To send us out of 2024 and into 2025 with something to look forward to, Google and Samsung unveiled the Android XR platform together in December with a preview of two different types of devices. One was a headset codenamed “Project Moohan” that they had worked on together, but that Samsung was teasing as a coming-soon type of device they planned to sell in 2025. The other device was probably the more interesting of the two as a daily-wear pair of glasses that you would put on your head to take into the wild with an Android XR assistant at the ready at all times.
That second pair of glasses was mostly a mystery at the time of its initial tease, although Google did release a couple of videos that showed off its vision for it. Those demos were quite cool, if you haven’t seen them.
It now sounds like Samsung was behind that pair of glasses as well. A report from the The Korea Economic Daily over the weekend says that Google and Samsung have teamed up on a pair of smart glasses and will wait to release them until 2026. Samsung will work on the hardware for these glasses while Google will bring the OS, and that all makes sense since Samsung is king of hardware and Google runs the actual software platform of Android XR. We assumed Google was partnering with someone on that pair of glasses, so it’s not really surprising to learn that it is Samsung.
I will say that it is a bit disappointing to hear that they may not show up until 2026, as these truly do look like something special if Google can deliver on even a portion of its demo ideas. While we should still get Project Moohan this year as the first Android XR headset, that’s a stay-at-home device that brings a mixed reality into a space, sort of like Apple’s Vision Pro. The usefulness of it is certainly questionable at this time.
That said, I’d much rather Google take a bit more time in building out the platform instead of launching it too early. These devices will need to compete with Meta, who has been building out a smart glasses ecosystem and has quite the early lead in doing. While falling further behind won’t help, they also can’t ship a product that isn’t ready or Meta may just run away with the idea forever.
Is Android XR still on your radar or had you completely forgotten about it?