Google demos smart glasses with Android XR, set to debut in 2026

The glasses without a screen will arrive first, as of "next year."
Google’s in-specs screen is impressing reviewers, but it’s the screenless glasses getting released first. (Picture: Google)
Google has officially taken the lid off «Project Aura,» inviting a whole host of websites to demo it — and doing their own bit in The Android Show, XR Edition on Youtube.

They are mostly concerned with the glasses with internal screens, that can run bog standard Android apps as well as Android XR apps — and provides you with information right inside the glasses.

These spectacles, while impressive, connect via wire to a puck in your pocket that serves as a battery and trackpad in one, and use a phone or laptop for computing power, but they don’t have a release date as of yet.

Google themselves says that the other glasses, the screenless ones, with built-in speakers, microphones and cameras, will be released «next year.»

These will let you chat naturally with Gemini, take photos of your surroundings, and get help with what you are looking at.

The glasses are produced with Warby Parker, Samsung and Gentle Monster and are supposed to be worn comfortably «all day.»

Read more: Google’s project page. They demoed the glasses for The Verge, Gizmodo and Engadget.