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Show: Spatial Realities (english)

Understand the next computing revolution! Spatial Realities is your update on everything related to Extended Reality (XR), Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Spatial Computing, and the Metaverse.

Tech Journalist Thomas Riedel, together with co-hosts and guests, takes you behind the scenes of major platforms (Apple, Meta, Google, Samsung, HTC Vive, Snap, and more). We discuss trends such as AI glasses, Generative AI, or Gaussian Splatting, and highlight developments that matter to both the B2B industry and gaming enthusiasts.

Our topics at a glance:

🚀 Strategy & News: Current developments surrounding visionOS, HorizonOS, Android XR, SnapOS, OpenXR, and much more.

🛠 Industry Insights: How companies are already utilizing XR for training, design, and collaboration today.

🌐 Open Standards: What organizations like the Metaverse Standards Forum and the Alliance for Open USD are doing and why it matters.

🧠 UX & Design: What defines a truly great immersive experience?

From ethical questions to hardware analysis: We draw a comprehensive picture of the XR industry.

Subscribe to Spatial Realities for deep dives and relevant news from the world of spatial computers.

📝 Note regarding release schedule: This feed focuses on select English-language interviews and specials. Updates here may be less frequent. Do you speak German? Check out our main feed „Spatial Realities (Deutsch)“ for weekly updates and over 120 episodes covering the entire XR landscape.

  • E136 – AI Glasses Hackathon & IFA Recap, Hardware News with HTC VIVE Eagle and RayNeo iO and NextApp Feature with Greg Fawsom
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    Thomas Riedel
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    Thomas Bedenk
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    Greg Fawson

    IFA BERLIN RECAP

    In this Episode Thomas Riedel and Thomas Bedenk share their takeaways from IFA Berlin, balancing stage debates on the societal impact and privacy of smart glasses with hands-on tests of new hardware from RayNeo, Rokid and Meta. Cutting through the show floor’s generic gadget noise, they highlight Android XR as a much-needed unifying layer to standardize development across fragmented wearable form factors.

    HARDWARE NEWS & INDUSTRY ANNOUNCEMENTS

    HTC is doubling down on smart glasses as traditional revenue streams decline, expanding the Vive Eagle into North America, Europe, and Australia. We examine its rounded Panto design, slow-motion capture, and snap-on magnetic battery, alongside the viability of its post-trial AI subscriptions. They also look ahead to Meta’s newly announced workflow tool Muse and its upcoming glasses integration, followed by expectations for Apple’s imminent product event. Because if the ApirPod Cameras are coming that is Spatial Computing!

    FEATURE: NEXTAPP DEVCON & BRIDGING MOBILE, GAMING, AND XR

    Where will the developer base for mass-market XR originate? NextApp CEO Greg Fawson traces the event’s journey from Berlin’s 2009 Android meetups to a cross-platform summit, arguing that mainstream mobile engineers hold the real key to scaling spatial software. Previewing the upcoming three-day conference, the discussion covers dedicated tracks for XR, mobile gaming, and agentic AI coding, emphasizing the need for open community exchange to solve shared platform bottlenecks.

    Get your tickets for NextAppCon here:

    • Get one of 10 free ticket with the code spatialfree
    • Get one of 100 tickets for 50% with the code spatial50

    GenAI transparency notification: For this episode the audio of Greg has been optimized using the speach improvement tool of Adobe Podcast. No edits have been made with GenAI and no additional content was generated. All edits are made by hand with Adobe Audition.

  • E135 – The Headset-Prizes-Game, Bitkom AI Glasses Poll and how to develop for Snap Specs with Ines Hilz & Andrew Douglas (SunfloVR)
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    Thomas Riedel
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    Thomas Bedenk
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    Ines Hilz
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    Andrew Douglas

    INTERVIEW

    What do you do when you meet somebody at a hackathon you work really well with? You found a new company! That is exactly what Ines Hilz and Andrew Douglas did after teaming up at a Meta Hackathon in London, going on to launch Sunflower VR and develop their new AI-driven AR try-on mirror, Aeva Display. In the interview, they delve into developing within Snap’s ecosystem, highlighting how Lens Studio’s AI-assisted toolset, agentic workflows, and environmental tracking features empower creators. Finally, they share crucial advice for hackathon participants developing for Snap Spectacles, emphasizing the necessity of testing frequently on-device to properly calibrate typography, color palettes, and transparency for additive holographic displays.

