A first (and second) look at the Android XR glasses launching this year

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FollowSee All NewsA first (and second) look at the Android XR glasses launching this yearThat includes Xreal’s Project Aura, plus previously announced glasses with Samsung, Gentle Monster, and Warby Parker. by Victoria Song Victoria SongSenior Reviewer, Wearable TechPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All by Victoria SongMay 19, 2026, 5:45 PM UTC Tech TechPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

Technical Details

FollowSee All Tech Gadgets GadgetsPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All Gadgets News NewsPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All NewsA first (and second) look at the Android XR glasses launching this yearThat includes Xreal’s Project Aura, plus previously announced glasses with Samsung, Gentle Monster, and Warby Parker.

by Victoria Song Victoria SongSenior Reviewer, Wearable TechPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All by Victoria SongMay 19, 2026, 5:45 PM UTC Part OfGoogle I/O 2026: All the news and announcementssee all updates Victoria Song Victoria SongPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All by Victoria Song is a senior reporter and author of the Optimizer newsletter.

She has more than 13 years of experience reporting on wearables, health tech, and more. Before coming to The Verge, she worked for Gizmodo and PC Magazine. I first put on a pair of prototype Android XR glasses nearly a year and a half ago.

Industry Implications

We still have months to go before any Android-powered smart glasses are available, but Google is finally ready to show off the progress it’s made. That starts with Project Aura, a dark pair of sunglasses that sits somewhere between a full headset and a lighter pair of mixed-reality glasses. There have been a handful of hardware updates since I last tried out Project Aura in October.

The glasses, made in collaboration with Xreal, now feature a carrying case and a new design for their compute puck. Google was mum on the chip inside, aside from the fact that it’s more powerful than the previous puck. The puck also has a fingerprint scanner, so you can unlock the device more easily.

And in addition to a waist clip, there’s now a lanyard so you can wear the puck around your neck, in case you’d like to channel peak Gadget Dad vibes. You won’t look cool in these glasses, but the target audience for Project Aura isn’t the average Joe in the same way that Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses are.

This advance offers important signals about the future of the sector, and the tech world is watching closely.