Google’s smart glasses partner, Xreal, thinks it has finally mastered this notoriously difficult industry.

The smart glasses industry has long been a tortured dream of Silicon Valley. The premise is compelling enough: What if people didn’t have to look at their phones all day to take advantage of mobile computing, and could instead simply wear a lightweight computing device on their face? Science fiction fans (a demographic that is strong in the tech industry) can see this vision perfectly.

However, the industry – for much of the past decade – has been like a financial black hole huge investments sunk and made no profit.

“Everybody is losing money,” said Chi Xu, founder and CEO of Xreal, a smart glasses company that has long been a Google partner. I met Xu last week at Google’s I/O conference in Mountain View, where he was promoting Xreal’s Project Aura. This is his latest effort to create a functional set of XR glasses that people will actually want to use.

“Because it’s so difficult, here’s what we do,” he said.

To most of the industry, the problems with smart glasses seemed a bit obvious: a large, uncomfortable and socially awkward form factor, combined with trivially useful software. But now, industry insiders — including Xu — feel their business has turned a corner and may be reaching a tipping point.

This supposed inflection point has something to do with Meta starting a partnership with Ray-Ban in 2023. one of the first series of models which actually managed to sell many units. (However, it should be noted that division in charge of glasses, Reality Labs, still running at a huge loss.)

Now, as form factors shrink and software improves, Xu feels that Xreal could eventually become a leader in the space. “All the key pieces need to be ready — you need the hardware ready, the operating system needs to be ready, and then you need a great user interface,” Xu said.

Xreal’s newest model, the Aura, is a pair of wired smart glasses with built-in OLED displays, meaning you can watch high-quality videos in the frames themselves. Somewhat awkwardly, the Aura attaches to a ‘puck’ – essentially a phone-shaped mini-computer that powers the experience behind the glasses. When using it, you can simply slide it into your pocket.

But in exchange for the clumsiness of the disk, the user gets a wider variety fun experiences with glasses, including immersive Google Maps appA “painting app” that lets you create holographic images that only you can see through VR YouTube videos and hand-tracking powers. There is also reported games that can be (re)played via hand tracking and basic web surfing functionality.

“Whether you follow a floating recipe while cooking, setting up a personal workspace in a coffee shop, on an airplane, or watching a movie on a virtual big screen at home, the experience is seamless.” the company promises.

Xu also says that he envisions the device being used not only by the casual consumer, but also by professionals. “It’s not just about watching an NBA game in hologram format, but you can go to a coffee shop and do some work,” he said.

Currently, the glasses are only available to developers, but the plan is to make them commercially available later this year. Xreal is also working on an IPO, which is expected to happen before the end of 2026, although Xu declined to say much about that.

In the meantime, the company is working on making all that profit. Xu notes that his company is increasing its gross margin while reducing marketing and sales costs. “Next year is the year we can really get results,” he says.