    Tipp: How to utilize the Snap Spectacles to simulate AI Glasses to controll your local Ai Agents from anywhere just using the glasses.

    Join the challenge now!

    NEWS

    Shownotes

    GenAI transparency notification: For this episode the audio of the three guests has been optimized using the speach improvement tool of Adobe Podcst. No edits have been made with GenAI and no additional content was generated. All edits are made by hand with Adobe Audition.

  • E134 – Developing for AI Glasses + AI Glasses News with Christoph Spinger from Telekom MMS
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    Thomas Riedel
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    Christoph Spinger

    Interview

    Christoph Spinger is an XR Expert Engineer at Telekom MMS. When he isn’t leading teams and building cutting-edge products for clients, he regularly takes home prizes at contests and hackathons. Most recently, he won the XRCC Hackathon, currently the most important XR hackathon in Germany. His winning entry, „Handslation“, translates any object you hold in your hand to help you learn a new language. In his case: Korean. He built the app for both the Pico 4 Ultra and the Rokid AI glasses.

    Another highlight from his portfolio is Ballee, an experimental project exploring real-time object detection by bringing physical balls into interactive mixed reality scenarios.

    As one of the most active XR developers in the scene today, Christoph will be joining the upcoming AI Hackathon at STARTPLATZ (Sept 4–6 in Cologne) as a mentor and jury member for the „Contextual AI Challenge“ track. So you can really profit from his experience and excellence!

    Join the challenge now!

    To get participants hyped and prepared, Christoph sits down with us to share his personal hackathon playbook and insider dev tips:

    • App Inspiration: One fascinating „True Crime“ app concept for location-based AI glasses that Kristoff hasn’t built yet—and wants you to steal for the hackathon!
    • The 48-Hour Hardware Playbook: What is the exact step-by-step strategy when building for AI & AR glasses under time pressure?
    • Time Allocation: Why half of your hackathon time shouldn’t be spent on coding at all—and what you should do instead to impress the jury.
    • Team Dynamics: How to find the right teammates on-site in under 10 seconds.
    • Dev Workflow & AI Tooling: Why you don’t need to be a full game developer or native engineer anymore to build smart glasses apps, and how AI code editors like Cursor change the game.
    • Hardware Realities: The hidden technical bottlenecks (like Bluetooth speeds) you must consider when connecting smart glasses to a phone.

    We also discussed these news:

    • Samsung unveils more Smart Glasses designs at Samsung Unwrapped, July 22nd
    • OpenAI interested in Smart Glasses, says OpenAI President Greg Brockman. But makes that sense?
    • Essilor Luxottica, which is partnering with Meta to manufacture the most successful Ai glasses of all times the Meta Ray-Ban, is talking sales numbers: exponential and almost double than comparable time last year.

    Shownotes

  • E133 – Meta’s Glasses Drama, Even Realities Hits Unicorn Status & UBTECH’s Creepy Companion
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    Thomas Riedel
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    Thomas Bedenk

    With the summer holidays just around the corner, we gather for one last comprehensive round of XR news before the seasonal slowdown.

    → Inspired by Josef Erl’s latest newsletter on heise.de — where he declares the end of all-rounder headsets and proposes four new VR categories — Thomas and I discuss what the upcoming autumn hardware wave will actually deliver.

    → We also untangle the latest rumors surrounding Meta’s smart glasses: from „supersensing“ devices without privacy LEDs switched off to Meta’s aggressive countermeasures against hardware tampering. Plus: Meta is testing paid AI subscriptions. Meanwhile, Illinois has banned smart glasses behind the wheel entirely—we analyze the reasoning behind this drastic move.

    → In financial news, Even Realities has officially reached unicorn status with a new $150 million investment round. We look at why their camera-free, monochrome display approach is winning over investors.

