Credit:
Ryan Whitwam
Project Moohan looks like a traditional VR or AR headset.
Credit:
Ryan Whitwam
Unlike the Meta Ray-Bans, Google’s glasses have a display embedded in the right lens (you can just make out the size and location of the display in Sergey’s glasses above). Google Glass projected its UI toward the corner of your vision, but the Android XR specs place the UI right in the middle. It’s semi-transparent and can be a little hard to focus on at first, in part because the information it shows is much more minimal than what you get with Moohan.
The glasses have a camera, microphone, and open-ear speakers. Everything blends well into a body that barely looks any different than a pair of normal eyeglasses. The only hint of “smarts” are the chunky temples that house the silicon and battery. They connect to a phone wirelessly, leveraging the same Gemini Live that you can access with the Gemini app. The experience is different when it’s on your face, though.
The XR glasses have a touch-sensitive region on the temple, which you can long-press to activate Gemini. A tap pauses and unpauses the AI assistant, which is important because it’s very verbose. The demo area for the Android XR glasses was a maximalist playground with travel books, art, various tchotchkes, and an espresso machine. Because Gemini is seeing everything you do, you can ask it things on the fly—Who painted this? Where was this photo taken? Does that bridge have a name? How do I make coffee with this thing?
Credit:
Ryan Whitwam
From the front, you can barely tell there’s anything “smart” about the glasses.
Credit:
Ryan Whitwam
Gemini answers those questions (mostly) correctly, displaying text in the lens display when appropriate. The glasses also support using the camera to snap photos, which are previewed in the XR interface. That’s definitely something you can’t do with the Meta Ray-Bans.
AI for your face, later this year
As Google announced at I/O, everyone now has access to Gemini live on their phone. So you can experience many of the same AI interactions that are possible with the prototype specs. But having Gemini ready hands-free to share your perspective on the world feels different, allowing for smoother access to AI features.