Google doesn’t always knock it out of the park with new products and services, and you don’t need to look any further than Google Glass to know that. Glass was a forward-looking idea that might have easily been incorporated into the company’s family of devices, but it just didn’t seem to land with consumers and dropped off the radar almost as soon as it was introduced — only to pop back up a few years ago for enterprise users. Google may not be done with AR hardware just yet, though, as it confirms the acquisition of microLED firm Raxium.
As first reported by The Information back in March, Google has acquired Raxium, a startup that develops microLEDs for AR use. The price hasn’t been made public, but previous negotiations reportedly suggested Raxium was valued at about $1 billion. As The Information noted, Google has spent years working on its own headsets with little progress, but this makes it seem like the company wants to have more oversight when it comes to the technology needed to make devices like VR headsets and yes, smart glasses.
While Raxium hasn’t released a commercial product of its own, a look at the company’s website emphasizes the potential for using microLEDs in devices like smart glasses as well as in VR. There’s a lot of promise in microLED technology in general, but it’s still mostly restricted to massive displays such as Samsung’s The Wall.
In officially confirming its acquisition of Raxium, Google expresses its enthusiasm towards what this could mean for upcoming hardware efforts, teasing us with talk of “future display technologies.”
This latest purchase shows Google following a trend in which Meta and Apple have made similar acquisitions. Even if Google Glass is long gone as an off-the-shelf consumer product, it’s beginning to look like AR will come into its own in the near future.
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