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
- Die Allround-VR-Brille stirbt aus
- Meta Is Toying With the Idea of Smart Glasses That Record Everything, All the Time
- Meta KI-Brille: Neues Update sperrt Kamera bei LED-Manipulation
- Meta is adding ridiculous ‘rate limits’ and a soft paywall to its smart glasses | The Verge
- Illinois smart glasses driving ban continues ongoing efforts to restrict the tech’s usage — but I kinda agree with this one | TechRadar
- Apple veteran takes on Meta with $1 billion smart-glasses maker
- Smart Glasses Startup Even Realities Secures Unicorn Status with $150M Funding Round | Road to VR
- RP1 Launches Artemis Metaverse Browser for Spatial Experiences
- E125 – Will AR glasses kickstart the metaverse? Sean Mann about the Open Metaverse Browser Initiative – Spatial Realities Podcast
- UBTech unveils UWorld U1 humanoid robots
- MotionBricks: Scalable Real-Time Motions with Modular Latent Generative Model and Smart Primitives
