MWC 2025: Xpanceo wants to deliver AI features, supervision, and more from its smart contact lens
Amid the increased clamor for AR smart glasses and headsets over the last year, it’s become easy to lose sight of the much more advanced alternative: smart contact lenses.
At MWC 2025, though, I got close up with a concept lens from UAE-based, Ukrainian-founded startup Xpanceo. Designed as an unburdened way to experience all the same benefits of glasses, the brand has an early prototype of its technology on its stand at the Barcelona show this week.
There’s still no way to try it out—or, as explained to us, there’s no hygienic, cost-effective way for Xpanceo to supply demos of this cutting-edge wearable at a show with 100,000 people through its doors. When it launches in 2026, though, the lens’ miniature display will potentially deliver real-time health monitoring, AR prompts, and vision improvements for colorblind people.
It also sounds like it will continue refining the contact lens use cases as it gets closer to releasing its finished first-gen product. It’s currently touted as a catch-all alternative to glasses, with Xpanceo also talking up content viewing and gaming as part of the package outlined above.
That’s a broad remit—even for a concept in its prototype phase.
Yet, it’s hard not to respect the ambition. There’s a sea of near-identical smart glasses on the floor here at MWC, but Xpanceo is actively rejecting the idea of having something obtrusive on your face. It’s also the only example I’ve seen of the technology at an in-person show since Mojo Vision’s prototypes (before it eventually pivoted to just creating mini MicroLED display tech).
Xpanceo raised $40m in its last funding round in August 2024, which provides some hope that it can meet that release window. However, as we all know from countless other examples in wearables over the last decade, trailblazing an entirely new sub-segment is an uphill task.
The state of the much more formative technology, smart glasses, plus the fact that very few (if any) others operate in this space, is reason enough to remain skeptical. Still, I’ll keep my eyes (pun intended) on this startup over the coming year and hope it can deliver something special.
