Android XR will debut these cutting-edge products this year

AC thVRsday
Android Central Senior Content Producer Nick Sutrich takes a deep dive into all things VR in his weekly column, from new hardware to new games, upcoming technology, and more.
Google announced Android XR at a surprise event in December 2024, launching the first version of Android built for AR and VR devices. Just as the term “smartphone” encompasses many different form factors (phablets, foldable phones, etc.), XR is an umbrella term for AR and VR.
Although Android XR started a bit late, Google has the opportunity to learn from Meta and Apple. From everything we’ve seen so far, Android XR looks to be the perfect marriage of the Meta Horizon OS powering the Meta Quest headset and Apple’s Vision OS on the Apple Vision Pro.
But while Google appears to have fixed the operating system issues, we still don’t have any proper product announcements. That’s going to change in 2025, and I fully expect to see at least one flagship VR/mixed reality headset and a pair of AR glasses being put into commercial use for the first time. We also know about some other projects in the works, and here’s what you can expect from Android XR in 2025.
Axel
I expect Xreal to launch its first major Android XR product in 2025. The company has proven itself to be the market leader in smart display glasses and has launched two mature standalone smart glasses products to date – Beam and Beam Pro. Beam Pro redefined the company’s standalone solutions in 2024, and I believe Xreal will continue to develop this concept with its first Android XR product.
The Xreal Beam Pro looks a lot like an Android smartphone with dual ports on the bottom. I expect Xreal’s first pair of Android XR-powered smart glasses will replace this design with a “computing puck” similar to what Meta Orion uses. I don’t want it to be wireless like Orion’s puck, as Xreal may prioritize battery life and comfort by putting the battery in the computing puck.
I also don’t think Computing Hockey will have a display, since Android XR is built to display an XR UI rather than a traditional tablet Android UI. As a result, the puck only works when wearing the glasses, similar to a canceled Xreal-powered laptop.
I’m still hoping there’s a custom silicon chip inside the glasses, similar to the company’s recently updated smart display glasses, the Xreal One. Optional lenses are coming soon to the Xreal One, but I expect Xreal’s first Android XR glasses will have built-in cameras for full spatial tracking. I got a glimpse of this future when I got my hands on the Xreal Air 2 Ultra at MWC 2024, which features a very beta custom UI, full 6DoF tracking, and basic hand tracking support.
The Xreal Android XR glasses will almost certainly use computing pucks that sit in your pocket or clip elsewhere on your body.
With Android XR powering the experience, hand tracking will be flawless and the user interface will look gorgeous. I’m very confident in Xreal’s current ability to deliver great hardware, and fully expect Xreal’s Android XR glasses to seriously challenge Meta Orion.
While the ultimate goal of Android XR smart glasses will almost certainly be to replace your phone, I imagine initial releases from companies like Xreal will be primarily focused on providing a labor-saving experience for mobile entertainment and productivity.
When will we see Xreal Android XR glasses? I believe we’ll see them debut at Google I/O 2025 (usually held in May). Google I/O is the company’s annual developer conference, and what better way to encourage development of the new Android platform than with a full reveal of the new Android platform and a range of new products at the developer conference? I can’t think of one.
Samsung
According to years of leaks, Samsung and Google had planned to launch the first Android XR-powered mixed reality headset sometime in the second half of 2024. forcing Samsung to go back to the drawing board and make a more eye-catching device.
The result was “Project Mohan”. We don’t know its final product name yet, but we do know that Samsung plans to commercialize it later this year. It’s a full year late, but it definitely means we’re going to get a better product as a result.
Samsung is aiming to launch a cutting-edge product that looks like a fusion of the Meta Quest Pro and Apple Vision Pro into a (hopefully) more affordable headset. It has the same ski-goggle-like form factor as those two products, and even uses a similar magnetic light-blocking system and halo-style strap as the Quest Pro, and I still think the Quest Pro is the most comfortable VR headset for long-term use.
Because Samsung waited a while, it was able to solve the biggest problem with the Vision Pro and Quest Pro, which was finding the ideal balance between price, performance, and long-term comfort. Additionally, unlike Apple, Samsung will launch headphones with motion-tracking controllers rather than relying entirely on hand tracking.
Google is tapping job simulator developers to help give its headphones a unique personality, which we’ll see later this year.
Google has leveraged its long history in XR development, letting Owlchemy Labs (creators of the popular Job Simulator VR game) create an introductory experience for Android XR. Owlchemy has built this new experience in the world of work simulators and appropriately calls it Inside [JOB].
Google’s use of Owlchemy Labs for this project feels like “good old Google” that enjoys creating projects and injecting a lot of personality into them. Combined with Samsung’s hardware expertise and the incredibly beautiful Android 3 Competition for dominance.
While Project Moohan is just a prototype, the hands-on demo at Google’s Android The conference is where Samsung usually unveils its latest foldable phones, smartwatches and other wearables, which this year should include a wearable mixed reality headset.
others
Google is also working with Sony, Lynx, and Magic Leap to launch Android XR devices in the near future, but we know next to nothing about what these companies are doing. At the very least, I can speculate on what each company might do based on their existing products.
There is no doubt that Magic Leap will make a new pair of AR glasses that will be powered by Android XR instead of the operating system that powers existing Magic Leap glasses. Magic Leap was the first AR company to partner with Google to help build Android XR last year. It makes sense, then, that Magic Leap would launch at least one new AR glasses this year.
Sony is mainly known for its PlayStation VR in the XR space, but the company also announced a new mixed reality headset for enterprise customers in January last year, but it has not yet officially released it. This headset (now called Sony XYN) is powered by the same Snapdragon XR2 Plus Gen 2 chipset as Samsung’s Project Moohan (mentioned above), so it would make sense for Sony to build another version of this headset using Google’s new XR operating system , and offer it to a wider audience than is currently available.
Three other companies, Lynx, Sony and Magic Leap, are also expected to launch Android XR products this year, but those products may not hit store shelves.
Only the lynx remained. The company’s first headset, the Lynx R1, will be soft-released in spring 2024 to a small number of early financial backers. The headset featured cutting-edge “lag-free” mixed reality vision and was powered by the Snapdragon XR2 chipset, although the R1 never entered mass production.
It’s entirely possible that the company is working with Google to launch a headset based on similar technology to the R1 but using a newer Snapdragon chipset and Android XR on the backend. This helps the company get the app support it needs to ensure a rich experience and helps Google launch a healthy Android XR portfolio by the end of 2025.
narrow the gap
Android XR feels like the beginning of Android in 2008. The system brings them together.
Meta was trying the same thing at the same time, but Google had nearly 20 years of experience building platforms that ran on thousands of devices. The company can definitely deliver on the promise of an operating system that bridges the gap between different types of hardware and delivers a best-in-class experience for anything you want it to do, and we can’t wait to see what the first real product brings this year What.