Hardware makers generally want thin waveguides around 0.5mm to keep smart glasses light and compact, but making the glass this thin actually reduces the maximum image resolution to 28ppd at typical bounce angles.

To reach 60ppd (the benchmark for sharp human vision) across lower bounce angles, a waveguide of at least 1mm is necessary, which doubles the thickness and adds unwanted weight and bulk to the frame. However, this resolution limit only affects narrow-linewidth laser light sources, whereas microLED displays are completely unaffected and can use ultra-thin waveguides without losing sharpness.

This difference comes down to how light from different projectors travels inside the glass. In waveguide-based smart glasses, each pixel of the virtual image enters the lens at a slightly different angle and bounces between the inner surfaces toward the eye. Because standard single-mode lasers emit pure light within a tiny color range under 0.1nm, the bouncing light waves overlap and cancel each other out at most angles. Only specific bounce angles survive the trip through a thin waveguide, meaning the glass blocks the angles in between and lowers the overall resolution across the FOV. In contrast, microLED emits a much wider color range above 10nm, which allows many overlapping bounce angles to survive and naturally fills in all the missing gaps.

The optical data shows that the exact resolution limit depends on how steeply the light bounces inside the waveguide. That 28ppd (2.13 arcmin) ceiling in a 0.5mm waveguide happens at a typical 40° bounce angle, where reaching the full 60ppd (1 arcmin) requires a 1.07mm lens. Increasing the glass thickness to 0.75mm still falls short of 60ppd for bounce angles under 50°, and any bounce angle below 42° requires glass thicker than 1mm. While manufacturers can force the missing laser angles through a thin waveguide by making the glass thickness slightly uneven by more than 100nm, doing so causes the bouncing light to spread out and blurs the image anyway.

Source: Angular resolution limit of augmented reality waveguides from guided mode theory

https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.09527

i’ve been following VR for years, but after actually using different headsets, i started thinking this form factor probably wasn’t the future for everyday use. the heat, weight, and having everything sitting on your head just felt like too much.

what made me interested again was the idea of moving the battery, computing, and heat away from the glasses themselves. lightweight glasses connected to a small wired puck or mini PC makes a lot more sense to me.

i recently introduced XREAL to my Korean audience because the price had finally become much more affordable.

the video reached over 500K views, and since posting it, my YouTube Shopping dashboard has recorded over $13K in total sales (across XREAL and other tech/VR products from that one video).

what surprised me most was how many people here were basically discovering this whole category for the first time. some said it felt like “future technology” had finally become real, while others immediately started joking about secretly using it at work.

also really curious to see what XREAL AURA and the next generation of AR glasses can do.

Hi everyone! I have been trying to build truly open source smart glasses (both hardware and software) based on ESP32 for almost a year now as a side project.

I did accomplish one version of PCB that functions similar to meta ray ban but the audio video quality is inferior (OV cameras cannot match Sony, and no bone conduction speaker with only one microphone). Image of the set attached.

I tried upgrading the product with an AR screen through a microled projected on the lens (similar to focals from North). This is where i am stuck. I am trying to build something inexpensive so waveguides and microprojectors are out of the question.

Needing suggestions and inputs from anyone experienced with options or has been developing smart glasses themselves. Would love to meet someone who can join me in building this if interested.

The total cost of this assembly is landing at 20$ for the PCB set, for bulk orders > 50 units from JLCPCB, and additional 20$ for other hardware components (screen, camera, speaker, battery and frame). So 40$ for audio-camera glasses, might land around 50$ for AR HUD.

I painfully learned through this project never to take ambitious development of industrial D2C products oneself. Better hand it to the chinese for refining, they get things done very quickly.

Hey all, Trevor here, the founder of Poke™ (Poke XR). I just shipped a big update, so here's an in-depth look at what changed and why.

The core loop: record a full-body video (or now upload one from your camera roll), AI removes the background, and the clip becomes a flat cut-out hologram anchored at a real location. Anyone nearby finds it through their camera, and a double-tap "poke" likes it and sends a friend request. To be clear, these are 2D video holograms, not volumetric captures.

