{"id":483209,"date":"2026-05-13T21:10:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T21:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/483209\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T21:10:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T21:10:14","slug":"samsungs-galaxy-xr-is-the-future-of-wearables-just-not-vr-headsets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/483209\/","title":{"rendered":"Samsung\u2019s Galaxy XR Is the Future of Wearables\u2014Just Not VR Headsets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Samsung\u2019s Galaxy XR headset<\/a> is not so much its own augmented reality experience but a promise of a better, lighter device. The first headset to feature Android XR<\/a>\u2014Google\u2019s adventure into \u201cextended reality\u201d devices\u2014is transformative in ways that don\u2019t make sense until we start to analyze the reality and possible future of \u201cfacial computing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Galaxy XR is relatively compact and lightweight\u2014but its only competition is bulky and unwieldy. Future versions of the Galaxy XR headset must become as small as a pair of glasses and as seamless as your regular phone. And Samsung already knows this.<\/p>\n

James Choi, the executive VP in charge of Samsung\u2019s XR R&D team, told Gizmodo over email that the entire design of the Galaxy XR \u201cestablishes a scalable ecosystem where core technologies and immersive AI experiences carry across headsets, glasses, and future formats.\u201d Samsung has been working on its first pair of smart glasses<\/a> that we may see in the coming months<\/a>. Recent rumors also suggest the company is designing a pair with some sort of screen. The seeds planted with the Galaxy XR will bud in the spring of new wearables.<\/p>\n

The Galaxy XR, which first launched more than six months ago today, is the most honest headset of this new slate of \u201cproductivity\u201d-centric XR gadgets. That sentence alone doesn\u2019t excite any joy in the brain, and that has to change. Samsung\u2019s headset feels unfinished. It\u2019s practically a tech demo that\u2019s still working out the bugs. It\u2019s also the first look at a future where XR devices are light and powerful\u2014a new ecosystem where gadgets are more in your face than any smartphone.<\/p>\n

A playground for the future
\n\"Samsung\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo<\/p>\n

When you shove the Galaxy XR on your head, you\u2019re looking through the lens of potential tech. Samsung likely did not expect this headset to take off. It costs $1,800 and relies mostly on passive experiences you can already do on a phone or PC. The few XR-centric capabilities are fleeting novelties. But it seems that beyond Apple\u2019s or even Meta\u2019s headset ventures, Samsung knows the Galaxy XR is a toy, or more practically, a playground full of nascent technologies brimming with potential.<\/p>\n

The problem is how to scale any of this so it works in a more compact device. The Galaxy XR was built as an answer to Apple\u2019s $3,500 Vision Pro<\/a>. Despite costing nearly half of Apple\u2019s \u201cspatial computer,\u201d Samsung\u2019s headset features many of the same eye and gesture tracking capabilities. It has some beautiful 4K micro OLED optics and thankfully nixes that silly \u201cEyeSight\u201d external display that Apple was adamant the Vision Pro needed.<\/p>\n

\"ScreenshotAndroid XR lets you access most regular Google apps as well as a slew of other 2D apps in virtual space. \u00a9 Samsung; screenshot by Gizmodo<\/p>\n

The Galaxy XR is built with comfort in mind, at least as much comfort as you can get when you wrap a frame of plastic, glass, and silicon around your noggin. There is a flexible foam pad that stretches around the back of your head and a removable cushion that holds up the device on your forehead. The ergonomics of the headset keep it from sitting on your nose or cheekbones, where it would be even more uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

Unlike other VR or XR headsets, there is no shield on the bottom of the headset to block out ambient light. It\u2019s designed to let you breathe\u2014almost like a pair of glasses. That being said, you\u2019re still front-loading your skull with 1.2 pounds of weight. Inside, you have two screens placed precariously close to your eyeballs, inevitably leading to eyestrain after a little more than an hour of use. You\u2019ll still miss the clarity of seeing your environment without the pixelation and warping of real-time video feeds. A headset is a headset, even if it\u2019s lighter and more comfortable than Apple\u2019s design.<\/p>\n

\"Samsung\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo<\/p>\n

By its nature, Android XR\u2014Google\u2019s first operating system for AR and MR (mixed reality) devices\u2014is less immersive on the Galaxy XR than if you tried similar apps on Apple\u2019s Vision Pro. Samsung promotes unique app features, like an \u201cImmersive View\u201d mode in Google Maps that lets you stand like a god above the Earth and then zoom in on individual streets. You can watch Netflix, HBO Max, and YouTube through dedicated apps, but it won\u2019t feel like a true movie theater experience when you keep glancing down at your IRL shoes.<\/p>\n

