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Avegant, a start-up in San Mateo, California, has built an LED light-engine that could enable device manufacturers to build small, stylish augmented-reality smart glasses.
Courtesy of Avegant

I recently tried a pair of prototype smart glasses from Avegant that gave me a glimpse of a future where we may be able to watch videos, get directions, see notifications and more, all through a pair of traditional-looking shades.

These sorts of glasses may be the next big thing as companies like Facebook, Snap, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and others look beyond phones.

I’ve worn Google Glass, the Microsoft Hololens, Snap’s Spectacles and, most recently, Facebook’s Ray-Ban Stories glasses. But those all have shortcomings. They’re either too big and bulky to wear everywhere (Hololens), don’t yet display anything on the lenses (Facebook) or look silly (Spectacles, Hololens, Google Glass.)

Big Tech companies will need smart glasses to look normal if they’re to have any chance at success. So they’re desperately looking for a display component that is small and can be manufactured and shipped in the next year or two, Avegant CEO Edward Tang told CNBC. 

Avegant doesn’t make smart glasses, but it put together a prototype pair to demonstrate the capabilities of a new LED augmented-reality light engine that the company unveiled to the public this fall. And I was impressed.

Here’s what you need to know.

The problem with current ‘smart’ glasses

CNBC | Magdalena Petrova

A lot of companies are building smart glasses, but they’re all taking different approaches. It’s sort of a mess. Here’s a quick recap:

  • Microsoft’s $3,500 Hololens and the $2,295 Magic Leap 1 are the most advanced but they’re bulky and more akin to goggles.
  • Amazon offers the $249.99 Echo Frames, but they just let you talk to Alexa and you don’t see any augmented reality visuals through the lenses.
  • Facebook’s $299 Ray-Ban Stories glasses can be used to take photos and videos but little else. The latest version of Snap’s Spectacles offers some AR visuals, but it isn’t fashionable and is only available to social media creators.
  • Google repurposed its $999 Glass device for enterprise customers after it was dismissed by the public due to privacy concerns.
  • Apple is also reportedly working on its own glasses, but it’s still unclear when they’ll be unveiled let alone released to the public.

Avegant thinks it has a solution that might help companies build a product regular people will want to buy.

Its new light engine, which is thinner than a pencil and weighs as much as a large paper clip, fits within the hinge and temple of eyeglasses where it can show high-definition visuals to the wearer. The light engine could enable some companies that don’t have huge in-house hardware engineering teams to build glasses that are as stylish and small as a pair of Ray-Bans but offer the visual capabilities dreamed up in science fiction films like “Terminator.”

A glimpse at the future

I demoed the light engine in October when Tang handed me the prototype glasses his team built. They were thin and looked like any normal pair of glasses except that they were tethered to a smartphone by a cable. The prototype is intended to demonstrate just how small a hardware manufacturer can make a pair of glasses using Avegant’s light engine.

“We’re getting our stuff ready to have the smallest manufacturable display for these customers,” Tang said. 

I put the glasses on. A translucent blue square came on at the center of my field of view, showing a display that was overlaid on top of what I was seeing in real life. Then the demo started. 

The glasses began to cycle through different visuals. The small translucent screen showed me the weather, a stock chart and a text message conversation. I was looking in the direction of Tang and could see him, but the visuals also appeared on top of him in crystal clarity. It was true augmented reality. 

The highlight of the demo was when the glasses began to play a video. It was a snippet of a soccer match from this summer’s Euro 2020 tournament. I saw the green grass, the vast crowd and the players passing the ball to one another before the forward blasted a goal into the back of the net. The game looked as good and as big as it would if I was watching at home on my living room TV or sitting with friends at a sports bar.

The Avegant light engine offers a 30-degree field of view and appeared like a rectangle in the middle of my line of sight.

I handed the pair of glasses back to Tang, who put them on and began watching the demo. I could hardly tell he was watching anything, though I noticed a subtle hint of blue light on the lens. It appeared as if he was daydreaming.