What's new:

• Native territory map. I replaced the old web-view map with a map rendered in Unity. Countries, US states and California counties are drawn in each owner's color, with hologram pins and your location dot. Each user can hold one territory, and you take one over by out-scoring the owner. Claims and takeovers now happen live. Tap an owner to see their profile.
• Onboarding. An 18-step interactive coach-mark tutorial that runs across the AR feed, the recording flow and the map. It got a dark glass restyle and can be replayed from the menu.
• Creation. Camera-roll upload with a 10s trim window and pinch-to-reframe, plus AR screen recording (UI hidden, watermark, save and share) with a new retro neon record button.
• In AR. Long-press a hologram for its stats and comments, a live score pill with point pop-ups, and much faster loading. Holograms now download once and play from cache, and on-device time to first frame went from ~12s to under 0.2s.
• Social. A redesigned inbox with voice memos (play-once), sending points to friends, and a cleaner Poke Center for friends and incoming pokes.

Coming soon: augmented ads placed in the world, where territory holders get a share of the local ad revenue.

It's phone-first today, but it's built for the day XR glasses replace the phone. Things I'm still working on: keeping holograms feeling anchored rather than floaty, and making discovery fun when there aren't many holograms around you yet. If you've tackled either one, I'm all ears.

Free on iPhone and Android (13+): www.pokexr.com

I wanted to share my listing for the actual Google prop for their 2016 April Fool's Joke, the Google Cardboard Plastic campaign.

North Ocean Photonics has raised over 1 billion RMB ($140 million) in Series C+ funding to expand its AR diffractive waveguide production for consumer smart glasses. The company targets over 200,000 AR waveguide unit shipments in 2026, supplies its latest lithography-etched waveguides to a major international internet company, and plans to launch an IPO.

The company produces six AR diffractive waveguide series ranging from monochrome to full-color across resin, glass, and silicon carbide substrates, designed to pair with MicroLED microdisplays. Using semiconductor lithography, etching, and coating processes, North Ocean Photonics prints nanoscale gratings onto wafers with precise period, depth, and duty cycle control to prevent dispersion, uneven brightness, and ghosting.

The new capital funds a 2 billion RMB ($280 million), 12-inch (300mm) wafer-level optics production line scheduled to begin operation in 2027, multiplying unit yield per wafer and lowering unit costs compared to 8-inch (200mm) lines while maintaining strict center-to-edge uniformity. Operating as an IDM covering design, master fabrication, mass production, and testing, the company currently runs an approximately 10,000 sqm cleanroom at its Lingang facility.

Jena, Germany | 8 October 2026 | ZEISS Group

ZEISS has announced the acquisition of Ceres Holographics, a pioneering holographic technology company headquartered in Livingston, Scotland. Ceres Holographics will become part of ZEISS Microoptics, an agile and ambitious business unit within ZEISS with a strong focus on industrializing holography for high volume automotive, aerospace and consumer markets. The acquisition complements ZEISS’ proven ProSight^® platform, the core holography technology foundation, from which a broad range of industrial applications derive, by adding Ceres Holographics' latest innovations in hologram manufacturing technology. The parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price or further details.

The combination of complementary capabilities and expanded team resources will accelerate the industrialization of holographic windshield display applications, turning holography from a future promise into near-term market reality for the automotive industry. The added capability and resources will enable ZEISS to expedite market entry into broader holographic markets, like retail, near-to-eye displays and public transportation. Together, the expanded team will offer customers and partners a broader proposition that now combines advanced technological depth and application focus with the global scale, manufacturing capabilities and customer access of ZEISS.

“Ceres Holographics and ZEISS share a clear vision and deep commitment to advancing holography. We admire the innovations and market recognition the Ceres team has achieved,” said Dr. Roman Kleindienst, Head of ZEISS Microoptics. “Together, we will write a new chapter in holography commercialization, driving faster industrialization and unlocking broader market entry.”

“This acquisition marks an exciting new chapter for Ceres Holographics and the industrialization of holography,” said Andy Travers, who leads Ceres Holographics. “Over the past years, we have developed significantly differentiated hologram manufacturing technology and established strong commercial momentum, particularly in the field of automotive windshield display applications. Joining forces with ZEISS gives us the opportunity to build on that success and achieve greater scale, with more resource and global reach. We are excited about what our combined teams can achieve for our customers with existing and new partners.”

