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Google and Samsung's XR device is coming soon, but there's bad news
- A developer version of Google and Samsung’s XR device might launch in October, while a consumer model might only launch in March 2025.
- It’s believed Google won’t make first-party XR glasses, but there is speculation Samsung will launch glasses featuring Google software.
Google, Samsung, and Qualcomm have been working on an XR platform for a while now, with Samsung recently noting that it was “coming this year.” Unfortunately, it looks like we’ll need to wait a while for broad availability.
Business Insider reports that Google and Samsung are building a mixed-reality headset that’s similar to Apple’s Vision Pro device. The outlet claims a developer version will be released in October while a consumer model will be released in March 2025. The website adds that the device was initially planned to launch in Q1 2024 before it was delayed. This lines up with previous reports on the release schedule.
Smart glasses incoming?
Don’t care for a headset and want XR glasses instead? Google showed off smart glasses during a recorded demonstration at its I/O developer conference in May. But the bad news is that we might not get first-party smart glasses at all.
“Google is out of the first-party game for glasses for the foreseeable future,” an employee was quoted as saying by Business Insider. “We’re only making prototypes to convince people to use our software.”
This claim also comes over a year after it emerged that Google may have killed its Project Iris initiative for smart glasses. There might be some good news, though.
Two Google employees said there was internal speculation Samsung could be the first to build glasses with Google’s AR software (ostensibly Android XR). So it sounds like Google-powered smart glasses might be on the table, even if Google itself doesn’t build them.
Either way, we’re curious to see what a Google-powered XR platform could bring to the headset and smart glass categories. But Google’s track record also makes us wonder whether this platform will even be around five years after launch.