Xreal, Google’s smartglasses partner, thinks it has finally mastered this notoriously tricky industry
Key takeaways
- The smart glasses industry has long been a tortured dream of Silicon Valley.
- However, the industry has — for much of the last decade — resembled a financial black hole into which gargantuan investments have been sunk and from which little to no profit has ever emerged.
- Everybody s losing money, said Chi Xu, the founder and CEO of the smart glasses company Xreal, which is a longtime partner of Google.
The smart glasses industry has long been a tortured dream of Silicon Valley. The premise is appealing enough: What if, to enjoy the benefits of mobile computing, people didn t have to stare at their phones all day long and could, instead, simply wear a lightweight computing device on their face? Science fiction fans (a demographic that is strong in the tech industry) can see this vision perfectly.
However, the industry has — for much of the last decade — resembled a financial black hole into which gargantuan investments have been sunk and from which little to no profit has ever emerged.
Everybody s losing money, said Chi Xu, the founder and CEO of the smart glasses company Xreal, which is a longtime partner of Google. I met Xu at Google s I/O conference in Mountain View last week, where he was promoting Xreal s Project Aura. That s its latest effort to create a set of functional XR glasses that people actually want to use.