But there are still drawbacks. Manufacturers who use the Avegant light engine will have to determine how much battery life they want their smart glasses to have. The more battery life, the bulkier the glasses will be. Likewise, a 30-degree field of view is on a par with the first Hololens, but it’s a smaller window than Microsoft’s Hololens 2.

The reality

Facebook’s Ray-Ban Stories glasses can take photos and videos through cameras at each corner of the device’s frames.
Courtesy of Ashley Bogdan

Components like Avegant’s may help some tech companies develop smart glasses people will want to wear. But it’s still early days and skeptics don’t think we’ll have normal-looking smart glasses anytime soon.

“The long-term vision here is to get rid of your phone in your hand, and you’ll wear your phone on your face,” Kevin Irwin, chief investment officer at Knollwood Investment, said. Irwin is an investor in Avegant. 

Avegant isn’t yet mass-producing its light engine. It envisions a business model in which it will sell the component to companies that can build it into their smart glasses.

Larger companies may not even need Avegan’ts technology, explained Karl Guttag, an expert on augmented reality display devices.

“Facebook and Apple are ground-up companies — they’ve got phenomenal, huge teams working on this stuff,” Guttag said. “They don’t need an Avegant, if you get my drift, whereas a Snap might because they’re not really in this. They’d be looking to get a component.”

Guttag also has his doubts about smart glasses replacing smartphones anytime in the near future, which would limit Avegant’s prospects. 

“The expectation that these things are going to be like Ray-Bans is off the chart far away,” Guttag said. “Now something like what Avegant’s engine does could get you something that is moderately stylish. It’s going to be a little bigger and bulkier but not all the way there.”

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Apple leads a drop in tech stocks after Trump tariff announcement

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 Apple leads a drop in tech stocks after Trump tariff announcement

Apple CEO Tim Cook, center, watches during the inauguration ceremonies for President Donald Trump, right, and Vice President JD Vance, left, in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025.

Shawn Thew | Afp | Getty Images

Apple slid more than 6% in late trading Wednesday and led a broader decline in tech stocks after President Donald Trump announced new tariffs of between 10% and 49% on imported goods.

The majority of Apple’s revenue comes from devices manufactured primarily in China and a handful of other Asian countries. Nvidia, which manufactures new chips in Taiwan and assembles its artificial intelligence systems in Mexico and elsewhere, fell about 4%, while electric vehicle company Tesla dropped 4.5%.

Across the rest of the megacap universe, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta all dropped between 2.5% and 5%, and Microsoft was down by almost 2%.

If Apple’s postmarket loss is matched in regular trading Thursday, it would be the steepest decline for the stock since September 2020.

Trump on Wednesday afternoon said the new taxes on imported goods would be a “declaration of economic independence” for the country. He announced a 10% blanket tariff on all imports, and higher duties for specific countries, including 34% for China, 20% for European nations, and 24% for Japanese imports, based on what tariffs they charge on U.S. exports, Trump said.

“We will supercharge our domestic industrial base, we will pry open foreign markets and break down foreign trade barriers,” Trump said during his speech. “Ultimately, more production at home will mean stronger competition and lower prices for consumers.”

Stocks broadly got hit by Trump’s announcements. An exchange-traded fund tracking the S&P 500 slid 2.8%, while an ETF following the Nasdaq 100 lost more than 3%.

During his speech, Trump praised Apple, Meta, and Nvidia for spending money and investing in the United States.

“Apple is going to spend $500 billion, they never spent money like that here,” Trump said. “They’re going to build their plants here.”

The Nasdaq just wrapped up its worst quarter since 2022, dropping 10% in the first three months of the year, though the tech-heavy index rose in each of the first two days of the second quarter.

WATCH: President Trump signs executive orders for reciprocal tariffs

Pres. Trump signs executive orders for reciprocal tariffs

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Amazon submits bid for TikTok as ban deadline nears

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Amazon submits bid for TikTok as ban deadline nears

Guests including Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk attend the Inauguration of Donald J. Trump in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Donald Trump takes office for his second term as the 47th president of the United States. 

Julia Demaree Nikhinson | Getty Images

Amazon submitted a bid to the White House to purchase the social media app TikTok from its Chinese owners, CNBC has confirmed.

