Name: Android XR hands-on: Google’s take on Meta Ray-Ban?
Uploaded: 2025-05-23T07:38:17.000Z
Duration: 4 min 2 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Past simple

We're here at Google IO, and we just got a hands-on with Samsung's Project Moohan and some prototype Android XR smart glasses.

What is it? It's an immersive XR headset.

It's basically an Android flavored Vision Pro, except it's much lighter, easier to wear.

It has a little screw thing in the back that feels a little bit like the old Oculus headsets.

Otherwise, the experiences are pretty similar to what you get in a Vision Pro.

We saw a demo of an immersive YouTube video.

Uh, one thing that they pointed out was 3D video based on videos that were not filmed in 3D.

So the pitch is, you can take whatever video you filmed and it just spatializes.

The other demo we got was something with Gemini, where you can ask it to take you to any place in the world in Google Maps and kind of get a big immersive look.

I went to my old stomping grounds in Musashikoyama, Tokyo, where I used to live, and it sure was a thing.

Now, I know you can't tell from the capture behind me because that's in 2D, but trust me.

When you put the thing on, it does look, you do see some depth there.

It's just, man, it's really hard to convey what you're seeing in an XR space.

Probably more exciting is this is a first public look that we've got at Android XR.

I got a much more in-depth demo back when they launched in December, but here's what they're willing to show you publicly.

So one of the demos I got, you put the glasses on, you tap the the side, it brings up Gemini.

And you can ask it about the things in front of you.

I asked it to compare some paintings in front of me.

And to recommend which of the books would be good for planning a trip to Japan if I'm not the outdoorsy type.

Another thing that it did was you could take photos because there's a camera.

But since there is a display in front of you, you can actually get a sense of the framing.

Now that's something you can't do with the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses.

Take a photo of, oh, I can see a preview of the photo.

That's something that we can't do with the Meta Ray-Bans, is see the preview.

Speaking of which, it's very clear that Google is taking a page from Meta's playbook, uh, in the sense that, you know, they're really positioning these headsets and these glasses as a vehicle for Gemini and AI.

That's something that Meta is doing with its AI and its glasses as well.

The other thing that they're doing is that they're leaning into style.

These are hardware prototypes made by Samsung.

But they're not going to be what you see when they hit shelves.

Instead, Google announced today that they're partnering with Gentle Monster, Warby Parker, you know, really stylish and fashionable brands.

If you haven't heard of Gentle Monster yet, trust me, all the celebrities, including Beyonce and Kendrick, are wearing their sunglasses.

So that also is kind of a nod to the success that Meta's had, they've sold 2 million of the Meta Ray-Bans and it's because as a wearables reviewer, how many times have I told you, if you're not going to wear it, there's no point.

So they want people to be wearing it and, you know, I've had conversations with the team at Android XR.

The idea is to have both a headset and glasses, and eventually they'll converge down the line.

But right now, it's about meeting people where they're at and they think this is two different ways to do that.

The problem with smart glasses and headsets is that you really have to see it to believe it and that's very, very, very hard to convey.

Like, dude, it's really hard to tell you about what I see and have you be convinced that this is the future.

And until we get more of these glasses on people's faces, that's just going to be the reality of it.

We're at Google, we're at Google IO, so many things happening.

AI, AR hardware with uh headsets and glasses.

Come to the verge.com to read out more, read out more.