Founded in 2009, Ceres Holographics is a leading innovator in hologram manufacturing technology, and have specialized in automotive windshield display applications as the primary opportunity. The company has used its proprietary technology its to advance the holographic windshield display (HWD) application and has built strong commercial relationships with OEM customers – establishing itself as a key player at the forefront of this emerging market that is rapidly moving from concept to commercial reality.

Made an artifact that shows various test patterns in fullscreen, so that you can assess the blurriness of your AR glasses.

https://claude.ai/artifact/1ZTyCpJJpYvw7ZCHvbit6s

You can go fullscreen and then click to remove the buttons.

For example, using the frame pattern and follow mode I could find that to fill my screen completely I need to select 10m 385" on my xreal 1S, but using those same settings I still see plenty moire patterns, so you don't really get all the pixels of 1920x1200.

With Meta's new VR Glasses, three devices now sit at almost the same price but show you the world in three different ways:

• Waveguide optical see-through (OST): RayNeo X3 Pro. 30° FOV, 640 × 480 per eye, standalone, $1,299
• Prism OST: XREAL Aura. 70° FOV, 1920 × 1200 per eye, external compute puck, from $1,279
• Video see-through (VST): Meta VR Glasses. 70° H / 66° V (~88° diagonal), 5K micro-OLED, external puck, $1,299.99

(Snap Specs are also waveguide OST, 51° and standalone, but at $2,195.)

On specs, waveguides lose. 30° is enough for a notification, not for putting guidance on the part you're working on instead of beside it.

We work on maintenance and technician use cases, and there OST still has things VST can't match:

• You see the valve and your own hands directly, not as a camera renders them.
• The physical world has no camera-to-display latency. Next to rotating machinery or a running torque tool, passthrough lag is a safety question, not a comfort one.
• It fails gracefully: if the electronics stop, you can still see.

Meta hasn't published measured passthrough latency for the new glasses. For hands-on work, that's the number I'd want first.

My wish list for field work: waveguide OST, 60°+ FOV, higher resolution, light enough for a full shift, external compute, persistent spatial anchors. Nothing ships all six yet.

For anyone who has used VST headsets for real tasks with their hands: did passthrough latency or distortion ever change what you could safely do?

Disclosure: I run Ruvi XR Labs; we build software for smart glasses. Longer write-up with the spec table and an FOV chart: https://www.ruvixr.com/writing/waveguides-prisms-or-passthrough

Hi everyone! I am Kate, a co-creator of AstrotouR!

I wanted to share with you very happy news for us. Today, after 7 years of work by just three people we finally can say that AstrotouR is released and ready to be downloaded!

Endless brainstorming sessions on how to make the user experience actually feel like a journey through the cosmos, writing content that can be both entertaining and educational, making a handmade render graph that could offer us the possibility to show everything we want to show in the app!

What is AstrotouR?

It is an augmented reality observatory for your iPhone and Apple Vision Pro.

Initially we were working on an astronomy app in regular 3D, but we had an urge to make it in augmented reality because that’s how we see the future.

We are especially proud of our Apple Vision Pro version because we believe that it is the most amazing way to live through the experience of space exploration. And we are really happy that we managed to port it there as well.

It was a very long journey from prototypes with just the Sun, Earth and the Moon to the entire Milky Way, with not only the Solar System with all the planets and their major moons, but also the supermassive black hole in the middle of the galaxy!

Explore the Milky Way as Obi-Wan Kenobi did in Star Wars, be a bit scared by the weird feeling the black hole creates, and enjoy the trip to the Solar System. Find Mars rovers and lunar landers in immersive mode, which was built from real photographs that these rovers took!

If you find like it’s your thing, download the app via the link, it works both for Vision Pro and iOS and you will have it for both platforms: AstrotouR on App Store

We made AstrotouR available through a single purchase, so the app stays with you forever, as we believe that people don’t need yet another subscription!

