Samsung Galaxy XR: Google is Back on Your Face
Google was too early with Glass, but after trying to pivot Glass to enterprise, it continued investing in AR and VR with R&D and acquisitions. In December 2024, alongside Samsung and Qualcomm, Google teased Android XR, a new Android-based OS for smart glasses, AR glasses, and VR headsets with mixed reality pass-through. At Google I/O earlier this year, Google provided details, APIs for developers, and demos. Building a single OS for wildly differing user interfaces and experiences is definitely on-brand for Google, allowing an app or service to be written once and deployed across a multitude of hardware form factors from various vendors. It also may mean that the use cases won’t be optimized for the specific wearable a user might have. We’ll have to see.
In 2023, the Apple Vision Pro got plenty of attention for its high price point, but Apple’s technical capabilities set a new standard, and if there were tons of compelling things to do while wearing one, the price wouldn’t be a huge barrier. Despite Apple being, well, Apple, developers have not flocked to VisionOS, in part because the price inhibits building a large installed base, and in part because Apple hasn’t articulated a clear reason to purchase. Apple initially pitched it as a spatial computing platform, but it’s not ideal for productivity – most apps are iPad ports. Apple has been slowly building out enterprise APIs and management capabilities, but most of its energy has gone into consumer entertainment use cases.
For the Galaxy XR (press release) mixed reality headset, Google and Samsung appear to be following Apple’s lead: there are a handful of XR-optimized Google apps, along with streaming content partners, including Netflix. This plays to the Galaxy XR’s strengths: it has a high-resolution display like the Apple Vision Pro, but with a slightly wider field of view and 200g lighter weight for just over half the price. The Apple Silicon M5 in the Apple Vision Pro outperforms the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 in the Galaxy XR, but that shouldn’t matter while streaming media or using Google Maps. Gemini integration in Android XR is more useful than Siri in VisionOS even if the M5 has more NPU and GPU horsepower. The Galaxy XR’s tethered battery lasts two hours for normal use and 2.5 hours of video playback; Apple beats it by a half hour in each scenario. I rarely use the Apple Vision Pro for that long, but Samsung’s battery life is cutting it close, and certainly inhibits longer entertainment or productivity sessions.
I got a demo of the Galaxy XR and the experience felt polished. Android XR takes a similar approach to Apple Vision Pro with its gesture-based interface; Samsung leans a bit heavier on hand tracking, while Apple does more with eye tracking. Google is doing a lot more with Gemini, though – voice is as much a part of the UI as gestures. I found it easy to navigate. Physical controllers are optional, but, at $250 for a pair, it’s hard to imagine the attach rate will be high. Bluetooth gaming controllers are also supported for playing 2D games.
What Can You Do In Android XR?
Android XR is based on Android, so all Google Play mobile apps should work in 2D as a windowed app. Google has created native versions of its own apps, and is highlighting three in particular: Maps, Photos, and YouTube.
Maps in Android XR is an interesting way to explore areas like an interactive VR local version of Google Earth. It’s great for previewing walking directions, and there are VR walkthroughs inside some locations based on AI-enhanced 2D images. This is a great demo, but I struggle to imaging using this all that often – maps is for live navigation, and nobody is walking or driving anywhere while wearing a Galaxy XR.
Google Photos in XR includes not only 2D-to-3D conversions – a wow feature of the Apple Vision Pro – but also AI still image to video – which feels even more magical when it doesn’t end up creepy. Panoramas are rendered as if you are standing in the spot. While it isn’t enough to justify purchase, photo viewing is a definite highlight of premium XR headsets, and an experience that you are likely revisit.
YouTube is a key streaming media platform, and the native implementation is exclusive to Android XR. YouTube already hosts plenty of 3D content and provides a place to upload your own.
Samsung also showed off some other Google apps and services for Android XR.
Circle to Search in mixed reality would be amazing if these were glasses you were wearing out and about, but for a headset in your living room it’s mostly a demo. I don’t expect that people will have too much to identify in their own environment, and it’s not like you’re going to wear this at a dinner party to figure out where someone’s scarf comes from.
