AWE 2026 is in full swing in Long Beach, California, and the biggest AR/XR conference of the year is delivering a flood of smart glasses news. From privacy-focused Linux-based eyewear to AI avatars on XREAL’s upcoming Aura glasses, here are the highlights.

Raven Prism: Privacy-Focused Linux Smart Glasses

One of the most intriguing announcements is the Raven Prism, a pair of smart glasses running a Linux-based operating system with a focus on user privacy and hackability. The glasses feature standalone 64-bit ARM processing, expandability via custom accessory ports, and swappable “Raven Wing” hot-swappable battery arms for continuous use. They also include a physical camera cover — a simple feature that surprisingly few smart glasses offer. With a 30-degree field-of-view single color display and eye tracking, the Raven Prism is positioning itself as the open-source alternative to big tech’s walled-garden smart glasses.

XREAL Aura: 3D AI Avatars on Qualcomm’s New Chip

XREAL’s upcoming Aura glasses, powered by Google’s Android XR and Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon Reality Elite chip, demonstrated a striking use case: a Gaussian splat 3D scan of a person turned into a talking-head AI avatar, all running on the Aura’s processing puck. CNET’s Scott Stein chatted with the floating head, which could be resized and repositioned with hand tracking, and asked it for directions — the AI responded with a 3D map of the show floor. While the avatar quality is lower than Apple’s Vision Pro Personas, it shows what’s possible with on-device AI in glasses form factors.

Mudra Pro: Neural Band With Heart Rate Sensing

Wearable Devices showed off its Mudra Pro research platform, combining PPG optical heart rate monitoring with four EMG (electromyography) sensors for neural gesture detection. A new Mudra Studio platform allows developers to customize neural band inputs for games, training apps, and more — potentially registering intentions to move before the action even happens. The next version plans eight EMG sensors plus an EDA sensor for sweat level detection.

Qualcomm Demos Face Recognition on Smart Glasses

Qualcomm’s booth demonstrated face recognition running on TCL RayNeo X3 Pro glasses powered by its AR1 Gen 1 chip. The demo focused on workplace applications — an opt-in system that recognizes coworkers and displays name cards — but it’s a reminder that the technology is already here, even as Meta faces scrutiny over potential face tracking features in its Ray-Ban glasses.

The Bigger Picture

AWE 2026 makes one thing clear: smart glasses are no longer a future promise. With Google launching Android XR glasses this fall, Snap shipping its new Specs, Meta dominating the audio glasses market, and Apple’s entry reportedly set for next year, the wearable display wars are officially underway.

Source: CNET