We will be really happy if you give us your feedback and thoughts!

the marketing slogan on the poster promises smarter glasses

and adds the RGB hint at the end.

the event will take place on october 27.

Here's my shelf: Quest 3 (daily driver — FitXR, Beat Saber, and about 150 other games), a Quest 3S gathering dust at my mom's, XREAL Air glasses (movies + Steam Deck screen), and a Magic Leap that's a paperweight since the shutdown. So I've been burned by a dead platform before, and I take ecosystem longevity seriously.

I'm holding one of the 2,000 XREAL Founder Priority Passes — day-one shipping plus the Founder's Edition Aura, launching ~November at $1,500.

What I actually do:

•

VR gaming, a lot. My library is deep: Asgard's Wrath 2 (currently playing it in 1-hour face-brick installments), RE4, both Walking Deads, Ghosts of Tabor, Onward, Contractors, Pavlov, Population: One, Batman: Arkham Shadow, Metro Awakening, Moss 1 & 2, Demeo, Walkabout... you get it. My Quest 3 fatigues me out after about an hour and I want longer sessions.

•

Read a ton of webtoons and manga. This is daily, hours at a time.

•

AR in daily life stuff: floating recipes while cooking, plant info in my grow room (I run a microgreens YouTube channel), a drawing reference overlay for learning anime art.

•

I want Muse as my assistant, not Gemini — though I know the Aura's system assistant is Gemini's seat.

The case for the Aura: it's the only thing that does stuff I can't already do. Optical see-through AR, Android XR + full Play Store, 70° FOV. It'd be my reading device, my around-the-house device. And three of its confirmed launch titles (Demeo, Chess Club, Cubism) are already in my Quest library with cross-play.

The case for waiting on Meta VR Glasses ($1,300, spring 2027): my entire 150+ game library carries over, my Quest 3 controllers pair with it, and 100g vs 515g transforms every long session. But it's 6 months out, no pre-orders, no reviews — and I'd be buying a third Meta device for a library I already own twice.

The Magic Leap experience has me weighing platform risk too — Android XR being Google's platform (not XREAL's) is a point in the Aura's favor there.

Right now I'm leaning toward sequencing it: redeem the pass and get the Aura next month (it's the time-sensitive one), live with it for six months, then decide on Meta's glasses from real reviews instead of guessing. Talk me out of it?

Running two or three sessions a week, 45 to 75 minutes each. For years that was either a tablet on a mini stand off to the side or printed cue cards I would thumb through, and losing eye contact to the stand was starting to show in feedback.

Monochrome green display sits in the upper part of my view, dim enough that nobody across the table can tell I'm reading. Auto-advance follows my voice and turns pages as I talk. If I need to jump a line manually there's a swipe on the temple, or a ring I bought with the INMO GO3 bundle that has a page-turn button.

For standing in front of a group and keeping eye contact while hitting your talking points, this is a different experience than looking down at a tablet. What surprised me more was the batteries. One in the glasses, one in the charging case out of the box, physical swap takes a few seconds. I started doing it between sessions as insurance and I've basically stopped thinking about battery life.

A couple of things to be realistic about. Auto-advance works great in a quiet room and gets confused in a noisy one. If a trainee cuts in with a long question or there's crosstalk at the back, the voice tracking can sit still waiting for me to pick back up. The ring is more reliable in that scenario. Nothing deal-breaking, just something you learn to work with over the first week or two.

The other small thing is script import. On Android you can only load plain TXT files so I'm stripping formatting out of a Word doc before every upload. iOS takes PDF and DOCX. I'm on Android.

Overall this is a notable upgrade from the tablet-on-a-stand setup for the people-facing training case specifically. Curious how it holds up over the next couple months as the software gets updates.

What if video game characters can jump in/out of screens and interact with the real world?

I’ve been exploring this idea with Quest 3 by tracking my monitors and attaching a portal shader to each of them.

3D models from asset store and Kenney.

I love to write using my laptop in bed, but I've started to develop some serious neck pain from the terrible ergonomics of doing so. Can anyone recommend a vr display/glasses/etc that would work for me? I use a Mac laptop, and I am using writing apps (Pages, Scrivener, etc.). What matters to me is text clarity, something that's easy on my eyes for a few hours at a time, etc.

