It takes a lot more than just vibes to displace an entrenched consumer product like smartphones and laptops. Tablets were presented as laptop killers for the longest time but even the companies making them aren’t pretending anymore. There’s a time and a place for both, but let’s not kid ourselves that a tablet will ever fully replace a laptop.
Phones have become so central to our lives that it’s hard to imagine something which could truly be considered a “Phone Killer.” There were some uninformed opinions back in the day when the earliest VR headsets were launched that these could bring about a monumental shift, but that was far from the truth.
Smartwatches, while quite useful on their own, have their limitations and can’t possibly replace the smartphone. There’s one emerging category, though, that could have the potential to make us imagine a life beyond the phone: smart glasses.
One of the earliest concepts of this device was the Google Glass which didn’t really evolve beyond the prototype stage. There were other contenders since then but nothing really took off until Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses which combined style with functionality, particularly the ease with which POV video could be shared and live streamed to Meta’s various social platforms.
AI is fast becoming central to the user experience across all computing platforms, particularly mobile. Samsung, like all companies, is highly focused on delivering new AI experiences to its users. The company has teamed up with the likes of Google to deliver enhanced AI agents like Gemini on its devices.
As people grow bored of the same old standard rectangle that is the modern smartphone, the smart glasses emerge as a solid alternative. If the glasses can handle most of what we do on a phone, such as maps, messaging, calls, AI-based search, and more, why would people need a slab?
Samsung is expected to launch two pairs of smart glasses in 2026 and beyond. While the functionality of the first may be more similar to Meta’s Ray-Ban, the second may be closer to what we envisage here.
Samsung should be mindful that its smart glasses aren’t just something like the Galaxy Buds but for your eyes, whereby their functionality is limited, in the present case to taking pictures and talking to Gemini. It’s important that Samsung leverages its ecosystem muscle to at least offer a semblance of a phone-less Galaxy experience.
Perhaps this could be achieved through a distributed processing model where certain tasks are handled by other Galaxy ecosystem products like the Galaxy Watch and Galaxy Ring, allowing the glasses to remain light while still offering powerful functionality.
The AI features should be a lot more seamless than they are on phones right now. Samsung’s 2026 smart glasses should make AI ambient, in the sense that Gemini should automatically translate a menu when you’re looking at it, identify an acquaintance or colleague walking toward you before you forget their name, or proactively display the shortest route home when you leave work.
The glasses, perhaps more than anything, will sit at the intersection of design and technology. People already use them as an accessory to showcase their personal style. The push for functionality shouldn’t turn them into a face computer like the Apple Vision Pro or Galaxy XR headsets that make you look like a character from a sci-fi movie.
The smart glasses must be stylish enough for people to wear them on a dinner date without coming off as unusual while powerful enough that they can handle a quick text or email discreetly without having to take their phone out on the table.
Samsung’s first smart glasses are unlikely to achieve all this but as long as the company does more to make AI seamless in this form factor compared to its competitors, it will have a good base to build off on.
The smart glasses could be the product that ties Samsung’s other wearable devices together to form a platform that could maybe let you leave your phone at home even when you’re on a night out. Now wouldn’t that be something.