The company sent its proposal in a letter this week to Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, according to a source familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the discussions are confidential. The parties aren’t treating the bid seriously, however, given that it was submitted just days before a deadline staving off a U.S. ban is set to expire, the person said.

Amazon declined to comment.

The e-commerce company’s offer, which was first reported by The New York Times, comes as TikTok’s fate in the U.S. is up in the air. The short-form video app faces another potential shutdown in the U.S. on April 5 if ByteDance, its parent company, can’t reach a deal to divest TikTok’s American operations. Lawmakers passed a bill last year setting a Jan. 19 deadline for the sale, but Trump signed an executive order granting a 75-day extension for a potential deal.

Trump could announce a decision on TikTok’s fate in the U.S. as soon as Wednesday, sources familiar with the situation told CNBC’s David Faber. Mobile technology company AppLovin has also made a bid for TikTok, Faber reported separately, citing sources familiar with the matter.

TikTok has emerged as a major hub for e-commerce as it has poured money into growing its online marketplace, called TikTok Shop. TikTok’s lucrative marketplace, coupled with the app’s more than 170 million users, could be an attractive asset for Amazon. Following TikTok’s success, Amazon launched and then shuttered a short-form video service of its own.

Last August, the two companies formed a partnership that allowed TikTok users to link their account with Amazon and make purchases from the site without leaving the app. The deal attracted scrutiny from lawmakers who were concerned about its potential national security risks.

WATCH: How TikTok Shop is beating Amazon and Temu in social shopping

How TikTok Shop Became The Fastest Growing Social Media Shopping Platform

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Tesla shares rise on report Elon Musk could be leaving DOGE post soon

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Tesla shares rise on report Elon Musk could be leaving DOGE post soon

White House Senior Advisor Elon Musk walks to the White House after landing in Marine One on the South Lawn with U.S. President Donald Trump (not pictured) on March 9, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump was returning to the White House after spending the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Florida. 

Samuel Corum | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Tesla shares rose Wednesday after Politico reported that Elon Musk could leave his post at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, paving the way for the CEO to return his focus on the struggling EV maker.

The White House later called the report “garbage.”

The stock was last up about 5%. At its session lows, it had dropped as much as 6.4% on the back of weaker-than-expected vehicle deliveries for the first quarter.

The report — which cites Trump insiders — noted that, while President Donald Trump is pleased with Musk and the DOGE spending cuts that have been pushed through, the two decided in recent days that the billionaire would soon return to his businesses. NBC News is reporting that Trump told the cabinet Musk could leave in the coming months.

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TSLA recovers

Wednesday’s report comes during a tough stretch for Tesla. Despite Wednesday’s gains, the stock has dropped more than 5% over the past month. Year to date, it has tumbled more than 31%. Shares also shed 36% in the first quarter, marking their biggest quarterly drop since 2022.

Musk’s role in the White House is one factor weighing on Tesla’s stock. It has sparked waves of protests, boycotts and violent attacks on Tesla stores and vehicles around the world. Trump’s automotive tariffs are also a concern as they involve Tesla’s key suppliers — notably in Mexico and China.

“My Tesla stock and the stock of everyone who holds Tesla has gone, went roughly in half,” Musk said on Sunday night at a rally he held in Green Bay, Wisconsin, to promote a Republican judge he backed in Tuesday’s state supreme court election, Brad Schimel. “This is a very expensive job is what I’m saying.”

In addition to holding the rally in Wisconsin, Musk spent millions and frequently posted about the race on his social network X. Judge Susan Crawford, who won the seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, was backed by Democrats and progressive groups who criticized Musk, his money and influence on the race as well as his DOGE work in their campaigns.

Separately, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander urged the city to sue Tesla on behalf of NYC pension funds citing Musk’s work for the White House.

In a Tuesday statement, Lander’s office said: “The basis of the potential litigation are the material misstatements from Tesla claiming that CEO Elon Musk spends significant time on the company and is highly active in its management, despite his helming the Trump Administration’s DOGE initiative, spending little of his time actually managing Tesla, and promoting policies that are actively harmful to Tesla’s business.”

CNBC reached out to the White House for comment.

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