We're kicking off a monthly newsletter to bring you the latest from across XR and robotics.
New glasses landed at Apple, Snap, and Samsung this July. Developer platforms shipped quietly under the radar. There's something new no matter where your headset renders your POV (or where your robot renders its next move 🤖).
Each month, we'll walk you through the biggest updates from across the industry, the numbers that actually matter, and the events that are worth attending.
Along with that, we’ll keep you updated on our journey as Knoxlabs grows from a team of XR specialists to expanding beyond the scope of XR direct. We are expanding support for robotics, motion capture, virtual production and more in 2026!
We are so excited to be both connected and collaborating with all of you.
Welcome aboard.
- Taz & Taron
JUNE - JULY STATS
Before we get into the headlines, a quick gut check on where things actually stand. We track this stuff constantly, and a few data points from June and July stood out enough to lead with.
AR and smart glasses now make up 26% of industry coverage,up from 19% just a month earlier.(Source)
The humanoid robot market is projected to hit $6.24B in 2026,more than doubling toward $12B by 2030.(Source)
Teleoperation data collection now costs $118/hour,down 60% from $340/hour in 2024, putting a $50K–150K pilot within reach for most enterprises.(Source)
Global VR headset shipments fell 17% year-over-year in Q1 2026,tied to a lack of new product launches.(Source)
Takeaway for partners: glasses are pulling ahead in XR, and robotics data collection just crossed the price point where enterprise pilots make sense.
NEW TECH UPDATES
Apple's smart glasses could debut at WWDC 2027
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says Apple is planning to introduce its smart glasses at WWDC 2027.
This one follows the Meta and Samsung playbook: cameras, an onboard AI assistant, and a form factor that just looks like glasses.
What stands out is what Apple might cut.Gurman says the company is considering dropping photo and video capture entirely. The cameras would only feed the AI assistant, not let you record anything.(Source)
Snap introduces its first AR glasses: SPECS
Snap introduced SPECS at Augmented World Expo 2026, its first standalone AR glasses.
Dual Snapdragon processors split the work: one runs computer vision, the other handles Lens rendering. That gets you 7ms motion-to-photon latency and a 51-degree field of view through a redesigned waveguide display. Battery life is four hours of mixed use, 20 with the charging case.
The bigger story is the developer platform behind it:a new Native Development Kit, a Spatial Benchmark, and agentic Lens development through Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor. SPECS are up for pre-order and ship this fall in the US, UK, and France.(Source)
Apple's visionOS 27 turned out to be a much bigger update than its WWDC keynote let on.
Held object tracking now works on moving items at higher frame rates. IR LED tracking APIs let any hardware maker build accessories similar to PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers. RealityKit picks up native Gaussian splat rendering, real-time cloth simulation, and a Reverb Mesh API for physically accurate audio.(Source)
For developers,the more useful addition might be the Mac 3D Object Preview API. It brings Vision Pro support to Mac apps without a dedicated visionOS build.
Godot 4.7 Ships with production-ready XR Support
Godot 4.7 adds production-ready support for Android XR and Steam Frame right at launch, alongside HDR output, native Gaussian splat handling, and a new Asset Store.
For XR developers, the bigger win is under the hood. Vulkan subsampled images speed up foveated rendering enough that the team now recommends the Mobile renderer for new XR projects over Compatibility.(Source)
Galaxy Glasses app leak suggests launch is near
Leaked screenshots of Samsung's companion app give the first real look at Galaxy Glasses, the audio-only Android XR glasses built with Warby Parker. The app shows a wireless charging case and a software page branded "One UI XR," the same platform running on Galaxy XR.
Strings in the app also reference Galaxy Ring gesture controls, which hints the ring could double as an input device. Samsung and Google have already confirmed a launch before year end.(Source)
LATEST ROBOTICS NEWS
Tesla's Optimus division has picked up its first Virtuix Omni One Enterprise system.
Neither company has said what it's for, but Virtuix's platform supports training, simulation, and real-time robot teleoperation, letting an operator walk and turn in a small footprint while controlling a machine remotely.
It's one unit, so this reads as evaluation, not a rollout. Still worth watching: a major robotics program testing whether full-body movement adds something ordinary motion capture or controller-based teleop doesn't. (Source)
PARTNER NEWS
Partner offer: HMS Singray G2 early access program
While the Microsoft Hololens, Hololens 2 and now the Magic Leap headsets have entered the history books once and for all. Customers continue to have a need for pass-through AR capable headsets with use cases from healthcare to AEC and design review.
With the HMS Singray G2, we can now support customers that need a true AR pass-through experience forindustrial, commercial and field use cases.
Request a call with Knoxlabs and HMS to discuss your use case and validate the HMS Singray G2.
The number of Demo devices is extremely limited. First come, first serve for demo access.
MANUS gloves power Revo 3 teleoperation at WAIC 2026
MANUSattended the World Artificial Intelligence Conference 2026 in Shanghai, where BrainCo demonstrated its Revo 3 hand, a five-finger robotic hand with 21 independently actuated degrees of freedom, teleoperated live using MANUS gloves.
The gloves streamed joint angle, fingertip, and full hand skeleton data in one feed, giving BrainCo's team the flexibility to pick whichever representation fits each part of their platform.
It's a clear demonstration of what MANUS gloves are built for in robotics:capturing high-fidelity hand motion and translating it directly into control input and training data for humanoid manipulation research.(Source)
Knoxlabs carries the MANUS glove lineup →Check out here.
