// WIRED US/UK — INTELLIGENZA ARTIFICIALE
Google and Samsung’s Android XR Smart Glasses Are Finally Here
Google and Samsung's next face computers have arrived. Nearly two years after the companies first announced the Android XR platform that powers the hardware, the smart glasses are finally on sale.
The “Intelligent Eyewear” is a collaboration between the two tech companies, with Samsung providing its hardware expertise and Google handling much of the software platform. Smart glasses are just one part of Android XR—there are also mixed-reality headsets and glasses for more immersive experiences, like last year's Samsung Galaxy XR and the upcoming Xreal Aura.
Eyewear brands Warby Parker and Gentle Monster are heavily involved in the new smart glasses, responsible for the design and fit, similar to how Meta tapped Ray-Ban for its competing—and market-leading—wearables. Google and Samsung are leveraging Warby Parker and Gentle Monster's brick-and-mortar presence and retail expertise, which lets people demo the glasses before buying them. (Kering Eyewear, which owns brands like Lindberg and Maui Jim, has also signed up to make glasses for Android XR in the future.)
The first models are available for preorder now, with official sales starting on December 10. Warby Parker's frames start at $395 and come in three styles—Alden, Reid, and Wren—as optical or sunglasses, with various prescription, lens, and width options. Gentle Monster's glasses start at $449 and come in six designs, various colors, and tints, with prescription options for most frames.
The hardware is identical across both brands. The glasses weigh around 41 grams (10 grams less than Meta's new Gen 3 glasses), have a nine-hour battery life, and include a charging case that can recharge the glasses up to seven times. They have a 12-megapixel camera with an LED indicator that shows everyone in eyeshot that you’re recording. There’s a button to capture photos and 90-second videos at up to 3K resolution with a press. A touch-sensitive temple piece lets you tap to activate the onboard Gemini assistant, or slide two fingers back and forth to control the volume of the audio coming out of the glasses' speaker.
They are the first devices to support the “Hey Gemini” hotword, though you can use the well-known “Hey Google” hotword if you'd like. Still, the new spoken wake phrase distinguishes the glasses as Gemini's “optimal form,” according to Juston Payne, Google's senior director of product management for XR.
“We felt that these are a Gemini-forward device,” Payne tells WIRED. “It's really you and Gemini going through your day together, so it was feeling a little dissonant for us. You're not talking to Google, you're talking to Gemini.”
Oddly, these glasses are only compatible with certain devices—Google Pixel phones, Samsung Galaxy phones, and iPhones—and only select models. You'll need a Pixel 7 or newer, Galaxy S or Z Fold running Samsung's One UI 9.0 or higher, and the iPhone 13 Pro or newer. A Google spokesperson tells WIRED the company will share more about how it plans to expand support to other phones in 2027 after launch.
Since you'll be buying the glasses from an eyewear brand, they will be the customer-facing party to handle any problems you may have with the device or prescriptions. On the backend, Payne says there are elaborate business integrations and handoffs, so the customer service workload is split between all the companies.
Google has already previewed Intelligent Eyewear glasses with displays built into the lenses—useful for showing navigation instructions or real-time captions for folks with hearing issues. However, they are not ready yet; Payne says they're currently being tested by “non-Googlers” and are still on the road map, though he didn't share a specific release window. As for plans to launch audio-only smart glasses, like Meta's recent Ray-Ban Audio, Warby Parker co-CEO Dave Gilboa tells WIRED, “There's a pretty robust pipeline of additional products.”