📬 Remix Reality Weekly: AI is Not Your Friend (Yet)

Your free Friday drop of spatial computing updates—plus what Remix Reality Insiders unlocked this week.

🛰️ The Signal

This week’s defining shift.

What’s next for the smart home is perception, with machines that don’t just connect but understand.

Cameras are becoming the eyes of AI in our homes. Paired with multimodal intelligence, they move beyond simple motion alerts to recognize people, pets, and objects, and respond with real context. From fitness equipment to security systems, everyday devices are starting to see us, understand what we’re doing, and act more like partners in our daily lives.

👉 Get access to the full insight in this week’s Insider drop.

📡 Weekly Radar

Your weekly scan across the spatial computing stack.

🚚 Einride Raises New Capital to Accelerate Global Autonomous Freight Push

• The funding will accelerate the deployment of autonomous freight, expand operations, and advance technology development.

🚕 Zoox Begins Autonomous Vehicle Testing in Washington, D.C.

• The expansion brings Zoox's active test cities to eight, joining sites like San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Miami.

🏙️ Toyota Activates Woven City as Living Lab for Future Mobility

• The launch kicks off real-world deployment of AVs, logistics platforms, and personal mobility systems.

🧠 Galea Neon Launches as First Untethered Brain, Body, and Eye Tracking Headset

• Galea Neon is the first fully standalone headset to combine brain, body, and eye tracking for mobile cognitive and behavioral research.d training.

👓 SCHOTT Achieves First Serial Production of Reflective Waveguides for AR Glasses

• The production breakthrough enables lighter AR glasses with clearer displays and longer battery life.

🇬🇧 YouGov Survey Finds Most UK Adults Uninterested in Buying Smartglasses

• Just 22% of respondents said they were very or fairly interested in smartglasses.

🌍 Hawk-Eye Volumetric Data Powers Football Manager’s Next-Gen Animations

• Football Manager 26 uses Hawk-Eye’s skeletal tracking data to create more realistic player movement based on real match footage.

🤖 Google Unveils Vision-to-Action AI Models to Power Next-Gen Robots

• Google introduced Gemini Robotics 1.5 (VLA) and Gemini Robotics-ER 1.5 (VLM) to combine high-level reasoning with vision-guided physical action in real-world robotic tasks.

📷 Ring Adds Face and Pet Recognition to New 4K Cameras

• Ring’s updated cameras now include built-in AI to recognize familiar faces and missing pets.

🚲 Peloton Turns on AI Form Feedback with Built-In Computer Vision System

• Peloton IQ uses a movement-tracking camera and AI to deliver dynamic form feedback, rep counting, and strength guidance.

💉 One-Time VR Session Found to Reduce Needle Anxiety in Adults

• A peer-reviewed study using XRHealth software found that a single virtual reality session led to statistically significant reductions in needle-related anxiety.

🌀 Tom's Take

Unfiltered POV from the editor-in-chief.

The Friend ad campaign in New York is one of the boldest out-of-home campaigns I’ve seen in a while.

Friend is a $129 wearable AI device pitched as a companion you can talk to. The round pendant is an always-on assistant that feels a lot like something from the movie "Her", just without the voice of Scarlett Johansson.

Friend’s $1M ad campaign was a billboard, bus shelter, and subway takeover across New York, built on stark white posters packed with text. The ads defined “friend” like a dictionary noun, as "someone who listens, responds, and supports you," along with dedicated signs of what Friend promises, like I'll never leave dirty dishes in the sink" or "I'll never bail on dinner plans." Each billboard left ample white space, as if asking people passing by to contribute.

Covering stations with these minimalist statements and deliberately leaving blank space for people to write on was a genius move. And an intentional one, as CEO Avi Schiffmann told ADWEEK. It wasn't long after the ad campaign went live before it became a canvas for written commentary. Friend knew most of the comments would be negative, but that’s the point. The backlash creates its own energy. When people write “surveillance capitalism” or “get real friends,” it doesn’t just criticize the product but creates polarization around it. This debate causes consumers to pick a side, and those who lean the other way or are on the fence are more likely to be curious, check it out, and even buy it in, perhaps just to prove it's not as bad as what others are saying.

But what really struck me is what these scribbles revealed about the concerns people have today around AI and the growing ubiquity of sensors. The comments showed a deep unease with AI, a worry that machines are stepping into roles we see belonging to humans, and the sense that everything being recorded can be used against us, and a fear of being watched all the time.

🔒 What Insiders Got This Week

This week’s Insider drop included:

• 🧠 Reality Decoded: Accessibility is what makes wearables matter.
• 🔮 What’s Next: Robots are reinventing food delivery; the robot brain wars are heating up; and retail is being reshaped by spatial computing.

👉 Unlock the full drop → Upgrade to Insider

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