I may have too many devices.
Scott Stein/CNETAI is wildly disrupting the world at large, and tech more specifically, and one manifestation of that is the advent of new devices like smart glasses. I've been covering the emergence of wearables, virtual reality and augmented reality for over 15 years, but the current moment is more in flux than any I've witnessed.
This week, I'll be in Long Beach, California, for AWE 2026, the biggest AR/VR-focused conference of the year. I'll be seeing and reporting on what's new and how AI is taking up residence in what a lot of companies hope will be everyday eyewear for all of us.
Meta already has tons of smart glasses, Google is releasing a wave of its own later this year, and Snap, a maker of smart glasses for years before Meta, has a pair of augmented reality Spectacles planned for 2026 as well. Apple's new infusion of Siri AI into all its devices, announced last week at WWDC -- where I got an in-depth look at how Siri works -- hints at smart glasses that could arrive next year. It's a lot to keep track of.
VR's still got things going on, too. Apple is evolving its Vision Pro software, Bytedance-owned Pico has a high-end mixed-reality headset on its way, and Valve's standalone Steam Frame should arrive this summer. Google and Xreal are pushing into new territory with the VR-like, glasses-sized Project Aura, also expected this year.
All this in the middle of inflation and soaring electronics prices.
At AWE, I'll be asking questions and exploring what's happening while Google, Meta and Apple keep advancing in the space, and peeking around the corner at chips, displays and sensors (and experiences) that could show us where wearables are heading next.
Editors' note: Scott Stein's travel costs for the AWE conference were covered by Snap. The judgments and opinions of CNET are our own.
Smart glasses are becoming mainstream
By Jon Skillings
The second-generation Meta Ray-Ban glasses, sitting pretty. They earned a CNET Editors' Choice award for all the features they offer.
Scott Stein/CNETIt's getting more and more likely that you or someone you pass by on the street is wearing smart glasses, or might at least try them out in the near future. Market researcher IDC is predicting that "2026 is the year smart glasses graduate from early adopter curiosity to a mainstream force."
The company said Monday that sales surged 167% year over year in the first quarter of 2026, with 2.25 million units shipped during that three-month period.
There's a clear leader of the pack: Meta, whose Ray-Ban smart glasses lineup accounted for 69% of the market in the first quarter. The most anyone else could muster individually was a 3.4% share; that was RayNeo, followed by Xiaomi (3.1%), Viture (2.5%) and Xreal (2%).
But how long will Meta remain top dog? Jitesh Ubrani, an IDC research manager tracking mobile devices, wrote in the Smart Glasses Surge report that "the challengers assembling against it are formidable."
He pointed to two companies in particular: Google and Snap. Google, he writes, is getting into the smart glasses fray with decided advantages with its Android XR ecosystem and its presence in people's email, photos, search history and calendars. "When someone puts on a pair of Android XR glasses, the AI assistant doesn't need an introduction," Ubrani wrote. "It already knows you."
Snap, meanwhile, "has tens of thousands of developers who have spent years building AR experiences," plus "real-world learnings on optics, thermal management, and social comfort that simply cannot be shortcut."
If you find yourself tempted by smart glasses this year, no matter the manufacturer, some credit will have to go to Meta. "The Ray-Ban Meta lineup has done something rare in consumer tech," Ubrani wrote. "It created a device people are genuinely unafraid to be seen wearing in public."
What sorts of apps should be made for glasses?
By Scott Stein
This gives a pretty good sense of how an app appears in Meta's Ray-Ban Display glasses.
MetaThere are so many smart glasses being made by so many companies right now, but so little good thought being put into how to develop for them. That's partly because many of them rely on AI as their primary "app," serving up information or fulfilling requests on demand.
There should be better ideas, though, especially with Google's Android XR promising to extend apps to Google's glasses, new smart glasses like Even Realities' G2 that have a growing ecosystem of mini apps for their monochrome displays, Snap's roster of augmented reality lens developers and Meta opening up app development for its display-enabled Ray-Bans.
I'll be speaking at a panel about immersive storytelling at AWE, thinking about how to solve some of these questions. I'm curious to find out for myself.
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