Key Takeaways
- A new report suggests that Samsung’s AI-powered XR smart glasses will launch by the third quarter of next year.
- The smart glasses will feature a 155mAh battery, a 12MP camera, and Qualcomm’s AR1 chipset, per the report.
- Samsung could reveal some details about these XR smart glasses during the Galaxy S25 launch in January 2025.
Samsung announced its partnership with Google to develop extended reality (XR) headsets early last year. Although the plan was to roll out the first XR hardware under this collaboration by the end of 2023, that time has come and gone. Then, in July of this year, a report suggested that Samsung would release a developer version by October, which didn’t happen either. A research note by Shenzhen, China-based firm Wellsen XR is now providing more info on Samsung’s first XR smart glasses, developed in partnership with Google and Qualcomm.
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According to Maeil Business Newspaper, Wellsen XR told its customers recently that Samsung has finalized plans to launch “AI smart glasses,” aiming to produce up to least 500,000 units in the first batch. The research note adds that these Android-based XR glasses will launch by Q3 2025 (via 9to5Google).
It goes on to say that Samsung will cram a 155mAh battery pack in these smart glasses, backed by a 12MP camera capable of scanning QR codes, gesture recognition, and what is described in the report as “human recognition functions.” This is perhaps in reference to the slew of AI features expected to be onboard the new XR glasses, which will be powered by Google Gemini.
Meanwhile, the Qualcomm AR1 will reportedly be the chipset of choice, though that could change, given that Qualcomm already has a newer version of its AR processor. Interestingly, the AR1 is also found on the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses, which will be Samsung’s primary competitor when the smart glasses arrive next year.
Lastly, Samsung’s XR glasses will reportedly weigh 50 grams, indicating that the Samsung-Google smart glasses may not be dissimilar to the Meta/Ray-Ban offering. This also aligns with what Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon talked about in September, stressing the need to make XR smart glasses more mainstream to “achieve true scale.”
It’s worth remembering that the Q3 2025 release timeline for the new Samsung-Google XR smart glasses hasn’t been confirmed by Samsung yet, and all we have right now is the note sent by a research firm. Nevertheless, with the Galaxy S25 launch expected to happen in January 2025, there’s a chance we’ll get to learn more about the company’s AI-powered extended reality glasses.