Augmented reality (AR) glasses should feel lightweight, balanced, and comfortable. Yet, at the same time, the glasses must be powerful enough to deliver vivid digital overlays that transform how people see and work in the physical world. Achieving this vision in a glasses form factor requires one thing above all else: miniaturization.
Designing for comfort and power at the same time isn’t merely an engineering goal. It’s a creative puzzle. To deliver high-performance AR experiences in smaller form factors, every component has to be reimagined: displays, waveguides, sensors, even how the system is powered. When designing for all-day comfort, you have to make every gram and millimeter count.
Reinventing the Optics Stack
The micro-display engine, a collection of precisely engineered lenses paired with a projector and light source, is one of the biggest design challenges in creating lightweight AR glasses.
Older systems used LCOS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) displays, which needed multiple components to create and direct light. Our engineers replaced those with microLEDs, which generate light and images in the same tiny package. That means fewer parts, thinner systems, and more freedom to shape the final device.
We also shrunk the pixels themselves, all while expanding the range of color each one can emit. What does it mean to shrink pixels? Think of how cellphone screens evolved over time. While the screens stay roughly the same size, the image on the screen has become sharper and sharper because manufacturers pack more pixels into the same space.
Our display teams have done the same thing. So even as the parts inside our AR devices get smaller, the number of pixels increases. As a result, images get clearer, brighter, and more lifelike. It’s one of the many ways our work behind the scenes translates into a more intuitive, delightful experience for the wearer.
Lightweight Waveguide and Lens Design
Our waveguide technology has always been one of our biggest differentiators. Now, we're advancing waveguide technology even further by reducing the number of required layers in the waveguide. Instead of multiple layers for RGB color, our waveguides use one. And we’re designing with advanced materials like high-index glass and custom polymers. The goal? Make the waveguides as light and thin as possible, without compromising on optical clarity.
This is possible thanks to how tightly our teams work together. Our waveguide and projector lens teams don’t just pass designs back and forth. They co-engineer every aspect in sync. That close collaboration means we’re able to optimize at a system level, reducing complexity and weight while improving overall image performance.
Smarter Designs for Smaller Spaces
Here’s where it gets really interesting. In designing the next generation of AR wearables, one thing was immediately clear to the members of our cross-discipline design teams. As we worked to make each component smaller, every gram mattered. If one part got heavier, something else had to get lighter. There was a real moment of discovery around how tightly component weight, placement, and performance were connected.
A great example of this cross-team collaboration and co-engineering is the way we reengineered the entire eye tracking system to minimize the weight and volume while also decreasing power consumption. Older designs relied on six LEDs and two cameras per eye. But thanks to some impressive optimization, our latest solution needs just one of each. The rest is handled by software that delivers better eye tracking, more efficiently, in far less space.
We’ve taken the same approach with our optics. Instead of stacking multiple lens layers as others do, we engineered ultra-thin waveguides with a photochromatic layer on the outside and a prescription layer on the inside. This integration results in a thinner, lighter optical system that maintains high image quality and everyday comfort.
The Future of AR Miniaturization
Miniaturization marks a critical step forward in making AR glasses comfortable, socially acceptable, and suited for daily life. By rethinking every part of the system and weighing, measuring, and optimizing along the way, we’re unlocking form factors that feel less like tech, and more like putting on a pair of glasses.
This is how AR moves from something you try out as a technological novelty, to something you use and enjoy every day. Sleek. Comfortable. Capable. And built with care, down to the smallest detail.
Want to dive deeper? Explore how we design for comfort and social acceptability.