Google has been teasing its Android XR-powered smart glasses for the past year and a half—ever since it first announced the new mixed reality platform in December of 2024. Now, we’re finally starting to see more polished versions of the hardware, several of which will actually go on sale this fall.
At Google I/O, the company gave us a first look at the designs of smart glasses coming from established eyewear brands Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. These smart glasses are codeveloped by Samsung and Google, while the eyeglass companies handle the design of the frames.
Xreal also took the stage at I/O to showcase its upcoming Project Aura, which is essentially a miniaturized glasses version of bulky headsets like the Apple Vision Pro and Samsung’s Galaxy XR—powering a full Android app interface with hand gestures for interaction.
Audio-only smart glasses from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster will launch later this year. More complex versions with displays built into the lenses will arrive soon after. Xreal’s Project Aura will also come this fall.
I got a chance to wear some early versions of these frames and try out a few features in a controlled demo experience.
Smarter Glasses
I wasn’t able to see the final polished designs from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Instead, my demos were on unfinished reference glasses from Samsung and Google. The most remarkable thing about them is how light they are. Google says much of the work it and Samsung have done was to miniaturize the technology to save weight. The arms of the glasses are still a little chunky, though.
Audio quality was equally impressive. As soon as I asked Gemini to play some Radiohead, the audio surrounded my head and sounded dynamic, though I was in a quiet room. I asked someone else to try them so I could see if I could hear it at 50 percent volume while sitting across from them. I could barely hear the music.
The audio-only glasses will be the first to arrive later this year. And yes, all of these upcoming smart glasses—even the audio-only ones—have cameras. That’s how the Gemini assistant can see what you’re seeing to provide helpful, contextual answers and services. The versions with more advanced optics will provide a richer experience. For example, if someone talks to you in a different language, the Gemini assistant inside all of the glasses can translate their voice and even make it sound like the person speaking, but the display versions of the glasses will offer accompanying text to read as well.
The versions with a display built into the lenses should be especially helpful with things like turn-by-turn navigation, since you’ll be able to see exactly where to turn left on the display as you walk. Google says the glasses don’t have GPS and rely on your phone’s GPS, but the cameras on the glasses utilize Google’s Visual Positioning System to identify surroundings and ensure your blue dot is in the right spot—something you can currently do in the Google Maps app to calibrate your compass.
I tapped and held on the right arm of the glasses, and this triggered Gemini Live. That’s the default experience, allowing you to have a conversational back and forth with Google’s assistant.
Gemini did a good job of only listening to my voice in these encounters and ignoring people who were speaking to me. I was able to ask it what the board game next to me was—it correctly identified it as Chinese checkers—and then asked if I wanted to learn how to play. I asked it to just save me those instructions in a Google Keep note, and voila, it generated that advice in a Keep note within seconds.
Next, I was able to ask Gemini to take a picture, and then alter the photo post-capture. I first asked it to remove a plant in the photo, and then I asked it to change the room’s decor to a medieval hall. It did those things remarkably well.
You’ll get the original image on your phone and a preview on Wear OS smartwatches if you’re wearing one (or a preview on the display-laden glasses), and the doctored version will arrive within 45 seconds once Google’s Nano Banana platform does its thing.
I was able to see a few generative widgets and scroll through them on these glasses—that’s a big theme Google is introducing in Android 17 and other platforms—so you can have glanceable information on your glasses for whatever you want. I wasn’t able to see much else of the user interface, though.
Project Aura
A different kind of glasses experience, Project Aura is more akin to mixed reality headsets like Apple’s Vision Pro and Samsung’s Galaxy XR. That’s remarkable in its own right. Yes, you’re probably not going to walk around with these glasses like the Warby Parker or Gentle Monster glasses (though you technically could)—they also look a little more awkward than normal smart glasses, not to mention the tethered battery pack with a cable in between.
But the fact that you can enjoy a full Android XR interface with access to hundreds of Android apps, with lenses that can dim to block out the world, and support for hand gestures to interact with everything, without having to wear a heavy, bulky headset, is incredible. You can imagine how this tech will continue to miniaturize, and maybe, one day, those “normal-looking” smart glasses will have the same rich experience.
The Project Aura has an OLED screen with a 70-degree field of view. Xreal doesn’t have final numbers yet, but the battery pack has been delivering roughly four hours of use at the moment.
I was greeted with the same interface as on Samsung’s Galaxy XR headset, with all the familiar Android apps. I watched a quick video on HBO, and was able to move the video feed to the side so that I could look at the person talking to me—more helpful if you’re washing the dishes, perhaps. I pinched my fingers to select items, and dragged borders to expand app sizes. It’s all pretty seamless.
Xreal showed me some vibe-coded apps, like a Google Tilt Brush-like art experience that let me draw in mid-air. I played a game called Demeo, a tabletop Dungeons & Dragons game that looked remarkably detailed through the glasses. I could pick up the pieces on the board and move them around, and this experience makes me want a Yu-Gi-Oh! card game on Android XR ASAP. (Believe in the heart of the cards.) Xreal says there’s a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor inside that’s at minimum as powerful as the Galaxy XR.
There are still many details under wraps for all of these glasses, but we’ll learn more in the coming months as we get closer to launch.
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