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Earnings calls have been the talk of the town over the past 24 hours, and Samsung has taken the chance with its own update to confirm that its Android XR smart glasses are dropping in 2026.
Seong Cho, executive vice president of Samsung’s Mobile Experience (MX) division, said as much, but didn’t give any more specifics than to say they’re coming this year.
So let’s look back at what’s been spoken about in the past, take a guess at what we can expect to see, and how they can compete with the only real competition in the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.
What Samsung Galaxy Glasses can we expect?
So during this earnings call, Cho talked about the company’s plans to deliver “rich, immersive multimodal AI experiences” in “next-generation AR glasses.” This doesn’t give us much to go on, but let’s dig deeper.
It looks like the company is working on two pairs, as Sam Mobile reported that two product code numbers had appeared: SM-O200P and SM-O200J. Hardware-wise, leaks are pointing to the specs having a 12MP camera with autofocus, but that’s all we have.
The speculation is that those letters on the end could mean the different types of lenses — P meaning “photochromatic” (transition lenses), but that doesn’t explain J. So I’d like to offer a couple an alternative.
Prediction: I think these letters are just the company identifying which designer house these companies come from. I’d be shocked if Samsung dropped smart glasses with display tech built into them (though it is possible), but I think the stronger bet is to say these are internal codes for either Warby Parker or Gentle Monster.
How does Samsung (and Google) beat Meta?
So with Android XR, they’re already off to a great start. Google services and Gemini 3 offer far wider capabilities than Meta’s connections to its social platforms, Meta AI and some third-party services.
Don’t get me wrong, Meta AI has transformed my Ray-Ban Metas into a top notch wearable that can help with some key questions about the world around me. But they can be a little constrained in what they can do.
And this is where Android XR can thrive in an audio-only space. Access to the entire Android ecosystem is going to be significant in providing more usability — provided they actually make them look good to wear.
But what about a display?
As you saw in Mark’s hands-on with Android XR specs, the versatility of the platform means it also works with AR smart glasses too — display tech built into the lens to overlay the real world around you.
And if my prediction is wrong (kind of hoping it is) and one of these two pairs Samsung is working on packs a screen, it could be game, set and match against Meta. In Mike’s first 24 hours with Meta Ray-Ban display specs, he ran into a couple of obstacles:
- Turn-by-turn directions were limited to certain areas: Google Maps would easily take the crown on this.
- Meta AI can only do so much: That’s down to the limitations of the model, which Gemini connected to Android and Google services does not have.
- Battery life drops fast: This…well this isn’t really anything any company can solve at the moment. The batteries are tiny and it’ll take a while to get to a point of ultimate efficiency.
But, beyond any of these easy targets to hit, the one thing that Samsung would have to make a priority is design.
As I said a few months ago, smart glasses have hit their awkward phase design-wise, and while the Meta Ray-Ban display glasses have clearly had attention paid to the aesthetics, they’re still a little weirdly large on your face.
If the team can break that barrier and make something that doesn’t look like a pair of specs pulled straight from “Dexter’s Laboratory,” we’ve got a hit on our hands.
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