The XR Week Peek (2026.11.10): Samsung glasses are coming in 2 days, Pico Space Pro in December, and much more!
I’ve been super busy the past week because of two small projects I’m delivering (I’ll probably tell you more about them in the upcoming weeks). Plus, I’ve also written a new guest post about the differences between XR in China and the rest of the world: after the one on Road To VR in which I gave my overview of China to Westerners, this time I’ve written on VRAR World about the West to Chinese people: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/iwctPJklk8PqFNkOAxKLKw. It seems I’m trying to be the Marco Polo of VR… 😛
Top news of the week
Warby Parker and Gentle Monster prepare for the launch of their smartglasses
After a long period of teasing, finally the Samsung smartglasses powered by Android XR are coming to the market.
The first partner to launch will be Warby Parker: according to an official statement made during the latest earnings call, the company will start accepting preorders for its smartglasses on November 12th, which is very, very soon. The plan is to ship “during the holiday season”, so maybe Warby Parker hopes to see its devices being gifted for Christmas.
Gentle Monster, instead, is aiming directly for a December launch window. The company has not given any exact date, but it has hired a very famous actor like Joaquin Phoenix to promote its smartglasses. I have watched the first trailer starring Mr. Phoenix, and I found it incredibly weird: it’s creepy and doesn’t speak about any feature of the glasses. Probably this is part of a strategy to not market them as “tech glasses” but as something cool, a bit like Snap is doing with SPECS.
In both cases, we are talking about audio-only glasses with features very similar to the third generation of Ray-Ban Meta. Let’s see how they will perform when launched to the mainstream market.
More info (Warby Parker smartglasses launching on November 12)
More info (Gentle Monster partners with Joaquin Phoenix)
More info (The first trailer of Gentle Monster glasses starring Joaquin Phoenix)
Sponsors Area
This newsletter has also been possible thanks to our sponsors.
Groovy Labs
Groovy Labs is an open VR/MR rhythm playground with access to 100,000+ songs. Slice, strike, or punch your way through music and discover different ways to move with the beat.
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Available on Meta Quest, SteamVR/PCVR, PICO 4, HTC VIVE, and Samsung Galaxy XR. One rhythm ecosystem, built for freedom, creativity, and community.
Other relevant news
Meta is discontinuing Quest 2 and Quest Pro
Meta is completely discontinuing Quest 2 and Quest Pro. I mean, they were already officially discontinued, and various applications were not compatible with Quest 2 anymore. But now, with the upcoming arrival of the Meta VR Glasses, Meta is completely phasing out the older devices.
In a developer blog post, Meta says feature development for Quest 2 and Quest Pro will end with v213, which reaches all Quest 2 and Quest Pro devices by March 2027. Moving forward, new OS features, platform capabilities, and APIs released after v213 will only be available on Quest 3, Quest 3S, and newer devices. The Meta SDK v213 will also be the latest valid SDK to target these devices. No app for Quest 2 and Quest Pro will be accepted after December 2027.
It is the end of an era: Quest 2 has been the most popular VR/MR headset ever. According to unofficial sources, it sold probably around 25M units during its lifetime. It had a ridiculously low price while having definitely good performance for the time it launched. Plus, it came during the COVID period, exactly when people were forced to stay at home and so were desperately looking for something to do. All these factors together contributed to the high sales of this headset. The Quest 3 never managed to replicate the same success, also because of its higher price.
The big question is what will happen to all the millions of people that still have a Quest 2. They represent a non-negligible part of the market: will all these people abandon VR? Will they upgrade to Quest 3S? I think Meta should discount the Quest 3S to make most of these people transition to Quest 3S, or Meta will lose an important part of its users. I personally don’t think Quest 2 users, who are probably mostly kids, will spend the money to transition to Quest 3 or even Meta VR Glasses. So Meta needs a plan… launching a Quest 4 and discounting the Quest 3 series could be a good idea.
Talking about the discontinuation of Quest Pro, instead, I think its 15 users will be very upset…
More info (Meta is discontinuing Quest Pro and Quest 2 — Upload VR)
More info (Meta is discontinuing Quest Pro and Quest 2 — Road To VR)
Pico Space Pro launches on December 2nd
According to various Chinese sources, including the reliable VRAR World who got this info from the company itself, Pico is launching its headset Pico Space Pro (formerly known as Project Swan) on December, 2nd. Last time Pico announced a launch date, it surprisingly canceled the launch event a few days before, so we should take this new launch date with a pinch of salt, too…
Jokes apart, the rumor in town is that Pico delayed the Space Pro so that it could release it with some special generative model that ByteDance is working on (likely a world generative model or video generative model). So I guess that during the launch event will get to know about these new amazing AI features of the device.
