This week, Korean news outlets reported that Microsoft is attempting to purchase OLED display panels for an unreleased MR headset/device.
Interestingly, Microsoft is ordering the OLED panels from Samsung Display, a sub-division of Samsung, which aims to debut its own XR headset later this year or early next.
The quantity of Microsoft’s order of OLEDs is currently unknown, but the Korean outlet Elec claims insiders are suggesting the order is in the hundreds of thousands.
The shipments do not mean that Microsoft will soon introduce an MR headset. According to Elec-cited insiders, the announcement date will likely be “the year after next at the earliest that Microsoft will introduce a device equipped with it.”
The news comes just weeks after, Microsoft filed patent requests revealing a potential first look at a pair of augmented reality smart glasses.
In two USPTO filings—” Composite Poes Estimate For Wearable Computing Device” and “Resolution Enhancement in Spatital-Frequency Space”—Microsoft seems to be developing AR smart glasses with Co-Pilot genAI integration.
It’s important to note that patents don’t always indicate a firm’s upcoming products or hardware. However, they can provide insight into a company’s interest in specific technology markets, similar to the pile-up of Apple Vision Pro patents that preceded an official announcement from Apple.
The recent Microsoft patents highlight that the company has worked on the potential product since at least 2023. According to the patent-filing information, the filings show that Microsoft is experimenting with a unique Windows OS for spatial computing, possibly Windows Holographic, which detects a user’s environment and interactions, similar to Apple’s Vision Pro spatial computing framework.
The filings also indicate that Microsoft is implementing AI to process spatial information that the device’s camera picks up—possibly suggesting CoPilot integration for Meta Ray-Ban-style virtual assistant services. While the details are scarce, the filings highlight how Microsoft’s device research aims to be accessible, such as supporting low-light conditions. However, apart from some technical details, the filings do not reveal much more about the potential success of Hololens.
Additionally, NVIDIA’s long-awaited Blackwell chipset is delayed due to design flaws, and the roughly three-month delay is proving taxing on Microsoft’s component supply chain.
Will Microsoft Produce New XR Hardware?
Microsoft is actively focused on developing genAI-powered XR solutions. The company aims to make XR applications more flexible and accessible by introducing the new OpenXR coding feature in Windows Holographic version 1.1.
Microsoft also expands access to its workplace products, including Mesh, Office, and Dynamics 365, for various XR devices. Additionally, Microsoft is emphasizing the development of hardware-agnostic XR productivity apps to establish itself as a critical player in this arena, in which Apple has also recently invested.
This news comes after Microsoft announced significant layoffs affecting around 1,000 positions in its HoloLens and Azure Cloud divisions. This raises questions about the company’s development of the HoloLens 2 hardware and Azure “Moonshot” projects, which involve collaborations with companies like SpaceX to enhance highly complex operations.
Following a reduction of approximately 10,000 positions almost a year ago, the company seems to be streamlining its XR and cloud divisions without impacting its AI teams, a core focus for Microsoft following its partnership with OpenAI.
Despite the recent layoffs, Microsoft appears to be committed to its legacy MR headset. Microsoft released a new update for the HoloLens 2 MR headset in May, marking the device’s first significant enhancement since 2024 and the first major improvement since October 2023.
