Samsung has been quietly making smart glasses since 2023, and at MWC 2026 in Barcelona, Vice President Jay Kim finally gave some details to CNBC. Not everything (Samsung isn’t very generous), but enough to understand what the company is actually making.
The confirmed parts are as follows: The glasses have a camera positioned at eye level. That camera feeds what you see directly to your connected Galaxy smartphone, which does all the processing and sends useful information back to you. Glasses are eyes. Your phone is your brain.
Glasses are your eyes, phone is your brain
This is a smart way to keep the hardware light without sacrificing functionality, and is essentially the same approach Meta took with its Ray-Ban glasses. Ray-Ban glasses currently have the majority of the smart glasses market, so the playbook certainly works.
What Kim didn’t confirm is whether the glasses have a built-in display. He pointed to Samsung’s watches and phones for anyone who needs a screen. This is as close to a “no” answer you can get without actually saying it.
A separate report suggests that a display-equipped version could launch in 2027, bringing this year’s model closer to a camera- and AI-first experience.
Will there be a display?
The bigger pitch is that the AI actually does what it sees. Samsung wants glasses that can quietly handle tasks like browsing and translating restaurant menus, seeing landmarks and telling their history, and making reservations, messaging, and directions, all without taking your phone out of your pocket.
Qualcomm and Google have helped build the chips and software to make this happen starting in 2023.
As for when all this will actually come to fruition, Kim said Samsung wants something for the industry this year, while Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon reiterated the same 2026 promise at the same event. Specific date? It’s still anyone’s guess, but considering how much of a presence Samsung showed at MWC, it doesn’t seem too far off.