---
title: "HTC VIVE Eagle"
seoTitle: "HTC VIVE Eagle for developers: SDK, app model & distribution (2026)"
description: "HTC VIVE Eagle for third-party developers — SDK access, app model, distribution, capabilities & AI, and where it sits in the 2026 smart-glasses landscape."
type: reference
verified: "2026-07-31"
platform: all
vendor: htc
related:
- /docs/ecosystem
- /docs/ecosystem/openness
- /docs/ecosystem/ai
- /docs/ecosystem/distribution
- /docs/vendors/meta
- /docs/concepts/capabilities
---
**Openness verdict.** Genuinely open at build time — undocumented at ship time, and sold across four Asian markets while HTC's own Western pages still say Taiwan-only.
**Covered here:** VIVE Eagle (HTC's AI smart glasses) and the VIVE AI Glasses SDK for iOS and Android.
**Not covered here:** VIVE XR Elite, the VIVE Focus series and VIVE Flow (VR/MR headsets on the VIVE Wave / OpenXR stack) · VIVERSE (HTC's web metaverse platform, not a wearable).
## Overview
HTC's **VIVE Eagle** is a displayless pair of AI smart glasses: a 12MP ultra-wide camera with AI auto-correction, a four-mic beamforming array, and bass-enhanced open-ear speakers on a Qualcomm **Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1** with 4 GB RAM and 32 GB storage, driven by a phone ([spec sheet](https://www.vive.com/tw/product/vive-eagle/spec/)). There is no display and no HUD — HTC's own structured data for the product says so outright, describing the lenses as "鏡片為一般鏡片，無 AR 或 HUD 顯示" (ordinary lenses, no AR or HUD display) ([VIVE Eagle, Taiwan](https://www.vive.com/tw/product/vive-eagle/overview/)). Everything the device tells the wearer, it says out loud. Video is capped at ten minutes per clip in a vertical, social-native format, and two privacy behaviours are enforced in hardware: camera functions auto-disable when the glasses are not worn or when the capture LED is covered. A smartphone is mandatory (iOS 17.6+ or Android 10+), along with an HTC account and the VIVE Connect companion app, with use gated at 13+.
**Regional availability is the sharpest thing to get right about this platform, because HTC's own pages disagree with each other.** Eagle is **buyable now in at least four markets**, each publishing its own price: Taiwan from **TWD$15,600** (TWD$19,888 for the limited photochromic UV lens), with a first-party configurator and structured data marking it `InStock` ([Taiwan](https://www.vive.com/tw/product/vive-eagle/overview/)); Hong Kong at **HK$3,988** ([Hong Kong](https://www.vive.com/hk/product/vive-eagle/overview/)); Singapore from **S$730** (S$880 for AdaptiveSun lenses) ([Singapore](https://www.vive.com/sea/product/vive-eagle/overview-sg/)); and Japan from **税込82,500円** (98,000円 for the photochromic lens) ([Japan](https://www.vive.com/jp/product/vive-eagle/overview/)). HTC's newsroom dates each expansion — Hong Kong 11 Dec 2025, Singapore 9 Mar 2026, Japan 22 Apr 2026 ([newsroom](https://www.vive.com/tw/newsroom/2026/)). Meanwhile **vive.com/us, /uk, /de, /eu and /fr still state "VIVE Eagle is currently only available in Taiwan"** — a claim HTC's own newsroom and its Asian storefronts have overtaken. Those pages are stale marketing surfaces, not evidence of unavailability; they are also why no US-dollar price for Eagle should be trusted, since no US purchase path exists at all. The device is not sold in the US, UK or EU. The openness verdict then splits along the build/ship line: the SDK, its full API reference and a working simulator are free to anyone on earth, while running on real hardware means importing from one of four Asian markets and getting your app registered by HTC through a route HTC does not document.
### What you can buy
## Access
The **VIVE AI Glasses SDK** covers **Android (Kotlin/Java)** and **iOS (Swift)** from a single documented API surface, and it is **not gated**.
