SPIE Photonics West 2027

SPIE Photonics West is the optics and photonics event run by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. The 2027 edition takes place in San Francisco from January 30 to February 4, 2027, with conferences and courses across the whole week, the BiOS Expo on January 30 and 31, and the Photonics West Exhibition from February 2 to 4 at the Moscone Center.

For XR people, the main draw is SPIE AR | VR | MR, which SPIE calls the most important conference on optical architectures (optics, displays and sensors) for the next generation of smart glasses and head-mounted displays. The official programme overview lists:

• Technical conference presentations from Monday, February 1, plus evening poster sessions and an Optical Design Challenge
• Main Stage sessions with invited speakers and industry leaders
• The AR | VR | MR Expo and a Headset Museum, February 2 to 4 on Level 1 of Moscone West
• Topics such as combiner optics, display engines, light-field rendering, human perception and 6DOF head tracking
• Short courses on head-mounted display design, waveguides and display engines for mixed reality

Exhibition hours are 10:00 to 17:00 on February 2 and 3, and 10:00 to 16:00 on February 4. The audience is mostly researchers, optical engineers and hardware companies, not consumers. The exhibition visitor pass is free for optics and photonics professionals, while the conferences and courses need paid registration on spie.org.

Sources

• spie.org
• spie.org
• spie.org
• vr.org