Google is taking another swing at the smart glasses market, determined to leave the missteps of Google Glass in the past.
On Dec. 12, the company unveiled Android XR, a new, cutting-edge operating system for headsets and smart glasses. With the competition heating up from the Meta Quest series and Apple Vision Pro leading the market, Google is banking on its Gemini generative AI to set its offering apart.
Among the first devices slated to leverage Android XR is a pair of Samsung glasses, codenamed Project Moohan, expected to hit store shelves in 2025. The tech giant says the future headsets and smart glasses will “transform how you watch, work, and explore.”
While Google has yet to announce a timeline for additional hardware or software built on Android XR, the operating system is already available in preview for developers and select partners.
What makes Android XR different?
Combining Android XR, Google Gemini, and the glasses hardware means the devices can:
- Answer natural-language questions about your surroundings using Gemini.
- Search the internet or create an AI-guided to-do list with natural language.
- Play YouTube and Google TV.
- Display Google Photos in a virtual reality gallery.
- Use Circle to Search to get more information about an object in the real world or an item online.
Google intends for Android XR to power various types of smart glasses.
“We want there to be lots of choices of stylish, comfortable glasses you’ll love to wear every day and that work seamlessly with your other Android devices,” Shahram Izadi, Google’s VP and general manager of Extended Reality, wrote in a blog post.
The tech giant plans to start privately testing Android XR on new hardware soon. Expect new devices from Google’s Qualcomm partners, particularly Sony, Lynx, and XREAL.
SEE: Google’s newest AI model, Gemini 2.0 Flash, is an incremental move toward ‘agentic’ AI.
Developers can try the Android XR software development kit now
Developers can experiment with the Android XR software development kit today by visiting developer.android.com/develop/xr. Google is accepting applications for an Android XR Developer Bootcamp, which will provide early access to hardware in exchange for collaboration with the internal XR team.
Android XR is compatible with ARCore, Android Studio, Jetpack Compose, Unity, and OpenXR.
Since Android XR includes the Android Play Store, developers with apps already in the Play Store can automatically make those apps available on extended reality devices. To translate conventional apps to extended reality, Android recommends using its automatic tools for spatializing Material Design (M3) components and Compose for adaptive layouts.
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