision Pro standalone mixed reality headset.

The News

As reported by 9to5Mac, a host of Apple devices have just gotten significant price increases. The company previously confirmed this would be the case in response to the ongoing RAM and storage crisis, although it wasn’t certain when, or by how much.

Now, the full updated list of Apple device prices is here, which has revealed that Apple has effectively bumped the latest M5 version of Vision Pro to $3,700.

Released in October 2025 for $3,500, the M5 Vision Pro is essentially a hardware refresh of the original launched in 2024, which included the company’s M2 chipset and the same $3,500 price tag.

Other devices to see similar price hikes include MacBook, iPad, iPad Air, Apple TV, HomePod, and even MacBook Neo, which the company launched for $600 in March, now bringing it $700. You can check out the full updated list over on 9to5Mac.

Speaking to Reuters, Apple reveals it held out for as long as possible before giving into price hikes:

“We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly,” Apple said in a statement. “We ​have shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising ⁠prices on a number of products, including today’s increases for iPad and Mac.”

My Take

To the company’s credit, Apple isn’t the first to raises prices. In April, Meta announced it was hiking the price of Quest 3S and Quest 3, raising the price of them by $50 and $100 respectively.

Then, in May, Valve announced it was hiking the price of Steam Deck, which was sandwiched with the news that its was delaying both the Steam Machine and Steam Frame, and rethinking its release and pricing strategy. To boot, Steam Machine is now available for pre-order for the princely sum of $1,050, which doesn’t particularly bode well for Steam Frame, its first standalone VR headset, which still doesn’t have a price or release date.

And although Apple isn’t the first to raises prices due to the current component crisis, it certainly won’t be the last. Any other holdouts in the market are likely soon to follow, if only because mighty Apple has justified it.

Apple isn’t actually the biggest drivers of these cost increases though, which are primarily due to the surging demand for AI data centers.

As it is, South Korea’s Samsung and SK Hynix, and US company Micron Technology produce 93 percent of the world’s RAM. And although Apple has historically leveraged its power to outbid other companies to secure components at cheaper prices, it’s the big players in AI right now—Microsoft, OpenAI, Google, Amazon, Meta, and Anthropic—that are hoovering up the lion’s share of the RAM and NAND.

I’m actively resisting the urge to call Apple a victim in all of this, because there is no greater victim than the end consumer, although it is odd to see the world’s third most-valuable company essentially shrug as its market cohorts blow up the AI bubble yet further—all while sporting a little over 4 trillion dollar market cap in the process.

Meta today announced it’s releasing Meta Glasses, the company’s first slate of smart glasses that don’t feature any EssilorLuxottica styles or branding.

The News

While Meta is still working with long-time eyewear partner EssilorLuxottica, the company is releasing three new Meta Glasses styles that aren’t packing any Ray-Ban or Oakley branding:

• Meta Adventurer — A clean rectangle shape for a timeless, versatile look. Available in Standard and Large.
• Meta Fury — A bold frame that makes a bold statement.
• Meta Glasses by Kylie — A unique slim oval frame inspired by Kylie Jenner’s personal style.

Meta Glasses appear to be packing the same specs as its second-gen glasses (Ray-Ban, Oakley), including 12MP camera with 3K resolution, over eight hours of battery life, open-ear speakers, six microphones, and support for multiple lens types, including prescription, shaded, polarized, and Transition lenses.

The new line features a range of shapes, colors, and materials, including Classic Black, Classic Tortoise, Racing Green, Linen, Merlot, Mahogany, and Sandstone, with sun, Transitions, polarized, and clear lens options developed by EssilorLuxottica—making for a total of 26 styles.

Notably, both Adventurer and Fury start at $300, while the Kylie Jenner frames start at $400. For reference, Ray-Ban Meta (Second Gen) start at $380, and Oakley Meta at $400. You can find them starting today at Meta.com, Lenscrafters, Sunglass Hut, Best Buy, Amazon, and additional select retailers.

My Take

Meta and EssilorLuxottica have produced multiple smart glasses generations over the years, ranging from their inaugural Facebook Stories released in 2021 to their most recent pair, Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, which include a single full-color display.

And it seems like a match made in heaven: EssilorLuxottica holds the IP of some of the most iconic and cool frames, and Meta, well—they can make great XR hardware. That said, including today’s Meta Glasses news, it feels like both companies are increasingly diverging from that tight partnership, which is planned to last until 2030.

Just last week EssilorLuxottica announced it was striking its own optics deal with Applied Materials, which is an important piece of forward planning. The Franco-Italian eyewear giant appears to paving the way for its own stack of AR and smart glasses optics separate from Meta.

Whatever the case, Meta appears to be cutting the fat, as it focuses on getting its smart glasses on every head, which it really can’t do in the near-term as the storage and RAM crisis has essentially inflated the price of everything in tech.

It will be interesting to see whether consumers gravitate toward the more generic Meta Glasses over Ray-Ban/Oakley. One thing is for certain though: Google is coming for Meta with the release of a fleet of Android XR equivalents, coming this year from Warby Parker, Gentle Monster, Gucci parent company Kering, and Samsung.