Qualcomm teases Google and Samsung augmented reality project that’s not a headset

It looks like the Samsung and Google partnership we’ve been hearing whispers about may not be delivering the mixed reality headset we initially anticipated. Instead, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said in a recent interview with CNBC that the three companies are actually brewing up a pair of mixed reality smart glasses that seamlessly pair with your smartphone. Is this the return of Google Glasses?

“I want everyone that has a phone to go buy companion glasses to go along with it,” said Amon in the interview. He further emphasized the need for these glasses to become more like your everyday glasses or sunglasses to truly achieve widespread adoption.

All of this comes as a bit of a surprise, considering that the rumors pointed toward a mixed-reality headset designed to compete with Apple’s pricey Vision Pro. Amon’s comments paint a different picture though. His comments in this interview line up more with the Project Astra glasses that Google demoed back at I/O 2024. These glasses are a step away from bulky headsets like the Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro that you wear mainly around the house.

Amon points to the Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 chip, as an example of how regular shades can be wirelessly linked to your phone. So imagine those glasses, but with Google AI baked in that can see and understand everything you can see.

Amon also emphasized that generative AI is the “inflection point” for this type of product. It seems AI will be integrated across the device, phone, and cloud, opening the doors to a whole new world of user experiences. “It’s going to run on the cloud,” Amon says. “It’s going to run some in the glass, some in the phone, but at the end of the day, there’s going to be whole new experiences.”

All of this aligns perfectly with Google’s push for its Gemini AI model in everything, especially considering the showcase of Project Astra. Google even showed off a different pair of smart glasses back at I/O 2022 called Project Iris, so perhaps this new project will be the culmination of these previous test projects. For now, we’ll just have to wait and see. But it is nice to get at least some indication of what Google and Samsung have been cooking up behind closed doors. What are your thoughts on this type of AR glasses? Let me know in the comments below!