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Unistellar, best known for its smart telescopes, has unveiled new information about its augmented reality (AR) Envision binoculars.
The augmented reality binoculars were initially teased way back in June 2024, and they have finally arrived, sort of. Some publications have gotten their hands on functional prototype versions, including BBC Sky at Night Magazine and Gizmodo. The AR binoculars provide contextual information overlays inside the binoculars themselves, helping users identify landmarks, find trails, and even identify stars, galaxies, planets, and nebulae in the night sky.
“As of October 2025… the design is complete, and mass-production tools (molds, test benches, etc.) are already being built,” Unistellar says. “We’ve also started ordering the components needed to manufacture thousands of Envision units.”
Although Unistellar itself does not say who makes the optics inside the Envision smart binoculars, Sky at Night claims that the core optics are Nikon-designed 10×50 Porro-prism binoculars.
“This is the gold standard for stargazers thanks to a balance of magnification, brightness and wide field of view,” Sky at Night explains.
Of course, the unique selling point of the Envision binoculars is what goes on top of these otherwise standard binoculars. With a high-luminance, high-contrast projection system, Envision’s AR information overlays promise a rich array of helpful, real-time information that is accessible both online and offline.
The accompanying app features a “Guided Navigation Mode,” which displays nearby points of interest, including peaks and summits, hiking paths, shelters, lakes, rivers, and water springs, during the daytime.
At night, Guided Navigation can label galaxies, nebulae, planets, moons, comets, asteroids, lunar landing sites on the Moon, stars, clusters, and the International Space Station (ISS) as it passes across the sky.
The Unistellar Envision binoculars are finally getting closer to being ready for showtime, and the fact that functional prototypes have gotten into people’s hands means that it’s not vaporware. The binoculars are very real, even if the prototypes are missing some of the rich data that Unistellar promises will be in the final version.
Hopefully the “Appolo 11” typo will be fixed by the time the Envision smart binoculars release next year.Unistellar raised millions of dollars for Envision through crowdfunding last year, and is accepting additional preorders now through its web store. Unfortunately, the final production run is still a ways off, and Unistellar says the first batch of preorders, at a discounted price of $999 (down from $1,499), will arrive in October 2026.
It’s a fairly hefty price to pay for binoculars, but there is really nothing quite like the Unistellar Envision already on the market. While that may change by next October, the only product that even comes close is the Swarovski Optik AX Visio Smart Binoculars, which are primarily designed just for wildlife spotting, and they cost a whopping $5,499. Those have one thing going for them that Unistellar’s Envision doesn’t, though, and that’s a built-in camera. Unfortunately, Unistellar’s upcoming AR binoculars are just for observing, not for photographing.
Image credits: Unistellar