| | |
| --- | --- |
| **Who can download** | Anyone. The download page lists both archives with direct links — no sign-in wall, no approval step, no NDA. An unauthenticated request for `Android_ViveGlassSDK_0.6.0_beta.7z` returns HTTP 200 and a 12.4 MB 7z archive; the iOS archive returns 16.4 MB the same way ([0.6.0 release](https://developer.vive.com/resources/vive-ai-glasses-sdk/download/latest-release/060/)). This corrects a common assumption that HTC's glasses SDK sits behind a partner gate: documentation and binaries are both public today |
| **Maturity** | Early but genuinely active. **Six versions are published**, and the cadence is tight: 0.1.0 (6 Mar 2026), 0.2.0 (30 Mar 2026), 0.5.0 (1 Jun 2026), 0.5.1 (5 Jun 2026), 0.5.2 (9 Jun 2026) and **0.6.0 (3 Jul 2026)**, which added advanced video streaming configurations ([archive](https://developer.vive.com/resources/vive-ai-glasses-sdk/download/archive/)). Versions 0.3.0 and 0.4.0 were never posted. The whole SDK is under five months old, every artifact is still labelled `beta` in its filename, and none has reached 1.0 |
| **How you install it** | **By archive only.** On Android the download does contain a real Gradle coordinate — `com.htc.viveglass.sdk:viveglass_client:0.6.0`, packaging `aar` — but served from a file-based Maven repository bundled inside the 7z and consumed via `url = uri("$rootDir/repository")`, so there is no remote repository to resolve against and no automated version bumping |
| **iOS install** | A manual drop-in of `ViveGlassKit.xcframework` and `ViveGlassSimulator.xcframework` at **Embed & Sign**, with **Xcode 15.0+ and iOS 16.0+** as the floor per the archive's own readme; no SPM, no CocoaPods |
| **Android floor** | No `minSdk` is documented on the site, though the shipped AAR declares `minSdkVersion 28` |
| **Cost** | **Zero** to download |
| **License** | HTC publishes **no licence or EULA** — not on the download page, and not inside either archive, which contain no licence, EULA, terms or notice file at all. Commercial terms of use are simply unstated |
| **Docs** | [developer.vive.com/resources/vive-ai-glasses-sdk](https://developer.vive.com/resources/vive-ai-glasses-sdk/) |
The real access wall sits one step later, at runtime. The Android setup page opens with **"Step 1: Register the application — You must register your app to enable communication between the software and hardware"** ([Android setup](https://developer.vive.com/resources/vive-ai-glasses-sdk/documentation/android/setup/)), and the SDK enforces it as `UnregisteredAppException`, "thrown when the app has not yet been officially registered" ([exceptions](https://developer.vive.com/resources/vive-ai-glasses-sdk/documentation/android/exceptions/unregisteredappexception/)). HTC documents no way to become registered — no form, portal, email or contact route appears in the developer resources, in either shipped archive, or in any public repository. Anyone may build and simulate; who may ship against hardware is decided off-document.
## App model
Code runs **on the phone, not on the glasses**. There is no documented way to deploy an application, applet or web view to the device; Eagle is a peripheral and the developer's own iOS or Android app is the application. The root object is `ViveGlass`, which "provides a unified interface for managing connections and interactions with VIVE AI Glasses" across four documented jobs — device connection, voice interaction (TTS/STT), audio input, and image input ([ViveGlass reference](https://developer.vive.com/resources/vive-ai-glasses-sdk/documentation/android/viveglass/)). On Android you instantiate `ViveGlass`, assign a `ViveGlassKit` as the adapter, and call `connect()` with a `ViveGlassClientCallback` receiving `onConnectionStateChanged`, `onImageCaptured`, `onSpeechTranscribed`, `onTextSpoken` and `onKeyEvent`.
| | |
| --- | --- |
| **Transport** | Documented most explicitly on iOS, and there are **two paths**: direct Bluetooth (`NSBluetoothAlwaysUsageDescription`, with `UIBackgroundModes: bluetooth-central` for background operation) and a local link to the **VIVE Connect** companion app via Bonjour service `_viveglass_connect._tcp` plus the `viveglass-connect` queried URL scheme, with your app exposing its own `CFBundleURLTypes` scheme for the callback ([iOS setup](https://developer.vive.com/resources/vive-ai-glasses-sdk/documentation/ios/setup/)) |
| **VIVE Connect** | Not optional infrastructure on either platform — it owns user state, `getUserPreferredLocale()` "retrieves the language settings from VIVE Connect", and the shipped Android manifest declares a `` intent for `com.htc.viveglass.action.AUTH`, commented "Required to query the host app for the auth handshake" |
| **Authoring systems** | **One**: no Unity path, no web or WebXR path, no on-device runtime |
What HTC does provide is a **first-party simulator**, which matters given the hardware sells only in Asia. You import `com.htc.viveglass.sdk.simulator.ViveGlassSimulator`, call `create(appContext)`, set it as the `ViveGlass.adapter` in place of the real kit, and call `showUI(supportFragmentManager)`. Sample media is swapped by pushing files into the app's files directory with Device Explorer at documented specs — HEIC 1440×1920 for stills, MP4 480×856 30 FPS with AAC 44.1 kHz 32 kbps stereo audio — and the page is explicit that **"Your app must be a debug version"** ([simulator setup](https://developer.vive.com/resources/vive-ai-glasses-sdk/documentation/android/simulator-setup/)). The iOS simulator works differently: it borrows the iPhone's own microphone and Speech framework to stand in for the glasses rather than replaying files.
