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Apple reportedly pushes smart glasses launch to late 2027
Apple’s first smart glasses, codenamed N50, will be unveiled at the group’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2027 rather than late 2026 as previously planned, with consumer release now expected by the end of 2027, according to Bloomberg. The delay reflects both engineering refinements and the challenge of shaping the ...
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Maui Jim launches first prescription eyewear collection under Kering Eyewear
Maui Jim has introduced a prescription eyewear collection, its first since joining Kering Eyewear’s portfolio, now available through authorized opticians and partners. The range includes cat-eye, round, rectangular and square frames in acetate, injection-molded material, metal and titanium, with details including elongated hinges and the brand’s Hawaiian pattern. It is ...
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Meta pauses smart glasses feature paywall test
Meta has paused a plan to limit free access to Conversation Focus, an accessibility feature on its Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses that amplifies a speaker’s voice in noisy environments. The company introduced usage caps in early July, restricting free users to three hours per month unless they subscribed to ...
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ArticleSamsung’s new AI glasses: same silhouette, same guts, still no price tag
Samsung used its Galaxy Unpacked event in London on July 22 to give its clearest look yet at two AI glasses models developed with eyewear brands Gentle Monster and Warby Parker, neither of which received a standalone product name. The Gentle Monster edition is a slim black frame with a ...
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ArticleSENZ and the bid to bundle AR’s visual stack
On June 17 Applied Materials announced an OEM system for smart glasses, comprising waveguide optics, a light engine, sensing, vision correction and electronic dimming. Called SENZ, the system is pitched as cutting time-to-market and manufacturing complexity for brands seeking to build AI-powered display glasses. Applied says it is addressing a ...
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ArticleMeta tightens camera privacy controls while reportedly exploring always-on recording
Meta seems to be pulling in two directions at once with its smart glasses. The company itself announced on July 7 that it will be making it harder to disable the warning LED on today’s cameras, with their on-demand recording. On the morrow the Financial Times (FT) reported that Meta ...
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ArticleXpanceo and JBD tackle the smart contact lens’s toughest circuit
Xpanceo and Jade Bird Display (JBD, Shanghai) are co-developing a micro-display specific to the smart contact lens. According to their joint press release (July 7), they have reached a second phase of their partnership. JBD has been dealing in microLED microdisplays since its founding, in 2015, and became in 2020 ...
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ArticleMeta (expectedly) adds paywall to smart glasses function
Meta has updated the support documentation for its Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta smart glasses to cap free use of Conversation Focus — a tool that amplifies the voice of whoever is speaking to the wearer — at three hours per month, The Verge and other news outlets have reported. ...
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Prada and Gentle Monster partner on capsule collection
Prada is partnering with South Korean brand Gentle Monster on a capsule collection of three titanium frames launching next month in Japan and South Korea, and later this summer in China. Limited in scale and geography, the initiative appears to be a one-off marketing operation aimed at a niche consumer ...
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Innovative Eyewear finds lens partner for its smart glasses
Innovative Eyewear, the US-based smart eyewear company, is partnering with Encore Optical Laboratory, a VSP-accredited lab, to supply prescription and other specialized lenses in support of its online sales channels. The range includes Chemistrie clip-on sun lenses and ZEISS PhotoFusion X photochromic lenses for Innovative Eyewear’s Lucyd-branded AI glasses, as ...
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ArticleHOYA advocates for more public support after ‘generation leap’ in myopia control science
The ARVO meeting last month in Denver was rich in myopia management presentations by lens manufacturers, as has been the case in recent years. However, HOYA Vision Care’s (HOYA) presentation of its latest MiYOSMART iQ clinical trial data drew particular attention, as the company spoke about “halting” myopia in children—while ...
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Macron strikes again, in eyewear
The French President seems to have a knack for eyewear moments. At Davos in January a burst blood vessel inspired Emmanuel Macron to don a pair of Henry Jullien aviators for a speech that gave the world two viral moments: repeated utterance of an English adverbial phrase, “for sure,” and ...
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ArticleMeta puts its own name on its AI glasses
Meta launched its first self-branded AI glasses on Tuesday with EssilorLuxottica as manufacturing partner, a narrower role than the co-branding arrangement behind Ray-Ban Meta. The new line, simply called Meta Glasses, comes in three frame styles (the rectangular Adventurer, the boxier Fury and the Starfire, a slim oval design created ...
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ArticleTradeoffs and a bet – Snap introduces the hardware for Specs
Snap gave the world a look at its first augmented-reality glasses for the general public, called Specs, on June 16 at the Augmented World Expo (AWE) – the world’s largest trade show for AR. Exhibiting alongside it in Long Beach, California, were Google and XReal, announcing their Project Aura XR ...
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IF Design 2026 Awards reflect smart eyewear momentum
Reflecting the evolution of our sector, smart glasses take a growing share in the annual IF Design awards, whose 2026 selection has just been announced. Six out of seventeen awards went to smart eyewear brands and manufacturers, with a wide range of smart functionalities from simple electrochromic lenses to now ...
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ArticleEssilux and Applied Materials partner on R&D to tackle the AR glasses display conundrum
EssilorLuxottica has announced a joint development agreement with Applied Materials, a global leader in materials engineering, in the wearable technology domain. The objective of the partnership is “to develop lightweight, high-performance optical systems critical to scalable AR experiences.” While EssilorLuxottica’s R&D programs for this product category have so far been ...
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Menicon advances in simulation-driven lens research, contact lens packaging
Menicon has announced the completion of SilicoSim, a digital simulation platform for contact lens material design that was developed with the Tohoku University. The collaboration is the first result of the Miru Mirai (literally “see the future”) partnership initiated in 2024. Utilizing transmission electron microscopy (TEM), the researchers have revealed ...
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Meta reportedly rolls out and then rolls back facial recognition code to AI glasses app
Wired, a technology news website, reported on June 4, 2026, that Meta had “quietly” embedded facial recognition code—internally called “NameTag”—into its Meta AI companion app, which is essential for Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses to function. However, the code was not activated making it impossible to turn on the function. ...
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ArticleKrys adds Even Realities G2 to its growing smart eyewear stable
Krys Group, France’s top optical retailer, has become the first national chain to carry the Even Realities G2 display glasses. This will be its third proposition in smart eyewear, after the Meta models (Ray-Ban and Oakley) and its own private-label model. According to its announcement of June 4, Krys will ...
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Rokid’s Japanese crowdfunding campaign hits $4 million
Chinese smart eyewear company Rokid has raised $4 million from 7,413 backers on Makuake, a Japanese crowdfunding platform, over a period of roughly two months. The campaign underscores growing consumer interest in AI-enabled eyewear in Japan, particularly among early adopters.According to the company, a survey of 9,600 participants found that ...