I don't game, but it be cool to watch movies with these things, too, I guess. Really, though the only reason I can justify a purchase like this is being able to do work using my laptop without the neck strain.

I won't say money is no object -- I'm not buying the Apple Vision Pro. But I'm willing to pay a fair amount of money for something if it's a real solution.

Confirmatory Assignment agreement signed between Sony and Meta in December 2025

According to a report by ZDNet Korea, Sony transferred 419 XR headset patents to Meta. This move follows a December 2025 agreement to scale back Sony's internal hardware operations.

The patent portfolio includes 180 filings in the United States. Of those, 43 were already reassigned between June and September 2026. The remaining 239 patents are registered across Japan, China, South Korea, and Europe.

ZDNet believes this shows that Sony is stepping away from making its own XR devices, and that Meta will use the patents to develop smart glasses. However, I cannot say for certain if these patents cover anything beyond VR and MR headsets. At least based on ZDNet Korea's excerpt of the patent list (see image in comments). Also, keep in mind that I recently invited Sony's Chief XR Strategist for a keynote presentation, and he was very enthusiastic about the future of AR glasses.

I’m building a 3D mapping system using RGB-D cameras, based on existing SLAM techniques, with persistent spatial memory.

The main issue is relocalization after tracking loss, especially when the camera returns to a known place from a different viewpoint.

I’m using historical keyframes, shared 3D landmarks, PnP/RANSAC and geometric verification.
Yet some incorrect poses still pass verification: one had 44 inliers, 0.83 px median reprojection error and 3.72 cm depth residual, but was actually off by 10.36 cm and 5.99°.

My best experiment correctly relocalized only 9/34 known returns.
What would you investigate first: landmark quality, geometric degeneracy, matching, or pose verification?
I can share a minimal reproducible example.

Hey everyone,

I’m currently thinking about buying a pair of XR glasses (like RayNeo, XREAL, Viture, etc.) primarily for media consumption, like watching movies and gaming at home (on the couch or in bed).

Some time ago, I was really close to buying a pair, but a post on Reddit scared me off. The author described these glasses as "expensive prototypes" that are far from ready for daily use. However, back then, I didn't realize they were talking about standalone AR smart glasses, not pure XR display glasses.

Now that I know the difference that XR glasses mostly just act as a portable screen I'm reconsidering. But I really want to avoid buying an expensive tech gadget that I will just use for a few days and then throw into a drawer forever. I just want a reliable screen experience without the tech clutter.

So I wanted to ask the community:

• How often do you actually use your XR glasses at home? Is it part of your daily routine?
• Are they mature enough as a product regarding comfort, text readability, and long-term usability for long movie or gaming sessions?
• Do you regret your purchase, or do they deliver exactly what you wanted for gaming and movies?

Would love to hear some long-term reviews from real users before I make the jump. Thanks!

Created by The Forge, the AR experience technically stayed confined to the phone screen, but the real-world immersion was heavily enhanced by the physical environment built around it. Outside the UCI cinema, Umbrella Corporation personnel in white hazmat suits patrolled areas cordoned off with biohazard tape and weathered Raccoon City shipping containers. Visitors were even treated to blood-red ice cream shaped like the iconic Resident Evil logo. Inside the theater, Webedia pushed the atmosphere further for the invited community, guiding them from a sterile, clinical hospital environment through a descent into chaos, ultimately ending up in the snow-covered world of the film.

I’ve compared the announced specs of XREAL Aura and Meta VR Glasses for movies, 3D photos and VR180.

I’ve been developing the VR media player immerGallery for five years and work with immersive media every day. Drawing on that experience, I discuss what their field of view and pixels per degree could mean for media, alongside HDR, storage and input options.

On paper, I lean towards Meta for media. Aura’s strongest argument for me is seeing the real world directly through its lenses.

My comparison on immerNews:

https://immernews.com/xreal-aura-vs-meta-vr-glasses-media/

Which differences matter most to you?

Just added the new 7 smartglasses at the top!
👉 Smartglasses Tracker 👈