BARCELONA — Samsung is finally shedding light on the smart glasses project it has been quietly developing. Speaking on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress 2026, Jay Kim, Vice President of Samsung's Mobile division, revealed the first concrete details about the highly anticipated wearable.

The tech giant's debut smart glasses will feature an eye-level camera designed to directly capture the user’s exact field of view. Rather than processing this visual data on the glasses themselves, the "heavy lifting" will be offloaded to a paired smartphone.

This tethered approach underscores Samsung’s strategy of putting artificial intelligence at the center of the user experience. While the glasses continuously scan the environment, the smartphone analyzes the data and feeds relevant, real-time information back to the wearer. As a result, the device can support AI-driven features like object recognition, contextual suggestions, and environmental assistance—allowing users to stay engaged with their surroundings without constantly pulling out their phones.

Kim declined to confirm whether the glasses will feature a built-in display. Instead, he noted that Samsung is exploring ways for users to interact with the device through existing ecosystem hardware, such as smartphones and smartwatches.

The project is being co-developed with Qualcomm and Google under the Android XR ecosystem, an extended reality platform Samsung is heavily investing in for its next generation of devices. This follows the launch of the Galaxy XR, the company's first device to run on the Android XR platform, which paved the way for this new wave of smart wearables.

Internal plans suggest Samsung aims to finalize and launch a version of the smart glasses later this year. This timeline aligns with recent software clues, notably the addition of "Quick Pair" support for glasses in the Nearby Device Scanning feature on Galaxy phones.

Previous leaks indicated that Samsung is actually developing two distinct models. However, the version equipped with a built-in display may not hit the market until 2027.