Xreal, Google’s smartglasses partner, thinks it has finally mastered this notoriously tricky industr

The smart glasses industry has long been a tortured dream of Silicon Valley. The premise is appealing enough: What if, to enjoy the benefits of mobile computing, people didn’t have to stare at their phones all day long and could, instead, simply wear a lightweight computing device on their face? Science fiction fans (a demographic that is strong in the tech industry) can see this vision perfectly.

However, the industry has — for much of the last decade — resembled a financial black hole into which gargantuan investments have been sunk and from which little to no profit has ever emerged. “Everybody’s losing money,” said Chi Xu, the founder and CEO of the smart glasses company Xreal, which is a longtime partner of Google. I met Xu at Google’s I/O conference in Mountain View last week, where he was promoting Xreal’s Project Aura. That’s its latest effort to create a set of functional XR glasses that people actually want to use. “That’s because it’s very hard, what we’re doing,” he said. For much of the industry’s existence, the problems of smart glasses have seemed somewhat obvious: bulky, uncomfortable, and socially awkward form factor, paired with negligibly beneficial software. Now, however, industry insiders — including Xu — feel like their business has turned a corner and may be reaching an inflection point. That supposed inflection point has something to do with Meta, whose 2023 partnership with Ray-Ban launched one of the first lines of models that has actually managed to sell a lot of units. (It’s worth noting, however, that the division responsible for the glasses, Reality Labs, still operates at a massive loss .) Now, as form factors shrink and software improves, Xu feels that Xreal can finally become a leader in the space. “You need all the key pieces ready — you need the hardware ready, the operating system needs to be ready, and then you need a great user interface,” Xu said. Xreal’s newest model Aura is wired smart glasses that have OLED displays embedded within them, meaning that you can watch high-resolution videos within the frames themselves. Somewhat awkwardly, Aura comes tethered to a “puck” — essentially a phone-shaped mini-computer that powers the experience behind the glasses.

Key points

• However, the industry has — for much of the last decade — resembled a financial black hole into which gargantuan investments have been sunk and from which little to no profit has ever emerged.
• “Everybody’s losing money,” said Chi Xu, the founder and CEO of the smart glasses company Xreal, which is a longtime partner of Google.
• I met Xu at Google’s I/O conference in Mountain View last week, where he was promoting Xreal’s Project Aura.
• That’s its latest effort to create a set of functional XR glasses that people actually want to use.
• “That’s because it’s very hard, what we’re doing,” he said.