--- title: "Vuzix" seoTitle: "Vuzix for developers: SDK, app model & distribution (2026)" description: "Vuzix for third-party developers — SDK access, app model, distribution, capabilities & AI, and where it sits in the 2026 smart-glasses landscape." type: reference platform: all vendor: vuzix related: - /docs/ecosystem - /docs/ecosystem/openness - /docs/ecosystem/ai - /docs/ecosystem/distribution - /docs/vendors/meta - /docs/concepts/capabilities --- > **Openness verdict.** Build-time: genuinely open — a free, publicly downloadable native SDK (Android + Apple) plus an MIT-licensed, now-GA third-party OS (MentraOS), no gatekeeping. Ship-time: fully open — a Z100 app is an ordinary phone app shipped through Google Play / the App Store, since the glasses are a display-only Bluetooth peripheral with no on-lens store or review gate. The MentraOS path strengthens this further: it is funded, open-sourced on GitHub, has a live app store, and is cross-vendor, so a Z100 integration written against it is portable to other makers' glasses. **Covered here:** Vuzix Z100 (Ultralite lightweight smart glasses). **Not covered here:** Vuzix M400 · Vuzix M4000 · Vuzix Blade 2 · Vuzix Shield · Vuzix LX1 · Ultralite OEM platform / waveguide reference designs · Ultralite Pro. ## Overview [Vuzix](https://www.vuzix.com/) (Rochester, NY) is a long-time waveguide-optics and smart-glasses maker whose consumer/prosumer play is the **Z100**, a lightweight heads-up display in a normal-eyewear form factor. This page scopes to the Z100 (the "Ultralite" class); Vuzix's other products — the M400, M4000, Blade 2, Shield and the newer **LX1** — are standalone Android head-mounted *computers* aimed at enterprise, with on-device compute and cameras, covered under a different SDK family (see below). **Hardware snapshot (Z100):** a single-eye (right) transparent [640×480 monochrome microLED waveguide](https://blogs.expandreality.io/vuzix-z100-release-information) display; **no camera, no microphone, and no speaker** (Vuzix positions this as a privacy/battery/weight advantage); tap-on-frame input; ~38 g; up to ~48 h battery; Bluetooth to an Android or iOS phone. It is a **display-only peripheral**, not a standalone computer — all logic and any AI run on the paired phone. **Status:** shipping — [general availability 20 Nov 2024](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/vuzix-announces-general-availability-of-z100-smart-glasses-302311326.html). **Price:** $499. **Regions:** sold direct and via resellers in North America and Europe; exact regional list not published. ## Access The official toolkit is the **Vuzix Ultralite SDK**, split by platform: [ultralite-sdk-android](https://github.com/Vuzix/ultralite-sdk-android) (Java/Kotlin, added via JitPack as `com.vuzix:ultralite-sdk-android`, **v1.9 / Mar 2025**, requires **Android 12+** and the Vuzix Connect app installed) and [UltraliteSDK-releases-iOS](https://github.com/Vuzix/UltraliteSDK-releases-iOS) (Swift, covering **iOS, watchOS and macOS**). Maturity: **GA/stable** — versioned releases, Javadoc, sample apps. **Who can build:** open — the SDK is public on GitHub/JitPack with no invite, dev-mode toggle, or partner gate; **cost is free**. **License:** *not* open source — use is governed by the proprietary ["VUZIX SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT KIT LICENSE AND CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT"](https://github.com/Vuzix/ultralite-sdk-android). Docs live at [support.vuzix.com](https://support.vuzix.com/docs/sdk-for-android) plus the [package Javadoc](https://vuzix.github.io/ultralite-sdk-android/javadoc/com/vuzix/ultralite/package-summary.html). **Note — enterprise SDKs are separate:** the [Speech](https://support.vuzix.com/docs/working-with-the-speech-sdk), [Barcode](https://support.vuzix.com/docs/working-with-the-barcode-sdk) and [Connectivity](https://github.com/Vuzix/connectivity-sdk) SDKs target the Android **M400/M4000/Blade/Shield/LX1** HMDs (they run *on* the glasses), **not** the Z100, and are out of scope for this page. ## App model **Phone-companion, natively.** With the Ultralite SDK your code runs on the phone/watch/Mac; the app pushes text, images and canvas draw-calls to the glasses over **Bluetooth**, brokered by the **Vuzix Connect** app (on Android, Connect owns the Bluetooth link; on iOS the SDK manages Bluetooth directly). The glasses are a thin remote display — no on-glasses runtime, no web/engine layer. Only **one app controls the display at a time** (`requestControl()` / `isAvailable()`), so an integration must arbitrate for control. **A second, independent dev system exists:** the Z100 is a first-class target of **[MentraOS](https://mentraglass.com/os) (formerly AugmentOS, by Mentra)** — an **MIT-licensed, open-source** OS whose SDK lets you build in **TypeScript** against a cloud/server-side runtime (`AppServer.onSession()`, `session.layouts.showTextWall(...)