XR Developer News - September 2026

It has been only a few weeks since the last edition, but big weeks it have been for certain! Snap opened up much more about Specs (although actual launch is not until 'this fall') and Meta held Connect with quite a few announcements, Steam Frame launched and visionOS 27 is out. Interesting times!

Snap

If you're curious about Specs, the first thing to check out is the launch event keynote and related blog. Mirroring the Spectacles '24 launch, it had quite a few live demos in it, all in all I think making for a solid show. Snap also published Lens Studio v5.24, further preparing for the fall launch of Specs.

Making Computing More Human with SPECS

Today, we’re showing what you can do with SPECS, including new augmented reality (AR) experiences, SPECS Intelligence, innovative partnerships across industries, a new charging case with cellular connectivity, and SPECS First Look at Westfield Century City in Los Angeles, where you can try SPECS in-person starting October 1st.

It's a bit too early to determine what the impact of Specs will be, even with the information from thorough first impressions. The improvement in comfort seems notable, perhaps opening up viability for new practical use cases, but the price at $2200 will slow that down significantly. I don't think they've got a real chance as a consumer device with the still bulky form factor, no matter how hard Snap is trying to position them as a fashion style choice, but I could see the enterprise initiatives standing a much better chance than before.

Meta

And then it was time for Meta Connect, always one of the most important moments in XR of the year. Here also they chose to go for a keynote with quite a few live demos, which they got through pretty smoothly this year.

The keynote was followed by the Developer State of the Union the next day and the release of a bunch of shorter, pre-recorded session videos on specific topics.

If you're looking for all the details in full, Meta has you covered with a series of blog posts. Just start with the main developer post, which links to the relevant sub-posts for individual topics. There's also the more product-focused post on the regular Meta blog.

Meta Connect 2026: The end-to-end recap

Start building after Meta Connect 2026: Explore developer sessions and see what we shared across VR, AI glasses, Horizon and AI.

Meta Horizon OS Developers

Going through the various announcements, I'm actually more intrigued than I expected by the upcoming Meta VR Glasses. They're still quite a while off, launching in the spring of 2027, but at first glance it looks like Meta might actually have built a potentially viable variation of the Vision Pro. It tackles the two biggest problems of Apple's product, which were price (coming in at $1400 instead of three times that) and bulk (100 grams or so for the glasses instead of a significant multiple of that). As long as the reduction in field of view compared to Quest 3 doesn't turn out to be too bad, they might actually be onto something there.

Introducing Meta VR Glasses, A New Era for Virtual Reality

After more than a decade building VR, we’re introducing Meta VR Glasses to define a new era for virtual reality.

MetaMeta

On the glasses side I was actually somewhat disappointed. The privacy debate that has been raging was pretty much not addressed, as there were no changes at all to the visibility of the recording notification LED on the many variations of camera glasses. The audio glasses seem so limited in functionality (unless you're planning on spending your days talking to Muse), that I don't find those having great appeal.

And when it comes to glasses with displays, the Meta Ray-Ban Display received no hardware rev at all, although it seems that at least they'll finally have much broader availability. Perhaps they weren't ready with a follow up, perhaps they're just focusing public attention on one thing at a time (the VR glasses this time around). Either way, Meta Orion still seems quite far off, two years after the Connect at which it was first shown and Snap will have the 'true AR glasses' field to itself for a while longer.

A few practical bits and pieces:

• Unity fully supports the Meta VR glasses.

Meta VR Glasses: What Unity Developers Need to Know

Unity 6.6 adds day-one support for Meta VR Glasses development: build with OpenXR, XR Interaction Toolkit, XR Hands, eye tracking, and quad views rendering.

UnityAmanda Aguilera and James Maki

• Meta is running a Meta VR Start Developer Competition with a November 18 deadline, and a serious prize pool of $1,000,000.

Meta VR Start Developer Competition

The Meta VR Start Developer Competition is open. Build a new Meta VR experience or update an existing one in eight weeks for a share of $1M.

Meta Horizon OS Developers

Other XR hardware, software and news

• Valve is selling Steam Frame, but it seems primarily aimed at the somewhat niche PC VR streaming crowd, so I don't expect it to have a notable effect on the XR market. Still good to see Valve back in the game with new hardware.
• Apple is rolling out visionOS 27 to Vision Pro headsets.

Upcoming XR events

• November 18, 2026 - Meta VR Start Developer Competition submission deadline.
• December 7-9, 2026 - UnitedXR Europe in Brussels, Belgium.
• April 7-9, 2027 - Laval Virtual in Laval, France.

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.

And if you need expertise in the XR space, know that we offer exactly that at DNA.inc where I'm Head of XR, so don't hesitate to get in touch!