Early look at Google's Project Starline, a video booth with a 65" display and several sensors and cameras allowing for 3D representations of video call subjects
Our reporter tests out a “video booth” to glimpse of the future of telepresence. — OVER THE PAST several years … Tweets: @claybavor , @laurengoode , @mgsiegler , @delk , @paulm , @simulacracid , @drpippam , @sharifshameem , @rsarver , @yuris , @nabeel , @44 , @dflieb , @jeffdean , @rajanpatel , @simulacracid , @jonwiley , @rklau , @jamesurquhart , @avibarzeev , and @seybold Tweets: Clay Bavor / @claybavor : This is Project Starline. Years in the making, it works like a magic window, bringing you together with friends, family, and coworkers, even when you're cities (or countries) apart. https://blog.google/... https://twitter.com/... Lauren Goode / @laurengoode : Google's Project Starline is a wild concept that shows photo-realistic, 3D representations of your colleagues over video conference, no headset required. And I had the chance to try it earlier this month https://www.wired.com/... M.G. Siegler / @mgsiegler : This was hands-down one of the coolest demos I've ever seen. Maybe *the* coolest because it's so natural — and obvious that this is the future way of immersive remote communication. You really feel like you're in the room with the other person. It's wild. https://www.wired.com/... Ryan Delk / @delk : This is quite cool. (I was also struck by how refreshing it was to read publicly about ambitious projects from Google again!) https://blog.google/... Paul McMillan / @paulm : Everyone who is blown away by this is reflecting the trauma of how utterly terrible the video conferencing systems we use today are. They don't have to be. A decade ago a well tuned system with the right tech allowed “feels like the same room”. 3D is a gimmick. https://twitter.com/... Stella / @simulacracid : ARCore updates: raw depth API better hit tests playback & recording (nice of a native platform to catch up to MARS in this regard) they're good updates but they don't really enable much new. still no human body tracking almost 2 years after ARKit? https://developers.googleblog.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... Pippa Malmgren / @drpippam : Digital twins: Google's Project Starline Wants to Turn You Into a Hologram. The new prototype machine for face-to-face meetings is named Project Starline. Call it hyper-telepresence. https://www.wired.com/... via @wired Sharif Shameem / @sharifshameem : Prediction: this screen will be commonplace in every office in the next 10 years, and every home shortly thereafter. https://twitter.com/... Ryan Sarver / @rsarver : Wow. Hope this is something that becomes a lot more accessible and compact quickly. https://twitter.com/... Yuri Sagalov / @yuris : Wow🤯 This is an incredible product demo and feels like a massive step function improvement in tele presence. https://blog.google/... Nabeel Hyatt / @nabeel : I want this so bad. Really hope I don't have to go work at Google to get it. 🤣 https://twitter.com/... Menotti Minutillo / @44 : how many seconds would this take to smash through the typical home ISP data cap https://www.techmeme.com/... David Lieb / @dflieb : When my Bump cofounder @andyhuibers (one of the founding engineers on this) first showed me the demo, it was (and still is) the single most amazing tech demo I've ever seen. Congrats @claybavor and the entire team! https://twitter.com/... Jeff Dean / @jeffdean : I got a chance to try Project Starline about a year and a half ago, and was really blown away. The 3D experience and the way in which everything seamlessly worked as you moved your head or changed your viewpoint was really amazing. A magic window is a great descriptor! https://twitter.com/... Rajan Patel / @rajanpatel : It's been a privilege to get to work with the Starline team and test early prototypes to meet with colleagues across the country. THE most transformative tech experience I've ever had and I'm pumped they get to show it to the world. Congrats @claybavor, Steve Seitz, and team! https://twitter.com/... Stella / @simulacracid : grim that this is what Google's ar/vr division is showing. something nobody can use that only exists in Google offices. I guess what we all get for the future of AR is apple's sexless puritanism & the military hololens https://twitter.com/... Jon Wiley / @jonwiley : Project Starline is among a handful of projects I've worked on in my 15 years at Google that felt like I was truly on the furthest frontiers of innovation. Kudos to the team for this important milestone. https://twitter.com/... Rick Klau / @rklau : I'd heard about folks who got early demos of Project Starline when I was still on campus, kept meaning to get a peek before I left. Everyone who did it talked about how magical it felt. Easy to see why: https://blog.google/... James Urquhart / @jamesurquhart : 3D Telepresence. Cool. Will be a challenge to require dedicated spaces at home, however, as it was with Cisco Telepresence. https://twitter.com/... @avibarzeev : Starline is pretty interesting IMO. I should tell you the story sometime of how this same idea (using an early Kinect+TV) in 2009 helped lead to funding for both volumetric video capture and the Hololens (but NOT a 3D Skype/Communicator, ironically). https://www.wired.com/... Patrick Seybold / @seybold : Very excited to have been able to work on announcing Project Starline! What a great team and truly amazing early technology: https://www.wired.com/... via @wired
Context & Ripple Effects
In May 2021, Google gave reporters a first look at Project Starline, a booth-sized 'magic window' that uses a 65-inch display plus an array of sensors and cameras to render callers in 3D — Clay Bavor framing it as years in the making for friends, family, and coworkers across cities and countries. It was Google's answer to both flat video conferencing and the headset route Microsoft had just pushed forward with the HoloLens 2, which traded glasses-on immersion for a $3,500 price tag.
The arc since then validates the bet on hardware form factor: Google installed booths with enterprise partners including Salesforce, WeWork, and T-Mobile, then reported shrinking the whole rig from booth down to a large TV — the same tech Salesforce, T-Mobile, and WeWork continued testing.
First-order effects
- Enterprise partners Salesforce, WeWork, and T-Mobile become the first real-world test base, moving Starline from Wired-style demo coverage to deployed pilot hardware.
- Microsoft's HoloLens 2 headset approach now has a screen-based counterpoint: Google is betting enterprises prefer no-worn-hardware presence over $3,500 headsets.
Second-order effects
- Cisco's Telepresence line — the incumbent room-system telepresence franchise named in this coverage — faces a new competitor whose pitch is depth-sensed 3D rather than bigger flat screens.
- If the booth-to-TV shrinkage holds, the addressable buyer set widens from companies willing to build dedicated booths to any conference room that fits a large display.
Third-order effects
- Google's later move to launch Android XR for headsets and glasses suggests its spatial-communication ambitions are consolidating into one platform layer, where a technology like Starline becomes a feature of an XR ecosystem rather than a standalone booth product.
- The pattern points toward telepresence splitting into two camps — screen-based volumetric systems versus worn headsets — with enterprise pilots like Salesforce's and T-Mobile's deciding which camp gets budget first.
The trend: Telepresence is evolving from flat video toward spatially rendered communication, with Google pursuing both screen-based (Starline) and headset-based (Android XR) routes while enterprises run the pilots.