The third-party smart-glasses landscape

"Can I build a third-party app for smart glasses?" has a different answer on every platform, and the answers move quarter to quarter. This is the neutral, dated map: which platforms expose an official developer SDK, what shape a third-party app takes on each, how it reaches real users, and whether public publishing is open yet. It's the landscape view — for the per-platform deep dives (capabilities, setup, distribution mechanics), follow through to the vendor pages.

The landscape at a glance

Platform	Third-party SDK	App model	Distribution today	Public publishing	Third-party UI on-lens
Meta smart glasses	Meta DAT — public developer preview src	Companion (DAT) + web app (Display)	Release channels (invited testers) src	Partner-gated during preview	Yes — on Ray-Ban Display (glasses.display.*)
Android XR⚠	Emerging — Google developer program (GA-gated)	Companion / extension	Google Play–based (TBD specifics)	TBD	Yes — display-class device
Mentra (Mentra G1)⚠	Open — MentraOS bridge SDK (MIT)	Standalone glasses app	Open app path	Open ecosystem	Yes — G1 has a display
Even Realities (G1)⚠	Developer program — verify	Standalone glasses app	Own app ecosystem — verify	TBD	Yes — G1 has a HUD display
Apple smart glasses⚠	None shipped (as of 2026-07)	—	n/a — no SDK yet	n/a	Unknown

Rows marked ⚠ are seeds pending verification — the non-Meta platforms move fast and are documented from public signals, not first-hand shipping experience. Meta is the row we build on daily, so it's the most complete; see Meta smart glasses for the full picture.

The one distinction that explains most of it

The biggest source of confusion isn't capabilities — it's app model: does your code run on the phone (with the glasses as a peripheral), or on the glasses themselves? (A VR-style "headset app" — Android XR headsets like Project Moohan — is a separate device category, not smart glasses.)

• Companion / extension app (runs on the phone) — you extend an app that ships through an existing store; the glasses are camera/mic/speaker over Bluetooth. Meta's DAT and Android XR take this approach — which is why distribution on Meta is a two-part story (ship the app and get the user's glasses linked to it).
• An app that runs on the glasses — either a native standalone app (Mentra, Even Realities) or a web app you deploy as a URL (Meta Ray-Ban Display Web Apps, added via the Meta AI app's Connectors).

And a single platform can offer both: Meta ships two entirely separate systems — DAT (native companion, camera/audio, every model) and Display Web Apps (a web app running on the Ray-Ban Display). Most "why can't I just publish my glasses app to a store" questions dissolve once you see which system you're in. Full breakdown, including the Meta DAT-vs-Web-Apps split: how third-party apps are distributed.

What this means if you're deciding today

• Building now, shipping to real users: Meta is the only platform with shipping consumer hardware and a public third-party SDK. Distribution is invite-based (release channels) during the preview; public publishing is partner-gated but expected to broaden in 2026. Start at Meta smart glasses.
• Standalone / open ecosystems: Mentra and Even Realities run their own glasses-app ecosystems for a different audience (in the matrix above). Extentos doesn't ship transports for them today — complementary, not competing.
• Forward-looking, same class as Meta: Android XR (tracking) is the other big platform building a third-party ecosystem, and Apple (no SDK yet) — both worth watching, not yet building on.

Extentos's bet is that the capability surface (camera, voice, audio, display) generalizes across all of these even though the app models don't — so one app can target the platform that's open today and the platform that opens next with a config change, not a rewrite. That's the vendor model.

Related

• How third-party smart-glasses apps are distributed — the app-model taxonomy in depth
• Vendors overview — what Extentos supports, and the vendor-portability model
• Meta smart glasses — the deep dive on the one shipping platform

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