Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Samsung and Google are partnering up to build AR glasses, Samsung’s TM Roh told Bloomberg. But there aren’t many other specifics beyond the fact that they’re in development — there’s not even a specific release timeline, with Roh telling the publication that Samsung and Google “will try to reach the quality and readiness we want as soon as possible.”
The announcement follows Meta’s splashy reveal of Orion, its first augmented reality glasses, last year. Those glasses won’t be sold to consumers, but my colleague Alex Heath called them an “impressive demo.”
The news of the Samsung- and Google-made AR glasses also follows the announcement of the Project Moohan mixed reality headset. The headset runs Android XR, which Google recently announced for headsets and smart glasses (and Bloomberg reports that the AR glasses will “eventually launch as part of the company’s efforts to co-develop the Android XR operating system”).
My colleague Victoria Song got to try the headset and the platform last year, and she described it as a “mix between a Meta Quest 3 and the Vision Pro”:
I’m walked through pinching to select items and how to tap the side to bring up the app launcher. There’s an eye calibration process that feels awfully similar to the Vision Pro’s. If I want, I can retreat into an immersive mode to watch YouTube and Google TV on a distant mountain. I can open apps, resize them, and place them at various points around the room. I’ve done this all before. This just happens to be Google-flavored.
At Unpacked, Samsung also revealed details about the Samsung Galaxy S25 lineup of phones, which includes the Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25 Plus, and Galaxy S25 Ultra.