## Distribution
An Eagle app is an **ordinary phone app**, so it reaches users through the App Store and Google Play like any other — there is no HTC store, no Eagle storefront and no on-device catalogue, because there is no on-device runtime to host one. HTC's own developer programme confirmed the shape by asking finalists for exactly what a normal mobile release requires: an **Android APK**, an **iOS TestFlight** build, a connected software backend, and store presentation assets including icon and UI screenshots ([2026 VIVE Eagle developer programme](https://www.vive.com/tw/aiglassesdevprogram/)). Content review is therefore Apple's and Google's; HTC documents no review or certification process of its own for third-party Eagle apps.
The gating that does exist is upstream of publishing. Your app must be **officially registered with HTC** before it can communicate with the glasses at all, enforced both as `UnregisteredAppException` and — importantly for anyone building a connection flow — as a connection state, `ConnectionState.ERROR_UNREGISTER_APP`, which HTC's own bundled sample handles alongside `ConnectionState.ERROR_UNSUPPORTED_ROM_VERSION`. An unregistered app does not crash; it silently fails to connect. Publishing one to a store is possible but pointless.
Because HTC publishes no self-serve registration route, the only documented path to registered status ran through its developer programme — and **that programme was geographically restricted and has now ended**. Entrants had to be ROC (Taiwan) nationals, foreign nationals holding valid Taiwan residency and actually resident there, or organisations legally registered in Taiwan. Its published schedule ran proposals 8 Jan – 9 Feb 2026, 15 teams selected 12 Feb (each receiving a pair of glasses), POC submissions 9 Mar – 19 Apr, 10 teams advancing 22 Apr, commercial development 30 Apr – 14 Jul, live demos 15–16 July, and **four winners announced 22 July 2026** at NT$100,000 each. The second round was defined as teams who passed screening and "取得 HTC VIVE Eagle AI SDK" — HTC treating hardware-capable SDK entitlement as something it grants, even though the archives download publicly. Selected teams were also bound by a confidentiality and non-compete clause covering the SDK and technical documentation, a notable contrast with binaries that download with no NDA at all. **No successor programme or replacement registration route is currently published.** For a developer outside Taiwan the practical position today is: build and simulate freely, ship to a real wearer only by arrangement with HTC. The public third-party footprint reflects that — a GitHub search for `viveglass` or "vive eagle" returns two repositories in total, both with zero stars.
## Capabilities, limits & AI
| Capability | Third-party access |
| --- | --- |
| **Camera** | `captureImage(ImageQuality)` for stills, and three `startVideoStreaming(...)` overloads of increasing configurability — basic `VideoQuality`, then with `AudioStreamingFormat`, then with a full `VideoStreamingFormat` — plus `stopVideoStreaming()` and `isVideoStreaming()`, with `Framerate` as a separate enumeration ([ViveGlass reference](https://developer.vive.com/resources/vive-ai-glasses-sdk/documentation/android/viveglass/)). Frames arrive through `StreamingBufferCallback` with lifecycle on `StreamingEventCallback`, so this is a genuine live-frame pipeline, not just a shutter button. The sensor is 12MP ultra-wide, producing 3024×4032 stills and 1512×2016 @ 30 fps video, capped at ten minutes per clip ([spec sheet](https://www.vive.com/tw/product/vive-eagle/spec/)). |
| **Microphone and audio** | `startAudioStreaming(Microphone, bitrate, sampleRate, AudioChannel, ...)` gives unusually fine control for this class of device, including a `Microphone` enumeration documented as defining "the directional pickup pattern of the microphone" ([enumerations](https://developer.vive.com/resources/vive-ai-glasses-sdk/documentation/android/enumerations/)) — meaningful because the hardware is a four-mic beamforming array (1 directional + 3 omnidirectional), not a single capsule. |
| **Speech** | `startTranscription(boolean bContinuous)` covers both continuous dictation and single-utterance capture, with results on `onSpeechTranscribed`; `speakText(String, Locale)` performs TTS out of the glasses' speakers, with progress on `SynthesisEvent`. STT and TTS are supplied by the platform, so a voice loop needs no third-party speech vendor. **Display/UI: none.** The device has no display and the API has no render, overlay or display surface anywhere in it — the only channel back to the wearer is synthesized speech through 2x stereo open-ear speakers. Any UI belongs on the phone. **Sensors and input: minimal, and this is the sharpest limit.** `KeyEvent` has exactly **one** case, `AIBUTTON` — "The AI button on the VIVE AI Glasses was pressed" ([KeyEvent](https://developer.vive.com/resources/vive-ai-glasses-sdk/documentation/android/enumerations/keyevent/)). The gap is quantifiable: HTC's spec sheet lists four hardware inputs — voice control, touchpad, capture button and AI button — and the SDK exposes one of them. There is no documented IMU, head tracking, gesture or location surface. |