Samsung also spotlights the ability to use Google\u2019s \u201cCircle to Search\u201d in VR form. You can highlight objects and scenes in the air, and Gemini AI will answer your questions about it. Sure, Gemini would occasionally fail, like when it misidentified to the brand of the massive gaming PC on my desk (it was an iBuyPower Trace X<\/a> desktop), but at least it knows what downtown Manhattan looks like, even if it can\u2019t pinpoint the precise street. No, you won\u2019t be wearing this headset to help you navigate a place like New York, not if you don\u2019t want somebody to (deservedly) throw an egg at your $1,800 headset.<\/p>\n

Spatial controls are still a work in progress
\n\"SamsungNo light shield means this device is less immersive than other, similar headsets. That may be the point. \u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo<\/p>\n

The Galaxy XR supports two modes of control. You can use your hand to point and pinch at what you want to select or use Vision Pro-like eye tracking. Just like Apple\u2019s headset, you can rely on the GalaxyXR\u2019s 13 cameras and sensors to capture your pinch even if your hand is out of view.<\/p>\n

And it works just as well as Vision Pro, until it doesn\u2019t. Android XR is still in development<\/a>. Throughout my time using the Galaxy XR, I had routine issues simply selecting the settings menu using eye tracking and the pinch gesture. I couldn\u2019t always line up the right place I\u2019d need to pinch to drag windows around in AR space. Often, when I opened up one app on top of another, I\u2019d lose track of my original one until I moved my windows around.<\/p>\n

Samsung and Google are obviously still fine-tuning the user experience, but full individual finger tracking isn\u2019t on par with Meta\u2019s virtual keyboard<\/a>. \u201cAs the UX and UI continue to evolve, there is potential to expand this further towards more detailed finger tracking where it adds real value,\u201d Choi said.<\/p>\n

\"SamsungThe Galaxy XR includes some special experiences, like a special Google Earth \u201cImmersive\u201d view. \u00a9 Samsung; screenshot by Gizmodo<\/p>\n

These are small quibbles, but any foible of my time inside the headset is just a further reminder that my laptop offers a simpler, more streamlined experience. Whereas the Vision Pro was built for immersion, with a shield to block out most incoming light, the Galaxy XR keeps its headset completely open. This will necessarily impact the clarity from the optics. If all you want is a headset to stream 4K movies and shows, the Galaxy XR will be worse than the Vision Pro for daytime viewing.<\/p>\n

Though Samsung sent Gizmodo the Galaxy XR unit for our testing, it didn\u2019t include the separate $250 Galaxy XR controllers. On the outside, those VR gamepads appear like a direct copy of the Meta Quest 3\u2019s Touch Plus controllers, down to the placement of the side and menu buttons.<\/p>\n

There are few native games available to play on Android XR. The Google Play store highlights a few existing titles like Job Simulator and the virtual board game Demeo. You\u2019re otherwise incentivized to stream your content. Android XR has that capability built in. Just by going through the Quick Settings menus, there\u2019s a special Game Link app. It requires users to install Steam, SteamVR, and Samsung\u2019s VST Link app on a gaming-capable PC. Afterwards, you can hop straight into SteamVR, so long as you have comptaible controllers sitting around.<\/p>\n

\"SamsungYou can access SteamVR directly through a GalaxyXR headset. It\u2019s still not the best or cheapest way to play VR games. \u00a9 Samsung; screenshot by Gizmodo<\/p>\n

I will never complain about having more places to game. Then again, Samsung limits its native PC streaming experience exclusively to its Galaxy Book laptops<\/a>, similar to Vision Pro\u2019s Mac mirroring<\/a> feature. Still, streaming will always be limited to some degree. You can download other Android apps like GeForce Now or Xbox Cloud Gaming or go through other PC mirroring apps like Virtual Desktop.<\/p>\n

But this can\u2019t be a gaming-focused device. Choi said gaming on the Galaxy XR was just \u201cone small part of a broader experience.\u201d The Meta Quest 3S<\/a>, with its virtual storefront, makes it a better device for unique play experiences. Valve\u2019s upcoming Steam Frame<\/a>\u2014a VR headset packing no external cameras for any augmented reality content\u2014will likely be better for gaming.<\/p>\n

