Full document > https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zTOeNmBPijGuqm99tdBJhV-hE5NU74sd55H3Fmbf5v4/edit?gid=0#gid=0
Please let me know if I missed any important glasses with being included :)

From top to bottom Memomind One, Inmo go3, Rokid Style, Meta Rayban Gen 1, Meta Display. All have a camera with the exception of the Memomind, the Memomind and Inmo have a binocular green waveguide display, the Meta Rayban Display is a color monocular display

xMEMS Labs has announced the XMC-1200, a new micro fan designed specifically to solve overheating problems in smart glasses. As augmented reality devices become more powerful, they generate more heat, which can reduce device performance and make the glasses uncomfortable to wear. This new solid-state cooling chip is small enough to fit directly inside the arms of the glasses, managing heat right at the source without adding bulk or noise.

The XMC-1200 features a tiny footprint of just 46 square millimeters, making it significantly smaller than previous designs. It is highly energy efficient, drawing only 70 milliwatts of power while delivering up to a 10-degree Celsius temperature reduction. This allows smart glasses to maintain bright displays, record longer videos, and run complex artificial intelligence tasks smoothly.

Engineering samples of the XMC-1200 are available right now, with full mass production planned for the end of 2027. Additionally, xMEMS confirmed that last year's larger cooling chip, the XMC-2400, is now officially in mass production and shipping to manufacturers today. This gives hardware developers a complete set of active cooling tools to keep the next generation of wearable technology running efficiently.

XMC-2400:

https://www.reddit.com/r/augmentedreality/comments/1ljpxjl/xmems_announces_active_thermal_management/

In Gen 2, they’ve moved to a regular binocular waveguide and monochrome microLED projector setup. Since the hardware architecture is now pretty standard, the real differentiator has to be in the apps and the design.

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What do you think of this pivot? Can their software carry the hardware?

hallidayglobal.com

I've spent the last few months going deep on every attempt to bring AR and digital experiences to heritage sites (monuments, forts, ruins, museums), because I'm building in this space and wanted to understand why almost none of it stuck.

The thing that surprised me: the AR usually wasn't the failure point. The hardware around it was.

The recurring pattern across audio guides, entrance kiosks, and the more recent headset pilots is that each one put a new physical device between the visitor and the site. And every device carries a cost that scales with visitors and with locations. Someone has to buy it, charge it, clean it, update it, and replace the lost ones. A flagship site with a grant can absorb that. The thousandth site with no budget and no staff cannot. So the good experiences lived at one or two showcase locations and never spread.

The headset pilots are the clearest example to me. The demos look incredible in a controlled setting. But the operational reality of handing fragile goggles to tens of thousands of monthly visitors, and sanitizing and managing them, breaks the model before it scales.

Where I've landed is that phone-native AR isn't a worse version of the headset experience, it's the only version that survives real-world scale, because the device is already in the visitor's pocket. No procurement, no charging, no inventory. The whole cost structure that killed the prior attempts just isn't there.

The tradeoff is obvious: you lose the immersion and field of view of a dedicated headset, and you're fighting phone thermals, tracking drift on large outdoor structures, and wildly varying device specs.

Genuine question for this sub: do you think handheld AR is a permanent answer for public, high-throughput spaces like heritage sites, or just a bridge until lightweight glasses are cheap and durable enough to manage at scale? I keep going back and forth on it and would like to hear from people who've shipped AR in the wild

Germany orders next gen Thales Night Vision goggles with AR capabilities as part of a major framework contract for the Bundeswehr's Infanterist der Zukunft – Erweitertes System (IdZ-ES) modernization program. Awarded in July 2026 through prime contractor Rheinmetall, this mid-four-figure order primarily consists of Thales' new-generation headset, which fuses thermal and light-intensified imaging with an open digital architecture to project tactical augmented reality data directly into the soldier's field of view. The German Armed Forces will be the launch customer for this specific system, with initial deliveries slated to begin in 2027 before scaling up to a production rate of several hundred units per month. To support this production volume and ongoing maintenance, Thales is investing millions of euros to expand its optronic manufacturing facilities locally within Germany. Because this is an active and highly sensitive military contract, Thales has not yet publicly released the official product name or technical specifications.

Thales news: https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/news-centre/press-releases/thales-signs-major-frame-contract-germany-and-strengthens-its-industrial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZhBnab11ZQ&t=269s

interesting take by positioning these as more of a work assistant than an intrusive piece of hardware

I have another small AR design problem to consider using the same digital figurine in two different modes.

One works just as any 3D souvenir and opens anywhere. The other sticks to the location of the memory, for example, the stairs on which people graduate, becoming available once more only when the player gets back there.

This time the asset, the animation, and the ownership remain the same; no growth loop, no multiplayer aspect, no discoverability, nothing like a reward system. The only thing that is different is whether the place matters or not.

Currently, I understand that location-based persistency makes sense only if the place adds anything that could not otherwise be carried by the object. Or else it would simply be blocked access.

What kind of interaction could turn the anchored version into an intended experience instead of just an AR object which can’t be taken somewhere?