`), also phone-companion in shape. Crucially, MentraOS is explicitly [**cross-vendor**](https://docs.mentraglass.com/app-devs/getting-started/overview) — Mentra frames it as "Android for smart glasses," and the Z100 is only one supported device alongside Even Realities G1/G2, NIMO, and Mentra's own hardware (e.g. Mentra Live). A MentraOS app written against the Z100 therefore runs unchanged on other vendors' glasses — a materially different lock-in profile from the vendor-locked native Ultralite path. **Fit with Extentos's phone-companion model:** structurally excellent — the native Ultralite path is exactly a phone-app-drives-a-BT-display architecture. The caveats are that it is a *different vendor and transport* from Extentos's Meta/DAT target, and that the Z100 exposes only a display + tap (no camera/mic/audio), so the capture and audio primitives Extentos centers on have no hardware to bind to on this device. ## Distribution Because a Z100 app **is just a phone app** talking to a Bluetooth peripheral, distribution follows the ordinary mobile path: publish the Android or iOS app through **Google Play / the App Store** (or sideload/enterprise-distribute it) like any other app — there is **no Vuzix-side app store, review gate, or release-channel invite for Z100 apps**, and no on-glasses store. **Public publishing is therefore fully open** and gated only by the phone platform's own store review. Users install your phone app plus Vuzix Connect and pair the glasses. **Alternate path:** apps built on **MentraOS** distribute through the **[Mentra app store](https://docs.mentraglass.com/app-devs/getting-started/overview)** (launched May 2026) — installed from the user's phone — or directly from a plain web link; the store is also Mentra's stated monetization surface (developer subscriptions + app sales). (For contrast, the out-of-scope enterprise HMDs distribute Android APKs via the Vuzix App Store and MDM — that model does not apply to the Z100.) **Preview→GA gating:** n/a — the SDK is already GA and there is no staged-rollout program for the Z100. ## Capabilities, limits & AI **Camera:** none on the Z100 hardware, so no photo/video/frame API. **Microphone / audio capture:** none on the glasses — voice features (e.g., the Connect app's live translation/transcription) run on the **phone's** mic, not the wearable. **Audio output / TTS:** none — the Z100 has no speaker (this is inferred from Vuzix's consistent display-only positioning and the audio-on-phone design rather than an explicit spec denial). **On-lens display/UI:** **yes**, this is the whole device — a monochrome 640×480 waveguide you render to via `UltraliteSDK` with `sendText()`, `sendImage()`, `setLayout()` (`Layout` enum), a direct-draw `Canvas`, `ScrollingTextView`, `Anchor`/`TextAlignment`/`TextWrapMode`, `LVGLImage`, `Icon`, and `UltraliteColor` ([Javadoc](https://vuzix.github.io/ultralite-sdk-android/javadoc/com/vuzix/ultralite/package-summary.html)). **Sensors/status:** `BatteryStatus` and connection state via LiveData; **tap-on-frame** input is delivered through the `EventListener` interface. Motion (IMU) and location are **not** exposed to third parties in the documented SDK (see open questions). **Input:** frame tap only — no touchpad, controller, gesture camera, or neural band. **Reserved surfaces:** none in the Meta sense — there is no first-party on-device assistant or reserved wake word on the Z100 itself; the Vuzix Connect app's translation/transcription is a first-party phone feature, not a locked platform surface. **AI & the assistant:** there is **no platform assistant on the glasses to open or restrict** — the device is a dumb display. AI is therefore **entirely bring-your-own on the phone side and fully open**: point the display at any model/pipeline you like. MentraOS layers optional **proactive AI, live captions and translation** on top, again running off the phone/cloud. On-device (on-glasses) AI is **not applicable** — no compute or sensors on the Z100 to run it. ## Roadmap **Shipped:** Z100 **GA 20 Nov 2024** ($499); Ultralite SDK reaching **v1.9 (14 Mar 2025)**. **20 Feb 2025** — Vuzix and Mentra jointly announced **[AugmentOS/MentraOS](https://ir.vuzix.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/2113/vuzix-z100-smart-glasses-and-mentra-augmentos-usher-in-a)** with the Z100 as a launch device, adding an open-source, AI-centric dev platform on top of Vuzix's native SDK. That second dev system has since gone from announcement to a funded, GA platform: Mentra **[raised $8M](https://www.forbes.com/sites/charliefink/2025/07/01/mentra-raises-8-million-to-launch-open-source-os-for-smart-glasses/)** (July 2025; backers include Android co-founder Rich Miner, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim, and Toyota/Amazon venture arms), **[MentraOS](https://github.com/Mentra-Community/MentraOS)** shipped open-source on GitHub (April 2026), and the Mentra app store launched (May 2026), reportedly with a community of **4,000+ developers** and dozens of shipped apps (live captions, translation, proactive AI) — the strongest openness signal on this page. **Vuzix direction:** the company is publicly steering toward an **OEM waveguide + AI-glasses** licensing strategy rather than a consumer-hardware treadmill — it has since shown the **Ultralite Pro** OEM waveguide reference platform and introduced the standalone-Android **[LX1](https://ir.vuzix.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/2143/vuzix-introduces-lx1-smart-glasses-designed-specifically)** enterprise HMD (2026), neither of which is a Z100-class device or uses the Ultralite SDK. **No Z100 consumer successor has been announced** as of this writing. **Publishing timeline:** n/a — distribution is already open via standard phone app stores. ## In the landscape Vuzix 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).