Apple has surveyed some owners of its Vision Pro headset about their ownership of competing headsets and smart glasses, like Meta Ray-Bans.
Apple doesn’t have smart glasses, but rumors from multiple sources claim the company is developing several digital glasses that would compete with similar accessories such as Meta Ray-Bans and Amazon Echo Frames.
The company allegedly sent a survey today to a small number of Vision Pro owners about competing headsets, accessories and digital glasses, with one question asking respondents whether they owned the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses, the Amazon Echo Frames or the Snapchat Spectacles.
Apple surveyed Vision Pro owners about smart glasses
The survey predominantly focused on the Vision Pro, with questions encompassing technical topics like screen resolution and issues like fit. One of the questions deals with Guest Mode. Apple improved Guest Mode recently by permitting Vision Pro owners to select the apps that will be available during a guest session.
There were specific questions about competing mixed reality and virtual reality headsets, along with a question about smart glasses. Users were asked if they owned the following: Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest Pro, Other Meta Quest headset, PlayStation VR, Valve Index or ByteDance Pro. As for smart glasses, Apple asked about the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses, the Amazon Echo Frames and the Snapchat Spectacles.
Other questions asked about the new Vision Pro companion app for the iPhone, released alongside visionOS 2.4 in April, and Vision Pro accessories that respondents use with their headset. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman claims that Apple is currently not building its own motion controller for the Vision Pro. Instead, the visionOS 26 operating system coming in the fall will expand existing controller support to Sony’s VR2 Sense motion controller.
But if Apple sees enough demand for third-party motion controllers from Vision Pro owners, it could decide to release first-party accessories at some point.
Apple smart glasses are coming, but when?
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman thinks Apple will release its first smart glasses in 2026. However, industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes they’re coming in 2027, with mass production scheduled for the second quarter of 2027 ahead of launch that fall.
Features should be similar to Meta Ray-Bans: notifications, voice control, gestures, music playback, taking photos, recording videos, AI-powered environmental awareness and no built-in display (with voice as the primary input method).
Kuo claims Apple will release an enhanced model in 2028, featuring a color liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCoS) display with waveguide optics and AI as the key feature.
Gurman claims Apple is also working on true augmented reality glasses that wouldn’t require a paired iPhone and would have a built-in transparent display to overlay directions, notifications and more onto the user’s field of view. However, those are at least a few years away as the technology isn’t there yet.