Smart Glasses & VR Glasses: The 3 Most Important Trends in 2026

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Ray-Ban Meta glasses have triggered a new hype around smart glasses. While Google and Apple are working at full speed on counter-designs, VR hardware is going back to the drawing board to regain momentum with a new architecture. What developments can be expected in 2026?

Smart Glasses are Becoming More Diverse – and Flooding the Market

Last year, numerous smart glasses from small and large manufacturers flooded the market, and this development will accelerate further in 2026.

Twelve years after the failed Google Glass experiment, Google is daring a restart and has announced AI glasses with and without displays for this year. Android XR will be used as the operating system, which focuses on the AI assistant Gemini.

A new product category that combines elements of smart glasses and mixed reality headsets is "Project Aura". The joint project between Google and display glasses manufacturer Xreal adopts central functions of the Android XR headset Samsung Galaxy XR and shrinks the form factor to light smart glasses with semi-transparent optics and a diagonal field of view of around 70 degrees. Miniaturization is achieved by outsourcing the computing unit and battery to a cable-connected pocket computer.

Apple is also pursuing plans in the smart glasses segment. According to Bloomberg, the company wants to present its first model this year, which will be paired with the iPhone and will not have its own display. However, market launch is not planned until 2027.

It will be exciting to see how Google and Apple integrate smart glasses into their own ecosystems and connect them with smartphones and smartwatches. This represents a decisive platform advantage over other manufacturers and market leader Meta, who will not rest on their previous success and will further expand their steadily growing smart glasses portfolio this year.

Snap will also be involved this year and has announced a fully integrated AR glasses for consumers, which is said to be significantly lighter and more compact than the current developer model. If they succeed in this feat, Snap would be the first company to position a full-fledged AR glasses with an everyday-suitable form factor on the market.

In addition to these products, a flood of devices from smaller manufacturers and startups is expected in 2026. With growing quantity and diversity, the range of smart glasses will become even more confusing than before. As the devices differ significantly in form factor, technology, input methods, and software, the collective term "smart glasses" will continue to fragment and offer only limited orientation.

At the same time, demand is unlikely to keep pace with the rapidly growing supply, so the industry's optimism could tip over this year.

From Headset to Glasses: VR Devices with a New Form Factor

Last year, smart glasses already moved more into the industry's focus, while virtual reality lost visibility. With the growing presence of smart glasses this year, this shift will continue, especially since only a few VR headsets are announced for 2026. Of all new devices, only Steam Frame is likely to attract significant attention, but due to the small target group and a presumably higher price level, it will only have a limited market impact.

The year remains exciting nonetheless, as a new hardware trend is emerging: By outsourcing the computing unit and battery to a cable-connected pocket computer, the form factor and weight are approaching that of sunglasses rather than a headset.

The first product of this kind could come from Pico, and Meta is also developing a corresponding product, which has reportedly been postponed to 2027. A Chinese prototype, which relies on this split architecture (see image above), shows how surprisingly light and compact such devices could be. Google and Xreal are pursuing a similar endeavor with Project Aura, but rely on a semi-transparent display and Birdbath optics. An approach that could blur the hitherto clear distinction between VR devices and smart glasses.

The size and weight of VR headsets have hindered broader acceptance of virtual reality. Manufacturers therefore hope that significantly slimmer devices will meet with a greater response. In 2026, the first VR devices with split architecture will appear and show whether this hope is justified.

AI and Gaussian Splatting are More Important Than Ever

A wide range of smart glasses is emerging for 2026. Their individual success will depend less on technical specifications and more on how seamlessly they are integrated into existing hardware ecosystems and how useful AI actually is in everyday life.

With the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, AI currently offers only limited added value. The central question is therefore what new AI functions Meta, Google, and other manufacturers will develop. The long-term trend is towards personalized, proactive, and permanently active AI that accompanies users through everyday life, seeing and hearing, and anticipates needs situationally. It remains to be seen how the required environmental sensing will be received by society and whether it will encounter similar resistance as Google Glass did at the time. It is clear that AI will become so commonplace for smart glasses that the collective term "AI glasses" will lose its significance.

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AI is also becoming increasingly important in the VR sector. The fact that AI transforms images, films, and even games into 3D experiences with stereoscopic depth will increasingly become the standard in 2026. Google has announced a corresponding function for Android XR, and the soon-to-be-released display glasses Xreal 1S are also said to support 3D conversion.

An AI technology that goes even further is one that generates spatial scenes from images and allows perspective changes. Apple recently introduced a corresponding function for the Apple Vision Pro, and it can be expected that it will become widespread on devices from other manufacturers over the course of the year.

Building on this, the next major development step lies in generative AI systems that create freely explorable spaces from text prompts, images, or videos. World models like Marble and Google Genie 3 provide an impression of the possibilities emerging here. In the VR context, such world models could mature into a Holodeck machine: you describe a place and find yourself in it moments later. In this way, memories, classic works of art, or film locations could also be entered and re-experienced. In 2026, these tools will gain definition and become more accessible.

Another technology that will shape VR this year is Gaussian Splatting. While generative AI will accelerate the creation of virtual worlds, Gaussian Splatting will play a similar role in the digitization of the real world for virtual reality. For example, it is now possible without expert knowledge and special equipment to create an almost photorealistic replica of one's own apartment and invite distant family and friends into it via Meta Quest 3.

If one understands the Metaverse as a spatial internet that connects virtual spaces instead of websites, then AI and Gaussian Splatting are among the central building blocks. A vision that will move a good deal closer in 2026.

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