XR Developer News - August 2025
It's almost time for hardware season, which peaks in September and October, but we're still clearly in summer break territory. The flow of XR developer news picked up a bit this month, for instance with Niantic Spatial's SDK release on Meta Quest, so read on!
Meta (and Niantic)
- When Meta announced the Quest Camera Passthrough API (allowing access to the raw camera feed after getting permission from the user) at Meta Connect 2024, Mark Rabkin told developers to better build something great with it. It looks like Niantic just delivered that, bringing its VPS technology and more of the features in its Lightship SDK (v3.15) to Quest 3. A few developers have already been playing around with it.
Niantic Spatial SDK Brings Immersive Reality to Meta Quest 3 with the Passthrough Camera API | Niantic Spatial, Inc.
Niantic Spatial SDK v3.15 now supports Meta Quest 3 with immersive mixed reality features powered by Meta’s Passthrough Camera API—including VPS, meshing, semantics, and object detection.
- As VPS is mostly an outdoor technology and Quest very much an indoor technology, the fit between the two might not be epic right away. However the general trend by Niantic Spatial of increasingly supporting head-worn XR devices, as also demonstrated by its recent partnership with Snap, is a really good trajectory and promising of many more interesting things to come.
- Meta published a blog on the new Quest Runtime Optimizer which also came up last month.
Introducing the Experimental Meta Quest Runtime Optimizer for Unity
Discover an easier way to identify bottlenecks and optimize performance with the Meta Runtime Optimizer for Unity, a new experimental graphics optimization tool.
- If you're running into issues during Quest development, it's good to be aware of the new portal Meta has for developer support.
Streamline Your Support Tickets with the New Developer Support Portal
Learn how the new Case Management page in the Developer Dashboard delivers a more seamless and unified experience for managing support tickets with Meta.
- At Unreal Fest Orlando back in April, Meta gave a presentation about the Interaction SDK an Unreal, which is now available online.
Snap
- Spectacles received Snap OS v5.63 (reddit), which works with Lens Studio v5.12.1. It has some more advanced developer features, such as OAuth2 login and BLE HID input like game controllers. Not things everyone needs, but for some people it might just completely unlock a use case they've been thinking of.
- A wealth of videos on Lens Studio development was released, both by Snap (Interactable Helper, Agentic Lecture Assistant) and by Alessio Granchi personally (Scene Manager, and TypeScript for Unity Developers).
- If you're curious about the hardware that's inside Snap Spectacles, there is simply no better place than Karl Guttag's blog. This time he went in depth on Spectacles, so worth checking out.
Snap Spectacles at CES, AR/VR/MR, & AWE 2025, Consumer Product in 2026
Snap has been making the rounds in 2025 in preparation for the launch of its consumer AR glasses in 2026. Snap introduced the Snap Spectacles 5 developer kit model in October 2024. This article dis…
Karl Guttag
Other XR hardware, software and news
- A few interesting Godot videos were released, such as a talk from Godotcon in May on XR & Android and a video on making a Godot-based VR game using only the in-VR Godot editor. Bastiaan Olij also posted a few more in depth videos on XR in Godot 4.
- If you're interested in Godot, check out this article on how it has been growing and picking up steam in recent years.
Two years after the Unity controversy, how are things going with Godot?
Two years ago, Unity’s missteps prompted a wave of interest in the open-source Godot engine. Here’s what happened next.
Alex Forbes-Calvin
- Unity meanwhile is powering on with the release of Unity 6.2, with support for Google's Android XR officially launching as its tentpole XR feature.
Now available in 6.2: Unity AI integration helps streamline your workflow
You can now upgrade to Unity 6.2 as a production-support release, including Unity AI Beta, Mesh LOD, WorldSpace UI for UI Toolkit, new diagnostics, and updates to enhance Android XR development.
- Not doing nearly as well is Adobe Aero, its no-code AR creation platform, which is shutting down towards the end of the year.
- It seems though that Adobe is not finished with XR, as almost in the same breath it announced Substance 3D Reviewer for Meta Quest.
(Re)Design Reviews: Adobe Launches Substance 3D Reviewer on the Meta Horizon Store | Meta Quest Blog | Meta Store
It’s Substance Days at SIGGRAPH 2025, and Adobe Senior Director of Engineering Guido Quaroni just announced something huge on stage: Substance 3D Reviewer is now available on the Meta Horizon Store!
- Standards-body Khronos Group is on fire these days with announcements, this time around the addition of gaussian splats to glTF.
Khronos, OGC, and Geospatial Leaders Add 3D Gaussian Splats to the glTF Asset Standard
Recognizing the transformative potential of 3D Gaussian Splats, leading organizations across the geospatial, graphics, and standards domains — including Khronos Group®, Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), Niantic Spatial, Cesium(Bentley), and Esri— have come together to integrate 3D Geospatial Gaussian Splats into Khronos’ widely adopted glTF™ 3D asset format standard. This collaborative initiative aims to create a standardized, interopera
- If you're interested in what Khronos Group does, check out this recent interview from AWE.
#1626: New Spatial Entities OpenXR Extension to Scan, Detect, & Track Planes with Khronos Group President Neil Trevett – Voices of VR Podcast
kentbye
- And while we're there anyway, the always awesome Kent Bye of Voices of VR has released a ton of awesome interviews (#1590 to #1630) from AWE USA. Truly impressive, so be sure to support his work through his Patreon.
Voices of VR Podcast – Designing for Virtual Reality
kentbye
- An extended presentation on Mattercraft at XRAI Hack was released.
- If you're an MRTK adept, I'm guessing you've lived in the HoloLens part of the XR world and these last few years haven't been easy, but Joost van Schaik has an article on getting MRTK to work on Apple Vision Pro.
- TikTok released Effect House v5.1.
Upcoming XR events
- September 17-18, 2025 - Meta Connect.
- October 30, 2025 - A save the date for the next edition of XR Creators Connect NL, the XR meetup in The Netherlands which I co-organize. Keep an eye out for the eventbrite link soon!
- November 19-20, 2025 - Unity's Unite 2025 in Barcelona, Spain.
- December 8-10, 2025 - United XR Europe in Brussels, Belgium. A new event resulting from a merger between AWE EU and Stereopsia.
A bit about this newsletter
Each month I try to round up all the interesting developments in the XR developer landscape. New hardware and software releases, events, tooling, etc. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn, for instance if I missed anything which definitely should be in this monthly round up next time. Want to know more? Check out the about page.
