XREAL AURA puts Android XR in wired glasses, with no European date

This was a thin week for wearables. All three items below date from last week, and only one of them is a product. Glasses are the thread, from Google and XREAL’s Android XR model to Meta’s AI glasses.

We favour

XREAL AURA moves the processing into a puck

Google and XREAL launched the XREAL AURA on 28 October. Google calls it the first wired XR glasses powered by Android XR. The lenses are transparent, the field of view is 70 degrees, and the glasses weigh under 95 grams because the battery and the new Snapdragon Reality Elite chip sit in a separate compute puck on a cable.

Google says Gemini can see what you see, in the room and on your screens, and that the glasses run apps from Google Play, including over 150 made for XR. A laptop can show its screen as a window through a USB-C cable that carries video, with no software to install.

Orders for users aged 18 and over opened on 28 October in the US, Canada and Korea, and on 2 November in Japan, at launch pricing from $1,099 through the end of the year. US orders through the retailer ship from mid-November. Google names no European country and gives no European price, so a reader in Europe cannot order yet.

Source: Google

Why we favour it: it is the only new device in this week’s sources, and the maker puts the battery and the processor in a puck so the glasses stay under 95 grams, and pairs that with Wired Mirroring for a laptop screen. It is not for sale in Europe yet, so this is a favour for what to watch, not for what to buy.

Meta funds CNIB to put AI glasses in the hands of blind Canadians

On 29 October Meta announced a partnership with CNIB, a Canadian non-profit founded in 1918 for people affected by blindness. Meta funds the group to gather community feedback, train peers and produce accessible guides, and donates AI glasses through CNIB’s Come to Work programme.

The programme is Canadian and no product is announced, so there is no European price or availability to report. The release does say that Meta has donated Ray-Ban Meta glasses to every blind veteran in America and works with Vision Ireland, the one European link. It reads as accessibility outreach rather than a product update.

Source: Meta

Garmin names its health award winners after a summit in Bangkok

Garmin announced the 2026 Garmin Health Awards on 29 October, at the end of its Garmin Health Summit in Bangkok. The finalists came from 113 applications spanning 31 countries. Montefiore Einstein, a US cancer centre, won the Expert’s Choice award for trials that monitored daily activity with wearables in cancer patients. HeraMED, an Australian company working on women’s health, won the People’s Choice award.

No product was launched. The one European thread is research by Professor Francesco Pagnini, who works with the European Space Agency and the Italian Navy and presented early findings from Garmin wearable data. Garmin states that its wearables are consumer wellness devices, not medical devices. It is a business-to-business story and worth a line for anyone following where wrist data is heading.

Source: Garmin