    → Furthermore, the first dedicated Metaverse browser Artemis has launched, Thomas is explaining what it can actually do and we share our initial impressions.

    → Finally, we look at UBTECH’s new U1 companion. Is this humanoid robot genuinely the future of home assistance, or is it just a highly uncanny, overly flexible smart speaker on legs?

    Whatever you do this summer: Keep a cool head and be prepared. For that we suggest our XR calendar with all XR events you need.

    Shownotes

  • E132 – Meta goes Store Brand: Introducing Meta Glasses
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    Thomas Riedel
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    Thomas Bedenk

    The strategy to go with an already well-established brand has been contested by its own creator: Meta introduced Meta Ray-Ban glasses three years ago and created a blueprint which was supposed to explain why suddenly a lot of normal, non-XR people were buying AI glasses.

    Now, Meta has announced Meta Glasses; their own „store brand,“ cheaper but supposedly as good as the branded version, which challenges that blueprint. Thomas Bedenk and I, as well as many of you out there, have been asking why Meta is doing that. Sure, cheaper might always be better for wider adoption. Removing a designer glasses brand can make a product cheaper. But will it also remove the appeal? Will people wear glasses with a Meta logo on them? Was Meta forced to go cheaper because the trajectory already showed signs of slowing down? And what role does EssilorLuxottica play in this?

    The long-time partner, which is 3% owned by Meta and has a 10-year deal signed up to 2034, is not only profiting hugely from that cooperation. It is also in a situation where it could put pressure on its partner. The Italian-French corporation EssilorLuxottica might even be concerned about its own brand integrity regarding what Meta is doing concerning privacy and AI. Maybe EssilorLuxottica halted further brand cooperation without retracting access to its production facilities, we speculate.

    In this episode, we are analyzing Meta’s newest attempt in the smart glasses industry it created, and we share a clear position on whether you should buy these now-cheapest, but still great-looking, smart glasses.

    Shownotes

  • Special – The New Snap Specs: Premium consumer design AR in 132 Grams of Plastic Titanium
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    Thomas Riedel
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    Thomas Bedenk

    And here they are! In this special episode of Spatial Realities we dive into the highly anticipated reveal of the new Snap Specs at the AWE 2026 conference. We take a close look at the hardware of this new AR device, exploring how its weight, display technology, and pricing compare to previous generations and competitors on the market. We also discuss the newly introduced AI-driven Lens Studio tools and what they mean for the developer ecosystem. Join us as we evaluate the real-world implications of its battery life, discuss the availability of compelling consumer use cases, and analyze Snap’s privacy concepts. Tune in to hear our views on whether these glasses are poised to become finally a mainstream success we all have been waiting for.

    Shownotes

  • E130 – What’s up, OpenXR? with Frédéric Plourde
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    Thomas Riedel
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    Thomas Bedenk
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    Frédéric Plourde

    This interview was originally sourced during my coverage of XR Expo.

    Frédéric is always wearing two hats, he repeats whenever he can. One is as the head of the XR Division at Collabora. The other is the hat of an Outreach Officer for OpenXR. When you work with him as a journalist, you recognize that immediately. He is always aware of what he can and cannot say, driven by the politics within his organizations. That includes negotiations about which passages stay in the podcast and which do not. Only three small parts were removed from our original recording due to that process. None of them are important for normal people, but very important for people within the OpenXR cosmos, it seems.

    Why do I mention this? Working on standards like OpenXR is a matter of politics—between big corps, open-source evangelists, and XR enthusiasts. That is what I learned after the podcast recording.

    In this interview, Thomas Bedenk and I try to get a feeling of where OpenXR stands, how it has developed over the last couple of years, and where it is heading. OpenXR was built in 2017 with the vision to clean up a landscape of messy SDKs. In 2019, version 1.0 was released. But it has only been within the last 18 months that OpenXR has become the quasi-standard for XR development.

    The reason behind this is not only the existence of standards, but that major stakeholders committed to OpenXR. Google, Meta, Valve, and Pico recognized the necessity of common ground for development. Unity and Unreal committed to OpenXR as their primary interface.