The computing dilemma
\n\"SamsungThe battery pack sits in your pocket. It helps reduce the weight, sure, but nobody wants a wire trailing from their skull. \u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo<\/p>\n

The Steam Frame will run on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, a nearly three-year-old mobile chip. Valve expects players to handle some 2D content natively (the paltry few games that can support an ARM-based chip or other less-demanding titles through emulation<\/a>), but in the end the company will want players to stream from a PC. As VR, AR, and XR technologies shrink and become more specialized, they will necessarily need to rely on outside computers that beam your content to the screens in front of your eyes.<\/p>\n

The Galaxy XR runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2<\/a> chip, which is just beefy enough for handling multiple apps in your field of view at once and processing the data from the 13 cameras and sensors. Since all you\u2019re doing inside the Galaxy XR is sitting around and streaming passive content, we may not need anything so powerful in a device that\u2019s more affordable and portable.<\/p>\n

In an exclusive interview, Ziad Asghar, Qualcomm\u2019s general manager of XR and wearables, told Gizmodo that the company is planning to unleash a whole slew of new chipsets designed around various kinds of AR devices, big and small. Google may share more details about its upcoming Android XR capabilities at Google I\/O 2026.<\/p>\n

Asghar leads the team that\u2019s developing the Snapdragon XR platform as well as the Snapdragon AR chips. The difference between those chipsets is evident based on which devices you\u2019ll find them in. Snapdragon XR, with its 3D reconstruction and 6 DoF (degrees of freedom) tracking, is built for higher-end, more powerful devices like the Galaxy XR. The smaller Snapdragon AR platform is made for smart glasses. Asghar said the end goal is to have both platforms become one\u2014though not likely any time soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what people are moving to is almost a disaggregated sort of a [mixed reality] device where they may have a puck of sorts that\u2019s on their belt, and then they might have a very light product that could be optical see-through capable or it could be video see-through capable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Samsung\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo<\/p>\n

The Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 is such a powerful chip that it needs a large external battery pack that connects to the headset to power it. On a full charge, you can net a little more than two hours with the headset, depending on what you\u2019re running.<\/p>\n

Choi said the Galaxy XR is supposed to offer the full multi-modal suite of possible XR experiences. Smart glasses, on the other hand, \u201cwill serve as the companion device that works alongside an AI phone, providing a more portable way to access those capabilities on the go.\u201d That requires Google and Samsung making exclusive experiences for both headsets and smart glasses, even if \u201cthe foundation will remain the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nobody wants to walk around with a battery pack in their pocket and a wire protruding from their skull. The difficulty will be shrinking everything for smaller form factors, whether that means running some apps on glasses or a headset and offloading heavier processes to another pocket-friendly device or the cloud.<\/p>\n

Qualcomm has already talked about small AI models, sometimes called \u201csmall language models,\u201d running on devices as tiny as a smartwatch or some other kind of AI-centric wearable<\/a> like a pin\/pendant or wireless earbuds. But the more important question is how we\u2019ll process content like video or intensive apps on compact smart glasses.<\/p>\n

The one option is a \u201ccompute puck.\u201d Meta\u2019s Orion concept AR smart glasses<\/a> wirelessly connected to a puck-shaped device to process more graphics-intensive apps. The other option is streaming. That could be from a dedicated phone, if it doesn\u2019t kill your phone battery or make it run hot enough to melt through your pants pocket. Will users truly want to carry around two devices for the sake of one experience?<\/p>\n

Judging by what\u2019s on the horizon, we\u2019ll find out soon enough.<\/p>\n

Gizmodo\u2019s The Next Interface<\/strong><\/a> is a weekly series that explores the exciting\u2014and perplexing\u2014world of wearables in all of its evolving form factors. From fitness bands and smartwatches that track your heart rate to wireless earbuds and headbands that read your brainwaves to smart glasses that shove the internet closer than ever to your eyeballs, we\u2019ll analyze them all with optimism and a healthy dose of skepticism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Samsung\u2019s Galaxy XR headset is not so much its own augmented reality experience but a promise of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[260],"tags":[29875,18,81803,19,17,1470,82,211328,286,287,288],"class_list":{"0":"post-483209","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-virtual-reality","8":"tag-android-xr","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-galaxy-xr","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-samsung","14":"tag-technology","15":"tag-the-next-interface","16":"tag-virtual-reality","17":"tag-virtualreality","18":"tag-vr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116569324732869978","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}