| **Wear state and permissions** | `GlassesNotWornException` is thrown during connection if the user is not wearing the glasses, and a `requestPermission()` / `checkPermission()` pair with `Permission` and `PermissionResult` governs access, backed by `GlassesPermissionDeniedException` and `NoPairedGlassesException`. Pairing happens in VIVE Connect, not in your app. |
| **Reserved surfaces** | The "Hey VIVE" wake phrase and HTC's assistant, the touchpad and capture button, and app registration. |
| **AI & the assistant** | HTC's platform AI is **closed to third parties, but the useful primitives are not**. Eagle ships with HTC's own VIVE AI, notable for letting the *end user* switch the underlying model — the spec sheet lists "VIVE AI 可存取以下模型：• Google Gemini • OpenAI GPT（目前為 Beta 版本）" — and Eagle can additionally wake the phone's native assistant, Siri or Google Assistant, from the glasses ([VIVE Eagle, Taiwan](https://www.vive.com/tw/product/vive-eagle/overview/)). None of that is reachable from the SDK: there is **no assistant, chat, prompt or LLM entry point** in the API, and the model switch is a user setting rather than a developer choice. HTC's own legal footnote describes VIVE AI responses as "由第三方語言模型生成" (generated by a third-party language model), and full functionality requires **VIVE AI Plus**, a paid tier carrying a 24-month free trial on signing into VIVE Connect, with post-trial pricing undocumented beyond a note that it "可能需額外註冊、同意條款並支付相關費用". The third-party path is therefore **bring-your-own-model**, and it is workable: the AI button press arrives in your app as a `KeyEvent`, platform STT turns speech into text, you call whatever model you like from the phone, and `speakText` returns the answer through the glasses' speakers. HTC brokers no AI gateway and imposes no model choice on developers. |
## Roadmap
**3 July 2026:** SDK **0.6.0** shipped, adding advanced video streaming configurations — the sixth release in four months, after 0.1.0 (6 Mar), 0.2.0 (30 Mar), 0.5.0 (1 Jun), 0.5.1 (5 Jun) and 0.5.2 (9 Jun), all beta-labelled and pre-1.0 ([archive](https://developer.vive.com/resources/vive-ai-glasses-sdk/download/archive/)). That cadence, and the steady growth of the video API, mark active development rather than a parked SDK.
**8 January to 22 July 2026:** HTC ran the **2026 VIVE Eagle AI Glasses Developer Programme** with published dates — proposals 8 Jan – 9 Feb, 15 teams selected 12 Feb (each receiving hardware), POC submissions 9 Mar – 19 Apr, 10 teams advancing 22 Apr, commercial development 30 Apr – 14 Jul, live demos online 15 July and at HTC headquarters 16 July, and **four winners announced 22 July 2026** at NT$100,000 each ([programme page](https://www.vive.com/tw/aiglassesdevprogram/)). That cycle closed days before this writing. HTC has not announced a successor, and whether it reopens is the single most useful signal to watch, because it is the only documented route to a registered app.
**Market expansion is the live storyline.** HTC's newsroom dates a steady march outward from Taiwan — Hong Kong 11 Dec 2025, Singapore with Singtel 9 Mar 2026, Japan 22 Apr 2026 (alongside a Red Dot award) — plus recurring feature drops: AI continuous-conversation mode (13 Nov 2025), Cantonese support (9 Mar 2026) and VIVE AI Notes with 12-language transcripts and summaries (31 Mar 2026) ([newsroom](https://www.vive.com/tw/newsroom/2026/)). The programme materials also dangled international promotion for selected teams "搭配HTC海外上市計畫" (in step with HTC's overseas launch plan), pointing at further expansion. But **no Western market, date or price has been announced**, and HTC's US, UK, German, EU and French pages have not been updated since the Asian launches — they still assert Taiwan-only availability, which is now inaccurate rather than informative. Treat US/UK/EU availability as unannounced.
**Also outstanding:** a 1.0 SDK, any published licence terms, a remote dependency-manager distribution, a documented `minSdk` and ROM-version compatibility matrix, and a self-serve app-registration route.
## In the landscape
HTC VIVE Eagle is one platform in the third-party [smart-glasses landscape](/docs/ecosystem). See [how open it is](/docs/ecosystem/openness) relative to other platforms, [how AI works](/docs/ecosystem/ai) across them, and the full [platform comparison](/docs/ecosystem).