Something that has not been clearly disclosed yet is the price. We only know that this is going to be an expensive headset: that’s why I bet on something like $2500. Let’s all discover it on December 2nd!
More info (Pico Space Pro is launching on December 2nd — VRAR World)
More info (Pico Space Pro is launching on December 2nd — AR Circle)
Steam Frame already represents 5% of the SteamVR users
Steam Frame had a pretty good start. We already suspected it, considering the hype around the headset, but now the first numbers confirm this.
A month after the release, the headset appears for the first time in the Steam Hardware Survey. And it is already in fifth place among the most used headsets, making up 5.49% of all headsets used on Steam. This is a much better result than what the Valve Index obtained at its launch. Most probably one thing that is helping is that, as Valve stated last week, the Steam Frame is not only a headset for VR users, and many people are actually using it to play flat-screen games on a giant virtual screen.
All in all, seeing such an expensive headset that is still very supply-constrained, selling so well, is definitely good news for the whole XR ecosystem.
Jensen Huang had an affair
Everyone is talking about this: Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA, had an affair with a Chinese woman. As an Italian, I don’t think this is a big deal worth any headline. But what is making me and all the rest of the world grab the popcorns is discovering that his lover was actually a Chinese Spy, according to American Intelligence.
It’s not clear what the alleged spy was trying to do: she could be trying to get information, or to pressure Jensen to sell its AI chips to China. NVIDIA has launched an internal investigation about this, and it’s not clear what the consequences will be. It’s not to rule out the possibility that Jensen may lose his CEO status.
It’s still unclear what the consequences for the overall tech market will be, too. NVIDIA is the most powerful company in the AI market, and this earthquake may have ripple effects. In a period where Google lost a lot of money because AI is eating its ad business, and OpenAI has not been able to raise all the money it wanted, this could potentially cause the pop of the AI bubble. Let’s see…
More info (Jensen Huang’s spy affair — Bloomberg)
More info (Jensen Huang’s spy affair — NVIDIA Newsroom)
More info (Jensen Huang’s spy affair — Reddit)
News worth a mention
Greg Madison unveiled its latest genius work
Greg Madison has finally unveiled Sphenomenon, one of the most amazing mixed reality things I have tried in the last few years. Being the UX genius he is, he used an Apple Vision Pro to transform a big rubber gym ball into an interface for mixed reality. You can use the physical sphere as a controller, and use it to play games, to project visuals on your walls, to even see realistic 3D fruit inside it. It’s hard to explain Sphoenomenon to someone who has not tried it. Luckily, I was able to play with it at Greg’s house the last time I was in the US, and I can tell you that it is exactly how every one of us would like to see MR: a perfect blend of the real and the virtual. While playing it, you forget that you’re touching a gym ball, and you just start using your fingers on it as if it were both a VR screen and a VR controller. This is amazing. And it’s even better when you discover that Greg plans on opensourcing the code!
The chip and memory crisis is getting worse
The hunger of data centers for chips is not stopping, and we’re constantly seeing the consequences of it. And according to the CEO of Team Group, the situation won’t get better soon: on the contrary, he thinks that we can reach a point where not even money will be able to buy memory chips.
At the same time, after the RTX 5090, also the RTX 5080 has silently disappeared from the NVIDIA stores. Is NVIDIA retiring all its most powerful graphics cards to reconvert them into datacenter hardware?
(Thanks Rob Cole for the tips)
More info (Memory chip crisis is getting worse)
More info (RTX5080 is allegedly being retired)
Marques Brownlee “reviewed” the Meta VR Glasses
One of the links mostly shared with me this week has been the “review” of the Meta VR Glasses by Marques Brownlee. I say review in quotes, because it was not a true review to my standards. He mostly:
- Repeated a gazillion times that Apple is not making the Vision Pro anymore
- Showed a bit of the hardware
- Said it is cool
It is a very lightweight video that is good for a mainstream audience, but that can’t satisfy the VR nerd that is in me. But hey, we also need this content to make VR more mainstream. And still, I’ve found one interesting thing in his video: he showed the light blockers to use this device for VR without any visuals leaking from the outside.