    But standards alone are not enough if you really want to develop effectively. Monado delivers an open-source runtime which is used throughout the industry. As head of XR, Frédéric and his team are responsible for Monado. Monado is a cross-platform, open-source runtime that implements the OpenXR API to communicate directly with XR hardware like headsets, displays, and trackers. Unlike proprietary systems, its code is fully accessible to the public and is used by major tech companies as the foundational layer for their own XR ecosystems.

    Although many of the organization’s current projects are restricted by NDAs, Frédéric shared insights into a major upcoming feature called multi-app support. This feature will provide a standardized way for multiple independent XR applications to coexist and interact realistically in the same physical space, enabling scenarios like a virtual Pokémon from one app correctly occluding a floating calendar from another.

    Shownotes

    The sponsor of this issue: IMMERSIVE X

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    Would you like to participate or submit a session yourself? Registration is already open. https://immersive-x.de/

  • E125 – Will AR glasses kickstart the metaverse? Sean Mann about the Open Metaverse Browser Initiative
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    Thomas Riedel
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    Thomas Bedenk
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    Sean Mann

    📅 Just one day after RP1 and the Metaverse Standards Forum (MSF) announced the Open Metaverse Browser Initiative, Meta announced the discontinuation of the VR version of Meta Horizon Worlds. What might look like bad timing from a PR perspective actually confirmed that these two partners were on the right track. RP1 and MSF are leading an initiative to develop a browser tailored for the upcoming wave of Augmented Reality glasses.

    A new narrative has emerged: a metaverse driven primarily by AR glasses.

    For years, Meta dominated the XR industry with an aggressive strategy to own XR and build a proprietary ecosystem, primarily in Mixed Reality and for the Metaverse. However, it wasn’t just industry partners who resisted; there was also little consumer traction beyond some minor, linear growth. In 2025, Meta tried to push Horizon Worlds into the market, a move that not only puzzled but even antagonized game developers. For the press the latest actions by Meta confirms that at least the Vr metaverse has failed.

    Now, with that focus shifting and Meta pulling back – though not exiting the industry, but refocusing on promising new wearables like AI and AR glasses – the hardware landscape is expanding. Over 30 manufacturers are working on such devices, and more than 50 are already on the market. More are expected from Google, Samsung, Xreal, HTC, and Apple.

    But how do you build such an Open Metaverse Browser? The traditional DOM architecture doesn’t work when you want to connect virtual objects in an AR metaverse. You have to move away from monolithic game engines, navigate the limitations of WebXR technology, and somehow manage real-world ownership of locations. Not to mention having to convince everyone that this strategy is the right path to take.

    That is the job of Sean Mann. The Co-Founder and CEO of RP1, and now Board Member of the Metaverse Standards Forum, delivers more than one enthusiastic speech in this episode about how they plan to achieve this and why it is the way to go.

    Shownotes

  • E120 – Inside Cookmate: Developing for Snap Spectacles and The Futures of Smart Glasses with Kanzul Fatima Arif from Headraft
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    Thomas Riedel
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    Thomas Bedenk
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    Kanzul Fatima Arif

    Not much is known about Snap’s next device, except what CEO Evan Spiegel shared last year during their annual Lens Fest. The device promises to be better, smaller, more beautiful, and so on. Sure 🙂

    If there is one person outside of Snap who is best positioned to know what’s going on at the company and how they work, it might be Kanzul Fatima Arif. As the Head of Innovation at Headraft, she worked closely with Snap to develop Cookmate, a hero project for the American social media and XR leader, which is showcased whenever possible.

    That is because the app truly impresses with its stellar user interface on the 5th generation Snap Spectacles. While developing Cookmate, Kanzul and her team worked so closely with Snap that she was actually able to influence their development. For example, how pinned objects behave, how fonts are readable best of the Spectacles or how face tracking works for diverse skin tones.

    At the beginning of this episode, Kanzul tells us her personal XR story: the moving and empowering journey of an Pakistani woman who discovers the power of AR to process her own history. She also provides a deep dive into how Headraft handled the shutdown of Spark AR and the situation with 8th Wall and what the agency’s strategy looks like now. Finally, she describes in great detail how the team developed Cookmate, which meant stepping away from traditional game development methodologies.

