With Gemini AI, Android XR Smart Glasses May Prosper Where Google Glass Flopped

If Google has its way, the “glassholes” will be mobbing streets in force once more. This time, with Gemini AI in tow, glasses-sporting users will be accessing their apps, reading their texts, and talking to a chatbot hands-free thanks to Android XR—Google’s OS built for virtual reality and augmented reality devices. It’s very pie in the sky, but the company told the assembled crowd at its I/O developer conference Tuesday we won’t have to wait long before we have AR glasses—with or without internal lens displays—on our faces.

In a series of video demos, Google showed off how people wearing Android XR glasses might interact with apps such as Google Maps. A user asked their glasses’ Gemini AI chatbot for directions, and the device brought up a small hologram-like map at the bottom of the internal display. In another video, Google proposed Android XR could use Google Translate to detect a language and translate it to English on screen. Users could talk to their glasses to answer a text message or set a calendar reminder when walking about or chopping up vegetables (please don’t wear any kind of screen while plunging your knife down too close to exposed fingers). They are the sorts of tasks you would normally need to whip out a phone for, or at least glance down at a smartwatch, but the glasses could add similar interactions without the need to constantly reach for the device in your pocket.

Google offered a small taste of what it showed at I/O during a recent TED Talk, though the company didn’t reveal which brand of glasses it was using at the time. While we’ve seen some of these capabilities from Meta’s Project Orion—the Facebook owner’s pair of true AR glasses powered by a separate phone-sized processing puck—Google said this device will enjoy the processing power of the phone you’re already using. Android XR glasses may also contain a built-in camera that can take pictures or record video. Along with the heads-up display, video capabilities were the defining features of the decade-old, defunct Google Glass.

Tech-wise, Google Glass was ahead of its time in many ways, but it proved especially problematic as a magnet for tech-skeptical bar patrons’ fists. People in the 2010s weren’t so keen on proliferated camera glasses, but if the Meta Ray-Bans proved anything, it’s that people are more open to techy wearables so long as they look cool and sport popular brand names. To that end, Google said it has Warby Parker and Gentle Monster on its side to craft “stylish” Android XR glasses. These future devices may lack internal displays and may be more like Meta’s Ray-Bans but with Gemini AI integration instead of Meta’s Llama model.

Google has two other big tech partners it’s working with to craft visual glasses tech. One is Samsung, the makers of the Project Moohan mixed reality headset that works off Android XR. Google said it was crafting its hardware reference platform alongside the Korean tech giant that other developers might develop for. At Google I/O, Xreal declared it’s already working hand-in-hand with Google on a pair of Android XR glasses. Xreal promised it would share more details and specs on its device at Augmented World Expo in June.

What was on display at I/O was relatively barebones, but in its limitations, it already seemed like a better way to ignore your smartphone than past attempts at AI wearables like the Humane AI Pin. But Google isn’t stopping at basic Google Maps integration. The company dropped new details for a second developer preview that lets app makers craft their applications to accommodate AR space. The new update to developer tools includes hand and gesture tracking. It also adds even more support for games built on the Unity engine. The Google Play Store will launch a list of supported 2D Android apps that work with Android XR sometime later this year.

As with Google Glass, privacy will be the biggest concern with Android XR. More than that, the necessity of voice controls means users will still need to take out their phone unless they want everyone within earshot to hear what they want to text their friends and family. That may not stop the coming advent of AR glasses, so long as Google and Samsung can figure out how to make a pair with a battery that lasts more than an hour or two.