More info (MKBHD’s review of Meta VR Glasses)
More info (The light blockers of Meta VR Glasses)
reGoggles are open smart glasses for the industry
An interesting project I discovered this week is reGoggles. These are AI smartglasses thought for industrial use cases. In fact, they are not small and lightweight, but they’re bulkier and more resistant, with protective glasses in front of the eyes. They are modular and open, so you can build the use case you want that employs audio and visual data analyzed by AI.
It’s a pity there are no real pictures of this device and the price is still undisclosed, so I guess they’re not ready for prime time yet.
Steam improved the image quality inside Steam Link
SteamVR users, rejoice. Valve has released a SteamVR beta update that improves the visual quality inside Steam Link, the PCVR solution offered by Valve that works in many headsets like Meta Quest, Pico, and Steam Frame. The improved image and text definition and better colors should bring benefits to everyone using this streaming software… in particular the new Steam Frame owners.
INMO teases INMO Future
INMO is teasing its upcoming AR glasses, called INMO Future. The features are not fully clear yet, but the fact that the promotional images talk about Unity, OpenXR, and WebXR makes me think that these will be true AR glasses and not just display glasses. The upcoming price will be $799 and the company will officially launch them with a Kickstarter campaign set to be started “soon”.
Quixel scans are becoming free to use
The full Quixel Megascans library is becoming completely free, and you can even use these assets to train your AI models. If you want some amazing environmental models, it is time to get them!
Some news about content
- PatchWorld 2.0 is the evolution of PatchXR, one of the most innovative musical XR experiences of the last few years. Now the team at PatchWorld has ported its application to PC, both VR and flat screen. It’s your time to jam with some friends!
- VR open-world zombie survival game Silent North is shutting down. After a pretty bad launch, this game was never able to recover
- In Death Unchained is going to separate its tower defense mode “Siege of Heaven” into a separate game
- The release date for Project Hail Mary: Journey Among the Stars has been revealed: it’s November, 12
More info (PatchWorld)
More info (Silent North)
More info (InDeath: Unchained)
More info (Project Hail Mary: Journey Among The Stars)
Some reviews about content
- Payday: Aces High is definitely one of the most awaited VR games of the year. Both Road To VR and Upload VR highlight that it is a good game, but it also has some flaws, like the fact that the AI of the characters is really bad. In general, anyway, being a co-op game, the enjoyment depends on the people you play it with!
More info (Payday: Aces High — Road To VR)
More info (Payday: Aces High — Upload VR)
Other news
VRChat is facing backlash after refusing to put an “AI” label on AI-generated worlds
Youtube VR may get a major redesign on Meta headsets
Latest Meta Quest PTC runtime brings a theater environment to watch videos and movies
Meta Partners with Lionsgate to Bring ‘The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping’ to Theaters and Meta VR Glasses in 3D
News from partners (and friends)
Have fun with Spinator!
SPINATOR is a free 1v1 table tennis game for Quest 3/3S by the French studio Immergence Studio. It runs entirely in the Quest browser (WebXR), with no store and no install, and can be played in mixed reality, with the table anchored in your room, or in VR on a night rooftop. You can challenge a friend with a simple link for an online match with voice chat and spectators, or train against 8 AI opponents. The studio built it as an experiment in AI-assisted development, with every part tested and refined by hand.
I have played a bit with this game, and I’ve found it a bit early stages, but already enjoyable. Give it a try!
Play it at playspinator.com!
Discover Slay The Tire!
Slay the Tire is a roguelike deckbuilder on two wheels, out on Steam on Thursday, November 12. It plays in PC VR on any OpenXR headset, seated with a gamepad and no motion controls: choose “Play in VR” when you launch it. If the store page still shows November 5, that’s being changed; the real date is November 12.
This is a free key for the first one that is able to get it: 2ZNDH-ZJRTI-TGPWN
Add it to your wishlist!
Have an early look at Hangar Valley!
I’m Joris, a solo developer. Hangar Valley Demo is out now on the Meta Horizon Store, free, for Quest 3 and 3S. You fly a small plane freely over the valley, a tutorial with a copilot walks you through the cold start, you can walk around the airfield, and the radio lets you talk with other players. It is pre-alpha and the full game is not out yet, so this is an early look.
Get it on the Meta Quest Store!
Some XR fun
There are so many super funny memes on Jensen Huang’s affair out there! I selected a few cool ones for you:
Funny link / 1
Funny link / 2
Funny link / 3
Funny link / 4
Funny link / 5
I hate this font
Funny link
Before Jensen, the target of memes was Sam…
Funny link
The battery of the Steam Frame
Funny link
A thank you and an invite
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(Header image by Pico)
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