Varjo now delivers counter-drone training to Ukraine
Varjo has expanded its XR training support for the Ukrainian Armed Forces with Horizon Guardian,a counter-UAS simulator built by Applied Virtual Simulation and integrated with the Varjo XR-4 headset.
One trainee flies a first-person-view drone while another practices neutralizing it with a firearm, replicating the pace and pressure of a threat responsible for 70-80% of Ukrainian casualties.
The simulator builds on Varjo's broader work in the country, including 39 XR training systems delivered through its Fynd Reality partnership and an F-16 cockpit simulator with Dogfight Boss. A recent study at Ukraine's Military Institute of Tank Troops found 65% of cadets rated XR training as their most effective training platform.(Source)
We started the year by expanding our team, adding colleagues who will grow our partnerships and sales opportunities.
We continue expanding by identifying and onboarding more ISV partners from Italy, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the United States and Canada.
More partners = more XR solutions and Bundles.
Here’s a sneak peak at what our team has been cooking up since the beginning of the year.
Partner Portal
We’re continuing to make it easier to use the Knoxlabs Partner Portal. Now you can browse the catalog, place orders, review order status & history in one convenient location.
Templates for ISV partners: make it easier to create KITs that include everything from headsets to accessories and professional services for easy, scalable deployments.
Bundles for ISV partners: gives you the ability to build a unique solution around the XR headset of your choice and also make it available for customers to order online onKnoxlabs.com.
Custom request for ISV partners: Partners can request items NOT currently in the Knoxlabs catalog to build a Bundle, KIT or custom solution.
Knoxlabs empowers our partners to deliver complete solutions to their customers with Knoxlabs professional services.
Robotics
We naturally gravitated towards TeleOperations, the Robots pulled us in —> Over the last year, we've embedded with leading robotics companies on teleop infrastructure.
The Teleoperations stack can includes XR headsets, body tracking vests & suits, and gloves for detailed finger data capture.
What we kept running into: no reliable procurement and distribution layer for robotics hardware components, from dexterous hands to full humanoids. We're building that now, for the companies we already work with and the ones just entering the space.
Most recently, we helped Sunday Robotics scale their data collection pipeline to thousands of users, using XR and claw hardware to capture household task data for robot training.
Quick chat w/ our CEO,Taron Khachatryan
"Something I've been thinking about lately: the kind of minds XR attracts.
XR people are boundary-pushers // they came to this space because it was the edge of what technology could offer, a place where curiosity could actually move the frontier a little further.
It's the same instinct that drove the pioneers and adventurers of every era: always seeking the boundary, always pushing it forward. It reminds me of Ramanujan // the self-taught mathematician who wrote down theorems first and proofs later.
The ability to stand at imagination's end and imagine further, to make the jump without building the bridge first, and then build the bridge afterward. That's who these minds are. And I'm now seeing the exact same pattern in robotics - it's the new encapsulation of what's possible and what's about to be possible.
So here's my prediction: we're going to see a convergence of these minds, a flow from XR into robotics - founders and users alike. Robotics is where XR gets embodied and the boundary grows again.
We're Ramanujaning again. Fun times ahead - curiosity leads, as always."
UPCOMING EVENTS
Fall is packed. Here's where to show up - mark your calendars.
XR / AR / VR EVENTS
2026 European Humanoid Robots Summit.Stuttgart, Germany, Sept 9–11
Europe's biggest humanoid robotics event,moving from last year's sold-out Berlin edition to the Kultur- und Kongresszentrum Liederhalle in Stuttgart.
Expect 40+ exhibitors, 1,000+ industry decision-makers, and speakers from NVIDIA, Boston Dynamics, Google DeepMind, and BMW. Our partner, MANUS, is confirmed exhibiting here. The focus is commercialization, not just research: how humanoids move from lab demos to actual factory floors.
A joint conference on MicroLED and AR/VR display tech, covering light engines, waveguides, microdisplays, and optics. Basically, the hardware layer that makes AR/VR screens actually work.
Smaller and more technical than most XR events, focused on the display supply chain: manufacturers, materials, and equipment providers rather than end-user hardware. Good fit if you're tracking what's coming in next-gen optics before it hits finished. products.
Now in its 6th year, presented by ITIF and the XR Association at the AT&T Forum. Less about product, more about what regulators are thinking: privacy, child safety, AI, workforce impact, and national security as they relate to XR.
Worth attending if you're tracking where compliance and policy are headed, especially since this year's topics span everything from digital diplomacy to haptics and brain-computer interfaces.
Celebrating 20 years, this is the go-to event for commercial robotics developers, with 150+ exhibitors and speakers spanning humanoids, foundation models, and manipulation.
Confirmed speakers include Rodney Brooks (Robust AI), Jonathan Hurst (Agility), and reps from Apptronik, Amazon Robotics, and AGIBOT. More business-and-deployment focused than ROSCon's developer-first angle, good for tracking where commercial robotics investment and partnerships are headed next.
IEEE-RAS Humanoids Conference. Santa Clara, CA, Dec 7–9
The 25th edition of the field's longest-running academic conference on humanoid robots, running since 2000.
It's research-first, not commercial: mechatronics, control, perception, learning, human-robot interaction, and neuroscience as they apply to humanoids. If ROSCon is for developers and RoboBusiness is for buyers, this is where the underlying science gets published and debated.
Whether you're building in XR or robotics, or just figuring out where to start, our team's here to help. Reach out athttps://www.knoxlabs.com/pages/quoteor directly to our team.
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