Google Kills ‘Project Iris’ Augmented Reality Glasses Project

Google’s attempt to enter the augmented reality smart glasses market has apparently ended after several years of work on the project.

As Insider reports(Opens in a new window), people familiar with the matter are reporting Google killed the project, which is known internally as “Project Iris,” after parent company Alphabet cut 12,000 jobs back in January. Clay Bavor, Google’s vice president of AR/VR, also left the company back in March.

Project Iris first came to light in January last year and was expected to ship in early 2024. Google was developing what looked like a battery-powered pair of ski goggle running on a custom Google processor and Android combination. Only last year, Google acquired a startup specializing in tiny displays for augmented reality.

Google’s focus has now turned to producing the software stack required for augmented reality hardware, which it hopes to license to other companies. The internal codename for this project is “Betty,” and it’s being treated as the equivalent of Android, but specifically for AR devices.

The Iris hardware sounds like it was a similar concept to the Vision Pro headset, which Apple revealed earlier this month. We’re still trying to decide if it’s an AR or VR headset, though. Meta, on the other hand, is through announcing hardware for the moment and has instead decided to launch a subscription service for VR games.

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