XREAL and Google showcased Project Aura at Google I/O 2026, giving attendees a closer look at XREAL’s upcoming wired Android XR glasses. The device is scheduled to launch globally in 2026, but today’s update is a developer and demo milestone, not yet a full-blown retail launch.

Project Aura is not in the same product category as Google and Samsung’s new audio-first smart glasses, unveiled today at I/O. It is a visual XR device with an optical see-through display, an impressive FHD 70-degree field of view, Android XR, Gemini, and XREAL’s X1S spatial chip. XREAL’s official Project Aura page describes it as the company’s first tethered XR glasses built with Google for Android XR.

The Google I/O demos focused on what people would actually see through the glasses. XREAL showed Immersive Google Maps, large-screen and mini-screen video viewing, YouTube 180-degree and 360-degree VR videos, 2D and 3D video playback, a WebXR 3D painting app built with Gemini, Android XR games, and support for DisplayPort-in laptops. The laptop demo extends content into a three-dimensional AR workspace with Gemini support and auto-spatialization.

Just like previous XREAL’s connected glasses, Project Aura is closer to a portable spatial-computing display than to a simple phone accessory. It can be used for maps, movies, YouTube VR, 3D video, games, creative apps, and laptop work, while still letting the user see the real world through the lenses.

Anshel Sag, VP & Principal Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, shared hands-on impressions from Google I/O and noted several changes since the January showing at CES 2026: improved image quality, better hand tracking, a cooler compute puck, passthrough support for phones, PCs, and handheld consoles, GPS for location-aware AR, and face detection that disables dimming when the user is interacting with another person. He also described Project Aura as much lighter than Galaxy XR and a stronger form factor than mixed-reality headsets for many users.

The product also gives Android XR a second hardware path after Samsung’s Galaxy XR headset. Galaxy XR launched Android XR as a full headset experience. Project Aura moves the same platform into lighter wired glasses, with the main computing hardware handled through a tethered setup rather than a full headset-style design.

XREAL and Google also announced the Android XR Developer Catalyst Program. Selected developers will get Project Aura developer kits, applications are open at g.co/dev/catalyst. XREAL’s briefing described the first wave as 1,000 developer kits, with developers submitting what they want to build and XREAL and Google reviewing applications.

At this year’s Google I/O, Google is putting smart glasses at the center of its hardware vision for AI and wearable experiences, with Samsung’s Android XR audio glasses on stage and XREAL’s Project Aura showing the more visual, app-focused side of the same platform.

Several key details remain missing: price, battery life, weight, final launch date, and retail availability. XREAL is expected to share more hardware and consumer details around AWE in Long Beach in June, including availability, regions, app partners, and launch experiences. For now, Project Aura is real enough for demos and developers, but not ready for buyers yet.

Filed in . Read more about Augmented Reality (AR), Display, Google I/o, Samsung, Smart Glass and XREAL.