Hardwired
In Hardwired, AC Senior Editor Harish Jonnalagadda delves into all things hardware, including phones, audio products, storage servers, and networking gear.
Thermal management is one of the biggest issues with wearables; the limited real estate on devices like smartwatches and smart glasses prevents conventional solutions — like a custom layer that’s used on phones to siphon heat away from the internals. That’s just not possible to do on a tiny PCB that houses all the parts needed for XR glasses, and this will only be an issue as these glasses start getting additional features and on-device AI utilities.
This was an issue on RayNeo’s X3 Pro; while the smart glasses clearly have plenty of potential, they’re prone to heating up, and the limited battery means they’re not designed to last all day. There have been decent advances with battery tech as brands start using silicon batteries in wearables — the Xiaomi Watch 5 uses a silicon battery, and it lasts twice as long as other Wear OS smartwatches — and xMEMS now has a thermal management solution aimed at smaller devices.
I’m familiar with xMEMS’ products; the brand pioneered solid-state audio drivers, and using the likes of the SoundPEATS Air5 Pro+, it’s clear that the tech allows for greater audio fidelity in a smaller size. xMEMS is doing the same with heat dissipation; the brand showcased its all-silicon cooling solutions at MWC 2026, and I had a hands-on demo to see the effectiveness of the tech in action.
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The brand showed off the XMC-2400, an active cooling solution that puts out enough airflow to move a traditional fan at 35 cubic centimeters per second. The product is designed to be used in wearables, and it has inherent advantages over traditional cooling systems: as it’s made entirely out of silicon, it is significantly thinner at just 1mm, and it’s highly efficient — it just needs 30mW of power.
The best part is that it’s IP58 dust and water resistant, so wearable makers can easily integrate in their products without any issues; if anything, this is one of the biggest reasons why we don’t see any actively cooled products in this category. In the demo, xMEMS fitted the XMC-2400 to one side of a pair of 3D-printed smart glasses drawing 1W of power, and activating the cooling solution showed how it was easily able to bring down the thermals by over 20 degrees Celsius in just a minute.
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That’s a huge deal when you consider the size of the product, and the inherent design means wearable brands don’t need to sacrifice battery size or other internals to accommodate the cooling solution. It is an interesting use case, and with XR glasses getting custom waveguides and increased features like built-in navigation and AR abilities, having an efficient cooling solution makes all the difference.
While xMEMS didn’t divulge additional information, the brand’s VP & GM of Thermal Management, Mike Housholder, shared that it secured design wins, and that a consumer product featuring XMC-2400 will make its debut by the end of 2026. Given the frenetic pace of advances with XR glasses, I’m eager to see how active cooling makes a difference in this category — thankfully, we don’t have to wait too long.
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