The Greatest AR Flop Ever Is Again With a Pair of Good Glasses

If new {hardware} from Magic Leap was in your AR bingo card, congratulations, at this time is your day. Seems the once-buzzy AR firm is again in an enormous manner with a brand new prototype of AR smart glasses that’s being developed in tandem with Google, the tech firm that additionally made big promises with AR glasses and which also flopped hard. Whereas there isn’t a ton of knowledge on the prototype, there are some preliminary photos, and so they appear to be what you’d anticipate from a contemporary pair of sensible glasses with a show, which is to say, so much just like the Meta Ray-Ban Display.

Magic Leap is partnering with expertise leaders to speed up their AR glasses roadmap by way of deep experience and applied sciences that ship visuals which can be secure, crisp, and clear. This week at @FIIKSA , @magicleap and @Google are unveiling an AR glasses prototype constructed as a… pic.twitter.com/05bQCt0gQn

— Magic Leap (@magicleap) October 29, 2025

Whereas the brand new {hardware} could really feel prefer it’s coming from left subject, Magic Leap and Google truly announced a partnership last year, which they’re now renewing, given Google’s pointed curiosity in XR {hardware} and software program. The small print are nonetheless sparse, however most likely probably the most telling part of Magic Leap’s announcement is that this one:

By combining Magic Leap’s waveguides and optics with Google’s Raxium microLED mild engine, the 2 corporations are growing show applied sciences that make all-day, wearable AR extra achievable. Magic Leap’s system providers combine show {hardware} to make sure visuals are secure, crisp, and clear.

Appears to be like like, whereas Magic Leap is specializing in the waveguides (the display contained in the sensible glasses), Google is specializing in software program, which isn’t surprising given the launch of Android XR, Google’s AR-focused platform that’s getting used on new headsets like Samsung’s Galaxy XR. What is perhaps somewhat surprising is the truth that Magic Leap has entered the AR chat given its historical past of, properly… failing to do this in varied methods.

Whereas Magic Leap was valued at an estimated $4.5 billion in 2016, the corporate truly solely ever put out two actual AR headsets. First, there was the Magic Leap One in 2018, which was met with fairly widespread disappointment, and regardless of making its method to retail by way of AT&T, by no means achieved any form of mainstream success. The follow-up in 2022 was the $3,300 Magic Leap 2, which was much more area of interest, with an enterprise focus, and, to nobody’s shock, flopped equally as exhausting as the corporate’s first endeavor. Magic Leap stopped supporting its first headset altogether practically a yr in the past in December 2024.

This, as you might have gleaned, isn’t a stellar monitor file, which ought to provide you with some pause on whether or not Magic Leap can actually make issues work this time round. That being mentioned, regardless of Magic Leap’s failure to ship, a lot of corporations with much less expertise and missing the assets of Google are managing to make AR glasses work, so perhaps this is the second Magic Leap has been ready for. I wouldn’t put cash on it, however perhaps, simply perhaps, there’s an opportunity.

Unsurprisingly, there’s no launch date or something like that but, however Magic Leap plans to debut the AR glasses at FII, a convention for future tech that’s at the moment ongoing in Saudi Arabia. What do you assume? Are you taking the (magic) leap of religion this time?