Google Translate is getting a big upgrade that could make it the killer smart glasses app

• Signs of XR glasses support have been spotted in Google Translate
• The feature would pipe live translations right into your ears
• Samsung and Google are getting ready to release new XR hardware

The Samsung Galaxy XR (Extended Reality) headset is now official, but we know smart XR glasses are on the way from Samsung and Google too – and it looks as though Google Translate could be one of the killer apps for the upcoming hardware.

As spotted by Android Authority, code hidden in the latest version of Google Translate for Android mentions "Glasses" as one of the devices you can stream spoken translations through, in addition to headphones and the phone speaker.

The feature isn't enabled in the app yet, but is closely tied to the Live Translation functionality that started rolling out in August. It seems clear that this will eventually be added to whatever Android-powered XR glasses that are on the way.

We'll have to wait and see exactly how this works in practice, but the idea would be that you can hold a conversation with someone else in a foreign language and get translations piped straight into your ears from the smart specs you've got on.

What's already here and what's coming soon

We've seen something similar to this already in wireless earbuds from Google, Samsung, and Apple, so the idea of routing translated speech directly into your ears isn't a new one – but it could be more convenient than ever on a pair of XR specs.

It's something that devices like the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 AI glasses have on board as well, though that's using Meta's own bespoke AI models. With the power of Google Translate to call on, the reliability and speed could hit a new high bar.

Samsung has promised its own XR glasses will be arriving at some point, while Google is also partnering with Magic Leap on a pair of specs. It looks as though we're about to be hit by a new wave of these smart glasses in the near future.

We're not sure exactly when these features might go live in Google Translate – Android Authority also spotted upcoming options for pausing playback individually by language, and background playback – but it should be sooner rather than later.

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