When it launches later this year, Android XR is coming first to Samsung’s mixed reality headset, Project Moohan. Now, Google has tapped AR glasses creator XREAL to be the second with its newly unveiled Project Aura.

Google announced at its I/O developer event that China-based XREAL will be the second device officially slated to run Android XR, the company’s forthcoming XR operating system currently in developer preview.

Codenamed Project Aura, the companies describe the optical see-through (OST) device as “a portable and tethered device that gives users access to their favorite Android apps, including those that have been built for XR.”

Information is still thin, however XREAL says Project Aura was created in collaboration with Google and chip-maker Qualcomm, and will be made available to developers “soon after” the launch of Project Moohan, which was recently affirmed to arrive later this year.

Image courtesy XREAL

XREAL hasn’t released specs, although the company has a track record of pairing micro-OLEDs with birdbath optics, which differs from the more expensive waveguide optics seen in devices such as Microsoft HoloLens, Magic Leap One, or Meta’s Orion AR glasses prototype.

Birdbath optics use a curved mirror system for brighter, higher field-of-view (FOV) and lower-cost AR displays, although this typically results in bulkier designs. Waveguides are often thinner and more expensive to manufacture, but provide more wearable form factors with better transparency; waveguides also typically feature a lower FOV, although prototypes like Meta Orion are bucking that trend.

Like the Android XR glasses seen on stage at Google I/O, which are coming from eyewear companies Warby Parker and Gentle Monster, XREAL Project Aura is expected to feature built-in Gemini AI, allowing it do things like real-time translation, AI assistant chats, web searches, object recognition, and displaying contextual info.

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Choosing XREAL as its next Android XR hardware partner makes a good deal of sense here. Founded in 2017, XREAL (previously Nreal) has developed a number of AR glasses generations over the years, including its own custom Android launcher, Nebula, to handle native AR experiences on Android devices.

Like previous XREAL devices, Project Aura is meant to be a tethered, and not standalone. It’s uncertain just what external device the device will run Android XR, be it a standard smartphone or dedicated ‘puck’ like XREAL Beam.

That said, XREAL says they’ll be talking more about Project Aura at the Augmented World Expo (AWE) next month, which takes place June 10th – 12th in Long Beach, California. We’re going to present at AWE this year, so check back soon for more on all things XR to come from the event.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Jonathan Winters III

    Google will support this until investors complain it's not making massive dollars. Then they will ditch it, once again. Thats how most corporations work, sadly. They've done it to countless projects.

    • Ondrej

      I think it's not just investors complaining – there are many companies doing 10+ years plans that for a long time are in the red.

      I think this is just a cunning "mass startup" strategy. They know that most new companies and new product ideas fail and it's impossible to reliably predict what will actually win (even if you think you can – even Jobs was completely wrong about some product ideas). So they purposefully throw things at the wall and see what sticks and they very quickly make decisions to not waste time and resources and move to the next one. This trick would work very well if not for a one, huge problem: people will remember and mock them for it. It literally ruins the brand perception.

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        It's not a startup strategy in general, but how venture capital works: invest early into lots of new companies, fully expecting most of them to fail, but sell those that don't with a huge profit that pays for the rest. A commonly assumed ratio is 7/10 startups failing, 2/10 becoming "zombies" and 1/10 becoming a success.

        A zombie is what would normaly be considered a success, so a company that creates a product which sells enough to pay for all expenses and allows to develop new products, basically a profitable business. But as VC is looking to sell high-potential startups to larger investors for several times the initial investment amount, just "successful" simply doesn't do, it has to be "potentially spectacular". So occasionally successful "zombies" are still shut down despite making money, simply because they eat up some management resources and cannot be sold quickly.

        This approach has worked pretty well for tech startups that are often high risk, high cost, which is why companies like Meta or Google adapted a "fail fast/fail cheap" management philosophy. It doesn't really translate 1:1, as larger companies with lots of organizational middle management simply don't work like startups. And it often irks customers because seemingly fine products are suddenly killed, often leading to accusations of greed, as lack of quick money is seen as the sole reason to shut things down. But it's really more about saving resources, you simply cannot do everything in parallel. So cutting of slowly moving projects to focus on more impactful ones in the end also serves the customers, even if it requires killing some/a lot of pet projects/zombies.