Summer hasn’t been a particularly quiet time this year in the field of augmented reality and XR. There aren’t any big announcements, but several pieces of news are preparing us for a interesting final quarter. The most notable element remains the investment announcements, which, for the first time since 2023, seem to be on the rise again. RealSense, Hololight, CREAL, Mentra, and XPANCEO have announced new rounds, while Meta has injected more than $3 billion into EssilorLuxottica! Several strategic partnerships have also been made public, and several well-known names in the sector have changed positions. As you can see, things are accelerating.
Since summer is a time for reflection, we suggest you reflect on this surge in investments and the consequences for companies in the ecosystem because, it should be noted, the conditions for raising funds have changed profoundly. Other questions that require a little perspective: What is the future of the smart glasses market? Is AR becoming the trendy technology of XR? Interesting, isn’t it?
On the hardware side, smart glasses announcements continue with models from Alibaba and Xiaomi, and perhaps a market debut from ByteDance via Pico. Nothing is certain, but all manufacturers seem keen to offer their models. We’ll likely have some surprises at SIGGRAPH 2025, since Meta has already shown off some prototypes that will be showcased there.
In terms of uses, we have new examples of deployment in several sectors, with the security and defense sector in full swing. Also worth noting are the artist Latchi’s experiments with Ray-Ban Meta to guide the blind and Sacha Goldberger’s very clever use of AR for his « Augmented Solitude » exhibition.
See you in a month!
Jobs
- [CDI] Augmented Reality Software Engineer – Booz Allen – Lorton (USA) July 31, 2025
- [internship] Virtual Reality “Lab” Project Manager – AIR France-KML – Roissy July 27, 2025
- [CDD] Thesis “Contribution of immersive technologies for a public hospital in transition: the case of the Hospices Civils de Beaune” July 26, 2025
- [internship] Communication and Digital Marketing Assistant (M/F) – Framatome – Lyon July 21, 2025
- [CDI] German Speaking CS for Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality Department – Patrique Mercier Recruitment PT – Athens July 2, 2025
Future events
- Visual Positioning Systems Unveiled: What Every Enterprise Needs to Know Now – Sep 10 2025 – online
- PXN Forum 2025 – September 25-26, 2025 – Nantes
- EuroXR 2025 – September 3rd to 5th – Winterthur
- Meta Connect 2025 – September 17 – 18 – online / Menlo Park
- Best in XR Education (VRARA Edu Summit 2025) – Oct 23, 2025 – online
- STACKxDays | AI & XR Developer Conference – October 28-30, 2025 – San Diego
- XR DAYS 2025 – The Industrial Hive – October 14-15 – Vénissieux
- Nordic VR Forum 2025 – 13–15 October – Hamar, Norway
- nextReality.festival – November 5 – 6 – Hamburg
- MatchXR 2025 – November 18th – Helsinki
- Immersive X 2025 – November 11 – 13 – Virtual
- United XR Europe – 8 – 10 December – Brussels
- Laval Virtual 2026 – April 8-10, 2026 – Laval, France
- Shift Medical 2026 – May 20 – 22 – Heidelberg
Looking for the full list of curated links and detailed analysis?
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