Glass redux: Google aims to avoid past mistakes as it brings Gemini to your face
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—Get ready to see Android in a new-ish way. It’s been 13 years since Google announced its Google Glass headset and 10 years since it stopped selling the device to consumers. There have been other attempts to make smart glasses work, but none of them have stuck. As simpler devices like the Meta Ray-Ban glasses have slowly built a following, Google is getting back into the smart glasses game. After announcing Android XR late last year, the first usable devices were on site at Google I/O. And you’re not going to believe this, but the experience is heavily geared toward Gemini.
As Google is fond of pointing out, Android XR is its first new OS developed in the “Gemini era.” The platform is designed to run on a range of glasses and headsets that make extensive use of Google’s AI bot, but there were only two experiences on display at I/O: an AR headset from Samsung known as Project Moohan and the prototype smart glasses.
Moohan is a fully enclosed headset, but it defaults to using passthrough video when you put it on. If you’ve worn an Apple Vision Pro or a Meta Quest with newer software, you’ll be vaguely familiar with how Moohan works. Indeed, the interactions are consistent and intuitive. You can grab, move, and select items with the headset’s accurate hand tracking. With Android XR, you also get access to the apps and services you’ve come to know from Google. Outside of games and video experiences, content has been a problem on other headsets.
