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Google’s XR glasses prototype isn’t actually running on Avegant’s LCOS engines as first thought, but on a Raxium monolithic full-color MicroLED display that Google designed in-house. While it looks flashy in demos (even showing up in a TED Talk), Raxium’s MicroLED yields are reportedly under 1%, making these glasses pure R&D fodder rather than a consumer product. Meanwhile, Google sold off its waveguide R&D facility to Vuzix, contrasting with Meta, which still pours massive in-house (and some outsourced) resources into waveguides and LCOS for its Hypernova glasses.
Digging into Raxium’s origins reveals it started more as a light-field startup—co-founded by Stanford’s Gordon Wetzstein—than a pure MicroLED maker, which explains Google’s interest in their optics chops. But native full-color MicroLEDs face massive manufacturing hurdles (three different crystal growth processes, tiny flip-chip assembly, cross-company fab coordination), so any future product will likely lean back on LCOS or simpler MicroLED tricks (green only, multi-chip RGB, etc.) until yields improve.
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