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Google previews Android XR, a new OS to power next wave of headsets and smart glasses

Google’s XR ambitions involve partnerships with Samsung, Qualcomm, and other hardware manufacturers to develop headsets and smart glasses.

Google Photos on Android XR headsets. (Image source: Google)

Despite failing to pull off headsets and smart glasses for the past decade, Google is giving it another go. The tech giant announced on Thursday, December 13, a new operating system for extended reality (XR) devices called Android XR.

“Android XR is designed to be an open, unified platform for XR headsets and glasses. For users, this means more choice of devices and access to apps they already know and love. For developers, it’s a unified platform with opportunities to build experiences for a wide range of devices using familiar Android tools and frameworks,” Shahram Izadi, the vice president and general manager of Google’s XR team, wrote in a blog post.

Google’s XR ambitions involve partnerships with Samsung, Qualcomm, and other hardware manufacturers who will likely develop those headsets and glasses. The first such device, code-named Project Moohan, is being built by Samsung and is expected to ship next year.

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Extended Reality or XR is the latest addition to the growing list of terms such as virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, and others that have collectively come to define this evolving category of immersive technologies built into physical headsets and smart glasses.

“When we say extended reality or XR, we’re really talking about a whole spectrum of experiences, from virtual reality to augmented reality and everything in between,” Sameer Samat, the president of the Android ecosystem at Google, was quoted as saying by The Verge.

“We believe a digital assistant integrated with your XR experience is the killer app for the form factor, like what email or texting was for the smartphone,” he added.

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Currently, the OS is available in preview for developers looking to build apps and games for upcoming Android XR devices with supporting tools such as RCore, Android Studio, Jetpack Compose, Unity, and OpenXR.

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Apps on Android XR

On its end, Google is building its own XR versions of apps like Maps, Photos, and YouTube. The XR version of Chrome, for instance, would let users browse the internet with multiple windows while multitasking.

The Alphabet-owned company said that Android XR devices will support existing mobile and tablet apps on the Play Store “right out of the box”.

Of course, AI will be a central element of the user experience of Android XR devices, as Google’s Gemini model is being upgraded with multimodal capabilities such as creating and capturing audio.

“With headsets, you can effortlessly switch between being fully immersed in a virtual environment and staying present in the real world. You can fill the space around you with apps and content, and with Gemini, our AI assistant, you can even have conversations about what you’re seeing or control your device,” the company said.

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Similar to the Meta-Ray Ban devices, Android XR on smart glasses will use Gemini to give users information about something that is in their line of sight or provide directions, translations, or message summaries in audio.