Google showed off its Android XR Glasses at Tuesday’s annual Google I/O Developers Conference in California. Developed through an expanded partnership with Samsung, these AI-powered glasses add Gemini to smart glasses. Google is also working with eyewear brands like Gentle Monster and Warby Parker to design the new smart glasses. They feature a live language translation feature and boast speakers. They can be paired with smartphones to run apps. They offer an optional in-lens display for discreet information viewing.
Google Shows Off Android XR-Based Glasses
The Alphabet-owned tech brand outlined its plans for Gemini-powered Android XR smart glasses at the Google I/O 2025. Google is collaborating with Samsung, Gentle Monster and Warby Parker to design smart glasses. Looking ahead, the brand is eyeing to team up with more partners such as Kering Eyewear to expand the range of smart glasses available to users.
These smart glasses feature a camera, microphones and speakers. They will work with the paired smartphone to provide hands-free access for users. An optional in-lens display discreetly shows helpful information right when users need it. Google states that the Android XR glasses can see and hear the wearer’s surroundings with Gemini integration, offering contextual awareness to assist better and remember what matters to the user most throughout the day.
Google offers a glimpse of how its apps might appear on XR glasses. The preview also showed how Android XR glasses could be used in everyday situations like messaging friends, making appointments, asking for turn-by-turn directions and taking photos, among others. The live translation feature was demonstrated, where the glasses displayed subtitles in real-time between two people, breaking the language barrier.
Google said that it is developing a unified software and reference hardware platform to empower the ecosystem to build smart glasses. Developers are confirmed to start working with this platform later this year. Google started collecting feedback from trusted testers using early prototypes, and more about the progress will be revealed in the coming months.
This move put Google in direct competition with Meta’s Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. Apple is also said to be developing its own smart glasses.
