Samsung has been working on smart glasses since 2023, and MWC 2026 in Barcelona gave us our first real look at what that means.
Jay Kim, the company’s executive vice president, sat down with CNBC and shared a few details. He did not share full details about the glasses, but enough to get a clear picture.
What we know for certain is that the glasses will have a camera positioned at eye level. That camera sends whatever you’re looking at straight to a paired Galaxy smartphone. The phone does the rest of the work, processes the data, and pushes relevant information back to you in real time. The glasses capture; the phone thinks.
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It’s a simple division of labor, and it makes sense. Fitting serious processing power into a wearable that sits on your face is still a hard problem. Offloading that work to a device already in your pocket sidesteps the issue entirely.
Samsung Smart Glasses: Glasses Process And Phone Think
This approach keeps the glasses light and functional without sacrificing too much on what they can actually do. It also mirrors exactly what Meta did with the Ray-Ban glasses, which currently hold the largest share of the smart glasses market. The strategy has proven itself.
What Kim refused to confirm is whether the glasses include a display. When the question came up directly, he pointed the reporters toward Samsung’s phones and watches as the go-to screens. That’s not a denial, but it’s close enough to one.
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A separate report adds more context that a version with a built-in display may come up in 2027. That would make this year’s release a camera-like product, one that leans on AI to process what you see rather than putting a screen in front of your eyes. Two different products, likely aimed at two different moments in how comfortable people are with wearing a computer on their face.
Will Samsung Smart Glasses have a display?
The real selling point is what the AI does with what the camera sees. Point your gaze at a restaurant menu, and it translates it. When you look at a building, it tells you what you’re looking at.
If you need to book something, send a message, or find your way somewhere? The glasses can handle it without you ever pulling out your phone. That’s the main idea Samsung is building toward.
Qualcomm and Google have both been involved in this since 2023, working on the chips and software that make any of this possible.
On the Samsung smart glasses release date, Kim said Samsung wants a version in the hands of industry partners this year.
Qualcomm’s CEO Cristiano Amon said the same thing at the same event, which makes 2026 about as confirmed as it gets without an official launch date.
Samsung showed more of its hand at MWC than it usually does, which suggests the product is closer than the company is willing to say out loud.
