Building for XREAL AURA: Inside Google's First Android XR Hackathon

Recently, Unity announced support for XREAL AURA, new wired XR glasses coming soon to Google’s Android XR ecosystem. Check out our docs to start building today, and watch our livestream featuring Google and XREAL!

Last month, the XR industry got an exciting early look at what's coming this fall when Google hosted their first-ever Android XR hackathon, organized around building for XREAL AURA. Unity sponsored the event, and we sent a cross-functional team to be right in the middle of it: walking the floor, supporting developers in real time, cheering on the pitches, and carrying that energy into AWE the following week.

Here's what we saw — and what got us excited.

Two Days Building for XREAL AURA

Over two packed days (June 13–14), 19 teams competed to build something brand new or port existing experiences to XREAL AURA. The crowd was a mix of backgrounds — students from universities like USC and Northeastern University rubbing shoulders with seasoned XR professionals who've been building in this space for years, if not decades. By the end of day two, every team stepped up to give a short demo and pitch to the judges. The energy in the room was alive with excitement to see which top 5 teams would win.

Why Developers Chose Unity for Android XR

Unsurprisingly, Unity was the popular choice — and the reasoning was straightforward. Developers who already knew Unity saw no reason to switch for a two-day sprint. When we spoke with developers, the phrase "it just works" came up more than once. Plus, teams with existing Unity XR codebases found porting surprisingly smooth once they dialed in their OpenXR settings. A few Made With Unity studios had even started porting their titles from Meta Quest and other platforms before the event — before receiving a developer kit.

Why Some Developers Went a Different Route

Not everyone reached for Unity, and those choices were thoughtful:

• Native / Jetpack was the go-to for teams building non-3D, window-based, or system-integrated apps. They wanted to stay close to the hardware — and in one fun case, a developer with a Unity background chose Jetpack purely because they wanted to learn something new.
• StereoKit came up for a developer who needed to modify engine source code directly — a real limitation of Unity's closed-source model for those doing deep hardware work.

Healthcare, Robotics, and XR Newcomers

A few things stood out as we talked to teams throughout the event:

Healthcare and medical showed up strong. Multiple teams were building accessibility or healthcare-adjacent experiences — serious, enterprise-grade stuff that leans on Unity's stability.

Robotics is finding a home in XR. Students from Northeastern University showed us a video demonstration of operators remotely controlling robots by manipulating a digital twin in XR — a compelling glimpse at how spatial computing could reshape human-robot interaction.

First-timers were in the building: one team had never built an XR app before the hackathon, which is a meaningful signal — both Unity and XREAL AURA's approachability is pulling in entirely new developers, not just the veterans.

The Winners

From 19 competing teams, judges representing Unity, Google, and the event's sponsors picked a top 5 — and one overall winner. Four of the five finalists built with Unity — a great reflection of where the ecosystem stands. Hackathon winners received Unity-branded swag and GCP credits.

🥇 Network XR (Overall Winner) created by Maksym Nesmashnyi, Horacio Torrendell, Jayasri Guthula, Ashray Pai, and Raydelto Hernandez: A conference networking platform using real-time face recognition to surface attendee profiles, shared interests, and conversation starters, with follow-up summaries generated on a web platform. Built with Unity + a Python backend.

🏅 Spatial Sailors created by Harold Serrano, Rodney White, and Adam Cooper: A 1v1 real-time naval strategy game with tactical and spatial elements. Built with Unity.

🏅 GastroSphere created by Moaz Sial, Oz Guvenc, Avinash Bolleddula, and Edmund: A clinical spatial computing platform that converts 2D medical imaging into interactive 3D anatomical models, powered by an offline multi-agent AI pipeline. Built with Jetpack Compose XR and Unity.

🏅 One Man Band created by Nick Suda, Stephen Rogers, Ian MacKenzie, and AJ Atkins: A live looping and jamming system with hand-tracked instruments, live sequencing, and a "ghost player" history recording feature. Built with Unity.

🏅 XR-Tract created by Philippe Lewicki, Jeff Breugelmans, and Ali Daniali: A reality-to-reality asset pipeline that captures real-world objects and converts them to game-ready 3D assets via cloud AI. Built with Godot.

Unity's Momentum Heading Into XREAL AURA Launch

Unity’s support for Android XR and XREAL AURA has real momentum as the wired glasses head into their Fall 2026 retail launch. The developer community is engaged and energized, Unity is well-represented across the ecosystem, and the range of projects on display — from multiplayer games to enterprise tools to healthcare applications — shows a platform attracting serious builders. We left the hackathon genuinely excited about what's ahead.