Google wants to collaborate with EssilorLuxottica, the maker of Ray-Ban, on smart glasses called Gemini.
Here’s What We Know
Google has recently approached EssilorLuxottica with a proposal to place its artificial intelligence assistant Gemini in future smart glasses.
EssilorLuxottica is already working with Meta on the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses. This week, it was reported that Meta wants to acquire a minority stake in EssilorLuxottica, which can be seen as a protective measure against a potential deal with Google.
So far, Google has not released any additional information. It is unclear which brand Google would like to use for the glasses, as EssilorLuxottica also owns Oakley, LensCrafters, and Sunglass Hut.
According to forecasts, the glasses will not have displays. Their main functions will be a microphone, speaker, and camera to work with Gemini’s multimodal capabilities. This is similar to what was demonstrated at I/O 2024, when Google used internal prototypes for Project Astra.
The glasses may have a music player (based on the Pixel Buds experience) and photo and video capture to integrate with Google Photos.
The Verge also reports new details of Google’s partnership with Magic Leap. In addition to optics and augmented reality production, the goal is to create a developer headset running Android XR based on Magic Leap 2.
According to rumours, Google will release the developer headset together with Samsung in October 2024, with the official launch taking place in 2025.
Source: The Verge