After a long wait and lots of behind-the-scenes collaboration, Google and Samsung have finally revealed Google's Android XR platform and the first hardware to run it: Project Moohan, Samsung's mixed-reality headset.
If you just looked at the photo of the new Project Moohan headgear and did a double-take, you're not alone – it does look like a cross between Google's old Daydream VR headset and Apple's high-end Vision Pro goggles.
Google and Samsung revealed the platform and headset as a dev kit today, December 12. The pair also teased AR glasses, though there's no timeline for consumer availability. The Samsung Project Moohan headset is a different story, with Google and Samsung telling us in a presentation last week that "the first products based on this platform will launch in 2025".
It's been a long journey for both Samsung and Google, each of which have had their dalliances, and even long-term relationships, with VR, AR, and mixed-reality headgear. Samsung's commitment, until now, never really matched Google's, which famously launched Google Glass and, almost a decade later finally killed the project.
That failure apparently left Google undaunted. "We like many others have made some attempts [...] and I think the vision was correct but the technology wasn't quite ready," said Sameer Samat President of Android Ecosystem, Google. "But, importantly, we never stopped working on it."
The tipping point, as Google sees it, has been AI and the arrival Gemini, and Android XR is its "first platform built entirely for the Gemini era," said Samat.
Samsung and Google described Project Moohan as a headset that will feature the full range of XR experiences, from ones that are fully immersive to mixed reality. That makes sense when you consider that 'Moohan' means 'infinity' in Korean. The headset features eye and hand tracking, and will respond to voice queries.
Gemini, Google's generative artificial intelligence platform, will sit at the center of Google's AR system. "Gemini will see what you see and hear what you hear," said This stands in contrast to Apple's Vision Pro, which, though it integrates Apple Siri, does not have that level of awareness, at least not yet (Siri with Visual Intelligence on the iPhone 16 gets halfway there).
Samsung was somewhat mum on key Project Moohan specs, refusing to delve into details like price, weight, where the batteries live, and the imaging technology, beyond that it'll be "high resolution". I could see from the photos and videos that it's a mostly gray headset with a single band and supporting foam(?) around the back of the head (there may be a battery pack back there), and a glass front surrounded by a thin chrome bezel.
What we do know is that the silicon powering Project Moohan comes from the third party in this partnership: Qualcomm. Samsung didn't specify which chip or chips will be inside Project Moohan, but it stands to reason that we should expect the cutting-edge Snapdragon XR2.
Android XR will provide a visual experience inside Moohan that should be familiar to anyone who's experienced mixed reality inside the Apple Vision Pro or Meta's Quest headsets. In videos, I saw, floating app screens arrayed around the Project Moohan wearer, who was able to pinch and grab windows to move them around.
Google's Samat said Android XR will focus on customizability and immersion, natural multi-modal AI interactions, and "open collaboration with the existing XR communities." Google, though, did not say that Android XR will be open source.
Google is also focused on making sure that its native apps, like Gmail, Maps, Google TV, and YouTube, are ready for Android XR, and showed how YouTube could provide an immersive video viewing experience.
Even though the demo videos primarily focused on gesture control, the platform will come with controllers, and Android XR will support controller input on other devices when they arrive.
Speaking of other devices, we also got a glimpse of Samsung's AR glasses. In the video they looked similar to, say, the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses (and maybe smaller than Meta Orion). In the demo, the wearer could speak to the onboard Gemini and ask for directions, and the in-lens displays overlayed Google Maps turn-by-turn directions. There's no timeline for the delivery of these AR glasses.
Speaking to us about Android XR and Project Moohan, Kihwan Kim, Samsung's EVP and head of Immersive S/W R&D Group, told us, "This is just the beginning of our journey to create an entire XR ecosystem [...] we want to empower users to enhance everyday life in a whole new and incredibly immersive way. The possibilities are infinite and we are just getting started."
Starting today, developers will be able to take home these headsets, the new APIs, and an emulator that will allow them to build and port apps to new Android XR experiences. They'll be following behind a lineup of big-name partners who already have these, and are working on porting their apps and services to the system. These include Major League Baseball, Calm, Adobe, AmazeVR concerts, Naver, and Mirrorscape.
Project Moohan and the AR glasses tease are all just another reminder that 2025 could very much be the year of mixed reality for the masses.... maybe.
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