Gurman: Apple Cancelled Watch With Camera, Preps Smart Glasses for 2026

Apple is no longer working on a camera-equipped Apple Watch, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has learned, citing people familiar with the situation. The company was reportedly planning to release new Apple Watch models capable of analyzing their surroundings in 2027, but Gurman reports that the project has been canceled this week.

While the company is said to be still working on AirPods with built-in cameras, it may now be prioritizing work on a first pair of smart glasses to rival the popular Ray-Ban Meta models. Gurman reported earlier this month that Apple’s first smart glasses may come in 2027, but he now believes that Apple is targeting a late 2026 release date. The reporter learned that Apple will start “producing large quantities of prototypes at the end of this year” as work on the project continues to ramp up.

“Apple’s glasses would have cameras, microphones and speakers, allowing them to analyze the external world and take requests via the Siri voice assistant,” Gurman explained. They could also handle tasks such as phone calls, music playback, live translations and turn-by-turn directions. The approach would be similar to that of Meta’s current glasses and upcoming devices running Alphabet Inc.’s Android XR operating system.”

Apple’s Vision Products Group, which was responsible for the creation of the company’s Vision Pro headset, is reportedly overseeing the development of these new smart glasses. “One person with knowledge of the glasses said they will be similar to the Meta product but better made,” Gurman wrote.

The current Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which were released in October 2023, currently start at $299. They include a single 12MP camera, five microphones, and two custom-built open-ear speakers. They let users capture what they see, analyze their surroundings with Meta AI, translate conversations in real time, call other people and send voice messages, and more.

Meta is reportedly planning to release a $1000+ model with a built-in display and support for hand-gesture controls later this year. This premium model could be followed by another version that supports augmented reality, just like the Apple Vision Pro, in 2027. According to Gurman, Apple’s end goal is also to bring augmented reality features to its smart glasses, but that product is “years away” from being ready.

While Apple already has a foot in augmented reality with the Vision Pro and visionOS, the company doesn’t have the AI expertise to make smart glasses or camera-equipped AirPods capable of analyzing their surroundings yet. On iPhones that support Apple Intelligence, the Visual Intelligence feature that helps users learn more about the places and objects around them currently relies on Google Lens and OpenAI technology.