by 
As we approach a new year, it’s time for our annual ritual of synthesizing the lessons from the past twelve months and formulating the outlook for the next twelve. 2025 was an incremental year for spatial computing, which continues a gradual uphill ascent toward mainstream traction.
2025 highlights include XR’s ongoing convergence with AI, inflections in non-display AI glasses, the rise of video display glasses, and the unveiling of the long-awaited Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses. Meanwhile, roadmap signals emerged from players ranging from Snap to Apple.
All these approaches – video passthrough AR, optical seethrough AR, and non-display smartglasses – represent form-factor divergence and diversification. That’s a good thing, as XR should include varied formats that are purpose-built and use-case-driven – a key trend in 2025.
With that backdrop, what will 2026 look like in spatial computing? Aligned with the broader predictions of our research arm, ARtillery Intelligence, we’ve devised 5 predictions for 2026. We’ll break them down weekly, continuing here with #5: Video Display Glasses Pull Ahead.
Prediction 1: AI’s Bubble Bursts… But the Value to XR Lasts
Prediction 2: Your Face is the Next AI Battleground
Prediction 3: 2026 Sets the Table for 2027 Inflection
Prediction 4: Android XR Unlocks Spatial Scale
Prediction 5: Video Display Glasses Pull Ahead
Mainstream Moves
An emerging XR device class that continues to gain noteworthy consumer traction is video display glasses. We’re talking about glasses that have near-eye display systems to mirror content from one’s smartphone, PC, or console. In doing so, they can be seen as a display peripheral.
But that description alone doesn’t do them justice, as they offer immersive ways to consume content. This includes private viewing environments that simulate 100+ inch displays – often with elite specs such as brightness, resolution, and OLED-enabled black levels and color contrast.
These specs have birthed use cases such as private in-flight entertainment and large-screen viewing in small spaces (think: city apartments). One thing that makes these use cases unique in the XR world is that they’re widely relatable and understood by regular folks outside the XR bubble.
In other words, they don’t require the wide-scale market education nor consumer learning
curves that most XR technology does. And that importantly makes them more scalable than several geeked-out flavors of XR that struggle to break into mainstream markets.
Chicken & Egg
Another advantage held by video display glasses is their inherent ability to sidestep XR’s otherwise-persistent chicken & egg dilemma. Take VR for example, whose immersive qualities require native content development in order to fully unlock the technology’s intended UX.
That native approach offers UX advantages of course, but the rigor involved diminishes content libraries, which in turn diminish user bases. Fewer users in turn lessen developers’ incentive to build content, which further lessens user demand – altogether causing a sales stalemate.
Video display glasses avoid this issue by offering a better way to watch existing content. They piggyback on vast stretches of personal media libraries and streaming apps. Again, that has UX disadvantages, but the tradeoff is paradoxically to appeal to a wider swath of consumers.
VITURE has taken this principle of working with existing media to new heights by engineering ways to bring 3D spatial effects to users’ existing photo libraries – similar to Apple’s Spatial Photos but in a more affordable vessel. It’s fairly magical, as we discussed in our Luma Pro review.
Concrete Prediction
To boil all that down to a quantifiable prediction, the two leading players in this device class – XREAL and VITURE – will see healthy sales growth in 2026, reaching unit sales of 181,000 and 199,000, respectively. Video display glasses in total will sell 596,000 units in 2026.
These figures will be partly driven by retail partnerships that bring video display glasses closer to mainstream consumers with a “show rather than tell” approach. VITURE did this recently with a deal to sell its devices in 200 Best Buy stores; and we’ll see others modeled after this.
We’ll pause there and circle back next week with another 2026 prediction. Meanwhile, see the full report. And to calibrate our aptitude and track record in projecting XR market outcomes, see our recent article evaluating last year’s predictions.