    Shownotes

  • E117 – UnitedXR: The State of the Metaverse Standards Forum, Standards for AI and what about Apple? with Neil Trevett
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    Thomas Riedel
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    Neil Trevett

    Summary

    Today, we are heading to Brussels. At the premiere of UnitedXR (YouTube →), I sat down with an absolute heavyweight of the industry: Neil Trevett.

    If you work in graphics, you know Neil. He is the VP of Developer Ecosystems at NVIDIA, President of the Khronos Group, and Chair of the Metaverse Standards Forum.

    In this conversation, we dive deep into three key topics: First, the current state of the Metaverse Standards Forum. Second, Apple’s role in XR—and specifically the tension between the USD and glTF file formats. And finally, how standard organizations are handling the explosion of AI assets and new tech like Gaussian Splatting.

    This interview is essential listening if you want to understand the strategic side of XR and how to navigate the competing narratives in our industry.

    1. Reorganization of the Metaverse Standards Forum Trevett explains that the Forum is being streamlined based on initial experiences. Originally, they started with 18 different working groups to identify where the most interest lay. However, due to gaps and overlaps, these groups are now being consolidated into five core areas:

    • 3D Assets: Formats like glTF and USD, as well as topics like avatars.

    • Spatial Computing: Sensing, IoT, and connectivity.

    • Artificial Intelligence (AI): A horizontal topic that touches all areas.

    • Regulation and Privacy: Without trust in data privacy, the platform will not be used.

    • Ecosystem: General topics such as education.

    2. Definitions of Terms and the „Onion Model“ To resolve the confusion around terms like „Metaverse,“ „XR,“ and „Spatial Computing,“ Trevett uses the analogy of an onion ring:

    • The Core is XR: An umbrella term for the hardware, meaning Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) with sensors and displays.

    • The Middle Layer is Spatial Computing: This is the term Apple prefers. It describes using displays and sensors to interact with the immediate environment.

    • The Outer Layer is the Metaverse: This emerges when multiple people using spatial computing are connected with each other.

    3. Vision: AR vs. VR Trevett clearly distinguishes his vision from dystopian ideas, such as those outlined in Matthew Ball’s book or „Ready Player One,“ where people spend 24 hours a day in VR. He believes that Augmented Reality (AR) will be the „true metaverse.“ His argument is that AR overlays the real world with contextual information and brings people together, rather than isolating them in a purely virtual world.

    4. The Role of Apple He praises Apple as a company capable of building the entire technology stack itself. Although Apple does not currently use open standards for spatial computing, Trevett does not view this negatively. He explains that proprietary platforms can often innovate faster than open standards and that both approaches complement one another.

    5. Importance of AI and New Standards AI is described as essential for building the metaverse because it solves problems that previously seemed unsolvable, such as semantic understanding of the environment or gestures.

    • Hardware Level: The Khronos Group is working on integrating Machine Learning (ML) acceleration directly into graphics APIs like Vulkan so that AI models can run efficiently on glasses.

    • Gaussian Splatting: A concrete example of new standards is the integration of „Gaussian Splats“ (a technique for rendering 3D scenes) into the glTF format. A draft for this already exists and is scheduled to be finalized in early 2026.

    6. The Wish for a „Metaverse Browser“ When asked about a „magic wand“ wish, Trevett responds that the metaverse is the spatial evolution of the web. He wishes for a kind of open-source „Metaverse Browser“ or a sandbox. This would be a collaborative environment where developers can test standards and identify gaps in the interoperability of various 3D web technologies.

    Shownotes

    Transparency: The Google AI Tool Gemini was used to transcript the interview, generate a summary and correct the intro. Adobes GenAI-Tool for podcasts was used to optimize the on-location recording. Also the chapter marks have been generated with Adobes transcription and Gemini file analysis capabilities. Both tools have been used with caution. For example: You can still hear background noise and even a sirene in the background, although the background noise has been dramatically reduced.