Project Aura smart glasses confirmed for 2026 with Snapdragon XR

The Short Version

Google, Samsung, and Qualcomm announced Project Aura smart glasses with a 70-degree field of view and roughly 4 hours of battery life, targeting 2026.

Smart glasses shipments grew 44.4% across the broader XR (extended reality, meaning devices that blend digital information with the real world) market in 2025, according to IDC, driven almost entirely by smart glasses rather than VR headsets. VR and mixed reality headset shipments actually fell during the year as consumers chose lighter, AI-enabled eyewear instead. In the first half of 2025 alone, smart glasses grew 110% year-over-year.

Meta held 72.2% of global smart glasses shipments for the full year, built on its Ray-Ban partnership with EssilorLuxottica, the company that owns Ray-Ban and makes most of the world's prescription lenses, and new Oakley-branded frames. No other single competitor is close. Xiaomi sits at 4.2% market share, XREAL at 2.3%.

IDC projects the market will grow another 33.5% in 2026, with glasses without displays continuing to drive most of the volume. By 2027, glasses with built-in displays are expected to gain enough traction to outsell VR and mixed reality headsets. IDC forecasts the category will reach 43.1 million units by 2029.

Apple is preparing to enter this market with smart glasses expected to be announced by late 2026 and available in 2027. As we covered earlier this week, Apple is testing four acetate frame styles with no display in the first version, cameras for photos and Siri's visual features, and a design built around the iPhone as the processing hub.

Meta has two years of buyers who already own its glasses, a manufacturing partnership that controls global eyewear distribution, and a head start on AI features that are already shipping. IDC research director Ramon Llamas put it plainly: the company that ships first rarely defines the category permanently, and the next phase of competition will be decided by software, AI, and services rather than hardware alone. Google, Samsung, and Gucci are all shipping glasses in 2026 or 2027, which means Apple won't be the only new entrant when it arrives.

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