Gaming with Gemini provides an AI gaming companion to guide you through quests and provide help as you need it, exactly like Microsoft Copilot for Gaming. If gaming is a key use case for you in VR, this will be a useful feature. This should work for 2D Android and streaming games as well as any native Android XR games that may be developed later.
Google Meet has been rewritten for XR with screen sharing and cartoonish avatars; uncanny valley Google Likeness Avatars are coming soon. Conferencing is a core communication experience that every platform provider needs to cover, but I’ve never found the experience better than just using 2D conferencing – and it’s often worse.
Google announced only a handful of third-party native Android XR apps. Netflix is Google’s big entertainment win; Apple Vision Pro has Disney+, but for Netflix you need to jump through hoops. Adobe’s Project Pulsar is a basic video editing app designed to edit VR clips, including managing depth for things like titles. It can output in 2D or stereoscopic 3D for YouTube VR. Calm ported its meditation app that’s available on multiple platforms, and Status Pro brought over NFL PRO ERA that was previously available on the Quest and Steam VR. Popular VR games and fitness apps like Beat Saber and Supernatural are not available on Android XR because Meta bought them. Google appears to have commissioned (or at least helped fund) “Asteroid,” an interactive movie with an AI chatbot wrapper. The teaser that Samsung showed seemed poorly rendered and acted; hopefully the full experience is better.
Enterprise
There will be a day when XR headsets are essentially a specialized business tool for training, see-what-I-see, and simulation. A day when IT managers can easily deploy XR to solve business problems without worrying about prescription lenses or device management or interface variability or device durability or software availability. That day is not today. However, the promise is obvious, so Samsung is not just targeting consumers, it also spent time talking about enterprise. Samsung actually listed more ported enterprise Android XR apps than consumer ones, at least outside of Google’s own. Some of this may be due to incorporating Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Spaces apps into Android XR. Examples include Campfire for shared design reviews, a Medtronic healthcare training simulator for intubation; 3D planograms that Mondelez International is using, and a ship engine maintenance MR app.
The qualification and sales cycle for enterprise XR is long, and Samsung and Google have plenty of work to do to accelerate that timetable. A solid first step: Android XR will soon support the Android Enterprise Framework to enable app distribution, network configuration, and other features needed for deployments at scale.
Pricing, Value Proposition, and Conclusion
Samsung is selling the Galaxy XR for $1800 or $150 month over 12 months (essentially zero percent financing) in the U.S. and Korea.
Single-vision prescription lenses are available starting at $100, but these are sold separately by Eyebuydirect.com as “KODAK Prescription Lenses for Galaxy XR.” (Most VR headsets are fixed focal length, so single-vision distance prescriptions are typically all that are required.) If the Galaxy XR is even modestly successful I expect other third-party lens providers like HONS VR and VR Rock to offer prescription lens inserts for less, but as of now neither company lists the Galaxy XR on their site.
But wait, there’s more! Google is trying to improve the value proposition by bundling an “Explorer Pack” of apps and experiences at launch. All of the consumer apps listed above are included with purchase, along with 12 months of Gemini Pro, Google Play Pass, and YouTube premium. In the U.S., there are also three months of YouTube TV and an NBA season pass; in Korea buyers will get six months of Tving and Sports Coupang Play.
Of course, if your main use case is wearable streaming entertainment, there are less expensive ways to get it even if you have to pay for the content. $400 XREAL glasses tethered to your phone are great and more portable, while a $500 Meta Quest 3, or even a $300 Quest 3S offer VR with passthrough. The Galaxy XR will provide a better experience than any of those in both resolution and immersion. So does the Apple Vision Pro. The Galaxy XR certainly represents a better value than Apple’s premium headset even without the subscription freebies, but the market for this experience at this price point may be small, even at a significant discount relative to Apple.
Google and Samsung clearly understand that premium XR headsets are not a mainstream product category yet; the presenters at the Galaxy XR event repeatedly used terms like, “laying the foundation” and “beginning the journey.” Google and Samsung need a killer app for Android XR to jumpstart adoption; Apple’s experience with VisionOS suggests that developers are not ready to invest all that much in creating native apps for XR headsets yet without a lot of encouragement.
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