(Credit: Florence Ion)
MOUNTAIN VIEW—During the Google IO 2026 keynote, Google announced its full push into smart glasses. The company has partnered with fashionable spectacle makers Gentle Monster and Warby Parker to develop wearable face devices with cameras, microphones, and speakers. The glasses can speak to you, summarize notifications and text, play music, and answer questions about whatever is in your line of sight. It's effectively the playbook from the Ray-Ban Metas, which I actually used at the conference to capture content.
But after a mostly screen-free demonstration with a pair of Warby Parker Android XR glasses, I realize access to Gemini will be one of the main selling points—and not just because Google is pushing this agentic future. If you have more than one Android device, it becomes a semi-synchronized dance between devices. It's almost like it's meant to lure you into a waltz with the ecosystem.
A Quick Demo With Android XR
(Credit: Florence Ion)I got to wear a pair of "in-progress" Warby Parker smart glasses with a single internal display, though most of the demonstration was audio-only. The first bit involved asking Gemini to play a song through YouTube Music. I asked for horsegiirL—well, first I asked for it on Spotify, then it offered it to me on YouTube Music, since this is all "in progress" and integrations haven't been entirely sorted yet. Regardless, Google assured me Spotify will be available to control through Android XR at launch.
One of the things I enjoy most about the Ray-Ban Metas is the ability to play music almost ambiently. However, it's whispery enough that I've forgotten the glasses have speakers in them and mistook the music for something off in the distance rather than right on my temple. Google's Warby Parker glasses have a little more presence; I could hear the bass from horsegiirL's hard-core track thump even in the raucous outdoor press room.
(Credit: Florence Ion)Then came the camera portion of the Android XR experience. I snapped a picture of the environment around me. A preview of the image popped up on the paired Pixel Watch, showing the second-screen capability of the wearable even when the glasses themselves have no display. After taking the photo, Gemini converted it into a rave scene, as I'd prompted it to, and delivered it straight to the Pixel phone connected to the glasses.
(Credit: Florence Ion)The "look and ask" feature of Android XR smartglasses is the exact manifestation of everything I've already attempted with Gemini and the Pixel Buds 2a. Except this time, there's a camera to point at things. The smart glasses offer Gemini a window into your world as you're moving about. It can then comment as you prompt it, and execute commands at will. I tried it with a recipe book, where I asked Gemini to save the steps of a page all about chocolate truffles. It then filed that away in my Google Keep.
I did get some singular display-based action in my time wearing the Warby Parker glasses at I/O. It was in Google Maps' navigation mode, and it mostly showcased the major polishing work Google has done since debuting Android XR. The interface appears simpler and easier to follow. But—and this is a big but—this feature also turned me off to the display-in-the-glasses mechanism. It took a second for my eyes to focus on the text on the screen, right in front of me. I don't wear prescription lenses, but I was already struggling in the hot sun, glare, and other visual distractions.
A pair of glasses with just a camera and a speaker hits that just-right point for a Goldilocks who wants access to Gemini without additional gimmicks. Gemini's strengths lie in its massive knowledge graph and its connections to all those other Google services that I have relied on for years. The point here is that you don't need a screen to access its benefits, which are an easier sell to someone like me who wants access to information, but only on the periphery. In the end, it's about which avenue is the least cumbersome—and having a device that already works with the rest of an ecosystem and can seamlessly slot into my life makes it more enticing.