With the impending launch of the Apple Vision Pro, the competition over it is starting to heat up, with companies lining up to compete with Cupertino, including Meta Quest 3 offering a similar experience for less money and Xreal Air 2 using software to do spatial computing with standard AR glasses. They are lining up to compete with Cupertino.

And now two more companies are lining up with some big ideas: Patently Apple reports that Google is repurposing the Pixel 4's radar technology as a breakthrough method of hand gesture recognition, and Samsung is dramatically improving input and depth sensing Google has created two new image sensors that will dramatically improve input and depth sensing.

Some of the most successful gadgets have come from companies that take old technology from faulty devices and repurpose it in far superior ways, and I think Google is on to something by bringing back the Pixel 4's "Soli" radar solution to the XR headset.

The Apple Vision Pro's method of tracking hand gestures is rather basic in principle. I know there is a lot of software work and computation going on in the background to make this happen, but this is what is happening at the hardware level.

Google's recent patent shows a reinvention of how this can be done by putting the same radar technology that made the Pixel 4's strange touch-free gesture controls possible on a smartwatch. With this band, the headset can use radar to read gesture input, even the slightest movement of muscles and ligaments of up to 3 mm.

What is the main advantage of sticking all the technology around the wrist? It dramatically reduces the size of the headset itself. Apple's hefty option has to sport larger dimensions to fit all the cameras and sensors inside it. This could greatly improve the wearability of Google's headset, which could appear in 2024 or later.

Samsung, on the other hand, has taken a more traditional approach with image sensors, inventing a new type of sensor that will help its next-generation XR headset efforts. Specifically, the new sensor, ISOCELL Version 931, has a rolling shutter that works like the human eye and illuminates all pixels simultaneously

. In addition, Samsung has also announced the ISOCELL Vizion 63D. This works in the same way that bats navigate in the dark, using an indirect time-of-flight sensor that can measure distance and depth.

The combination of these sensors shows that Samsung is trying to crack the code to compete with Apple's Vision Pro.