Samsung wants to compete with Ray-Ban Meta! Will soon unveil smart glasses with a 12MP camera

Samsung had long spoken only in hints about its smart glasses. However, at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, it finally came out with concrete information. Jay Kim, Executive Vice President of Samsung’s mobile division, described in an interview with CNBC the basic concept of the device, which is expected to hit the market later this year.

Glasses see, phone thinks

The principle is simple: the glasses will have a built-in camera placed at eye level, which captures what you are looking at. The image is transmitted in real-time to a connected Galaxy phone, where all processing takes place using artificial intelligence. The phone then returns relevant information – such as a menu translation, monument identification, or navigation instructions.

This approach is not new – Meta Ray-Ban glasses do the same, currently holding 82% of the global smart glasses market according to Counterpoint Research. However, Samsung is betting that thanks to integration with the Galaxy ecosystem and connection to Google Gemini via the Android XR operating system, it will offer smarter and more useful AI functions.

Display? Samsung has other products for that

Perhaps the most interesting moment of the interview came when the moderator asked if the glasses would have a built-in display. Kim neither confirmed nor denied the question but added that Samsung has other devices for displaying content – watches and phones. This implies that the first generation of Samsung’s smart glasses will likely not have a display.

This makes sense for several reasons. Glasses without a display can be lighter, cheaper, and more socially acceptable. After all, Meta also sold its first generation of glasses without a display and only recently introduced the Ray-Ban Display Glasses variant with a monocular transparent panel.

When and for how much?

Kim stated that Samsung wants to have “something for the industry this year”. The same timeline was confirmed by Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, whose company supplies the chip platform. Samsung has been collaborating with Qualcomm and Google on the glasses since 2023 – the first result of this partnership was the Galaxy XR headset, which started selling last year for 1,800 dollars.

Fashion brands Gentle Monster and Warby Parker are involved in the design of the glasses, suggesting that Samsung does not want the result to look like a technological experiment. Earlier leaks spoke of a 12Mpx Sony IMX681 sensor as the main camera. Samsung has not yet disclosed the specific price or exact release date.

Would you get smart glasses from Samsung?

Source: SamMobile, Android Authority