AR in 2026 Year In Review Presentation (Part 2: Waveguide Trends)

Introduction

In September 2026 at MicroLED and ARVR Connect, I gave a “Master Class” on the conference’s first day. I tried to cram about 2 hours of content into a 1-hour presentation. I started with the slides and transcript from my presentation, then reordered them slightly and added more information and images. In cases where the slide pretty much says everything, I won’t add too much in the text.

In Part 1, I covered what I see as the major AR Challenges facing companies in 2026.

In Part 2, I will discuss the trends I noticed in 2026 for both Reflective and Diffractive waveguides. It seems that one year Meta demos a concept or releases a product, and the next year the market is flooded with other companies doing something similar. In 2024, Meta Introduced Orion with Silicon Carbide waveguides that use “WaveOptics-Like” (two gratings rather than three gratings) diffractive waveguides, and the next year there are multiple companies discussing Silicon Carbide waveguides. In 2025, Meta introduced the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses with a Lumus 2-D pupil-expanding reflective (aka Geometric) waveguide, and in 2026, multiple companies showed 2-D pupil-expanding reflective waveguides.

Reflective (aka Geometric) Waveguides 2-D and 1-D Pupil Expanding

One of the first things that stood out to me in 2026 was seeing many more reflective (aka geometric) waveguides. Compared to the more common diffractive waveguide, reflective waveguides are more optically efficient (typically by a factor of 3 to 7), offer much better color uniformity, have less inherent forward light projection (aka eye glow), and can produce a wider FOV without requiring exotic glass or silicon carbide. These technical advantages are drawing competition to Lumus, which has dominated the category for over 20 years.

Many believe cost and yield have been the biggest factors holding reflective waveguides back. Lumus has worked with partners to reduce costs. In the last year or so, multiple companies are showing both 1-D and 2D pupil-expanding reflective waveguide prototypes.

Lumus started with 1-D waveguides in the early 2000s and in 2021 introduced its first 2-D pupil-expand design (see Exclusive: Lumus Maximus 2K x 2K Per Eye, >3000 Nits, 50° FOV with Through-the-Optics Pictures). Since then, Lumus has introduced both smaller and larger 2-D designs.

2-D Pupil Expanding Reflective Waveguides

Lumus

Lumus has been used in many industrial, military, and medical headsets for years and then…