Google will enlist its own EssilorLuxottica in a bid to level up its incoming smart glasses’ cachet. According to Reuters, Google is partnering with Gucci to make Android XR glasses in the latter company’s styling—a similar approach to Meta, which sells its own version of Ray-Ban– and Oakley-branded smart glasses.
The news comes courtesy of Gucci CEO, Luca de Meo, who says the Gucci and Google smart glasses won’t arrive until 2027. That means they probably won’t be included in the initial launch of Google’s Android XR smart glasses, which are set to be unveiled in full this year. While the strategy is similar to Meta’s, it’s also a bit bougier. Ray-Bans aren’t cheap glasses by any means, but Gucci occupies a much more luxurious space in the fashion and eyewear world.
Those Gucci-branded smart glasses would also be notably more premium than Google’s current slate of initial offerings in the space, which includes collaborations with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster.
There aren’t many details on how its Gucci glasses will look or whether they’ll be different from other Android XR offerings in any way other than styling, but it does tell us a bit about how Google plans to position its first pair of smart glasses. In some ways, it’s just as much a piece of the Meta playbook as it is Apple’s. Since 2015, Apple has been selling an Apple Watch with Hermès branding at price points above $1,000. I’m going to assume Gucci smart glasses would err toward a similar premium.
Whether anyone wants luxury smart glasses is an open question, but rumors have suggested that Meta might be considering a similar partnership with Prada, a fashion brand that, like Gucci, is also solidly in the luxury space. Those rumors have obviously yet to materialize, though, and with the way things are going with Meta’s reputation in the smart glasses world, maybe they never will.
As Snap CEO Evan Spiegel recently noted, the partnership between Meta and EssilorLuxottica has mostly benefited Meta. Ray-Ban-branded glasses might be good for sweeping Meta’s name under the rug, but it’s also made Ray-Bans synonymous with poor privacy practices and have gutted margins on the company’s non-smart Ray-Bans. Maybe Google will fare better on the reputation front, but given its history of hoovering up user data and the fact it was the company responsible for spawning the word “Glasshole,” I won’t be holding my breath.
