First Wired XR Glasses Powered By Android XR (techpowerup.com) 21
XREAL has launched the AURA, its first wired augmented reality glasses powered by Google's Android XR platform. They feature transparent Micro-OLED displays, a 70-degree field of view, Gemini AI integration, and a Snapdragon Reality Elite processor. TechPowerUp reports: The device is built around a simple idea: your apps, screens, entertainment, and AI assistant should be able to come with you wherever you go. On day-one, users have access to millions of familiar mobile apps and games from Google Play, alongside many experiences specifically for XR. Android XR brings familiar hand and voice inputs to AURA, while Gemini makes the experiences more natural and intuitive by working across what users see and do.
With Wired Mirroring, users can plug a computer or handheld gaming console directly into XREAL AURA via USB-C and instantly turn it into a massive private spatial window. That means a laptop, handheld gaming device, or other compatible USB-C device can sit alongside native Android XR apps in a user's spatial workspace. Whether turning a plane seat into a private multi-monitor setup, watching a movie on a large virtual screen, or playing Android and console games in an immersive spatial environment, XREAL AURA is designed to make spatial computing practical, portable, and useful.
[...] For work, AURA creates a portable multi-window workspace without requiring a physical monitor. Users can open Android XR apps, mirror a laptop, place windows in virtual space, and use Gemini to help understand or act on what is on screen. For entertainment, AURA becomes a private theater on demand. Users can access familiar streaming apps, expand content into a large virtual display, and use electrochromic dimming to create a more immersive viewing experience while remaining aware of their surroundings when needed. For play, AURA supports Android games and compatible mirrored gaming devices, enabling users to play on a large and immersive private display. The glasses are available to order today, with limited-time pricing starting at $1,099 for the 12GB RAM and 256GB storage model. Devices are expected to begin shipping in mid-November.
With Wired Mirroring, users can plug a computer or handheld gaming console directly into XREAL AURA via USB-C and instantly turn it into a massive private spatial window. That means a laptop, handheld gaming device, or other compatible USB-C device can sit alongside native Android XR apps in a user's spatial workspace. Whether turning a plane seat into a private multi-monitor setup, watching a movie on a large virtual screen, or playing Android and console games in an immersive spatial environment, XREAL AURA is designed to make spatial computing practical, portable, and useful.
[...] For work, AURA creates a portable multi-window workspace without requiring a physical monitor. Users can open Android XR apps, mirror a laptop, place windows in virtual space, and use Gemini to help understand or act on what is on screen. For entertainment, AURA becomes a private theater on demand. Users can access familiar streaming apps, expand content into a large virtual display, and use electrochromic dimming to create a more immersive viewing experience while remaining aware of their surroundings when needed. For play, AURA supports Android games and compatible mirrored gaming devices, enabling users to play on a large and immersive private display. The glasses are available to order today, with limited-time pricing starting at $1,099 for the 12GB RAM and 256GB storage model. Devices are expected to begin shipping in mid-November.
Wired Glasses (Score:2)
How long is the cord?
Re: (Score:2)
At $1099, probably 30 meters.
Re: Wired Glasses (Score:2)
Industrial applications only please (Score:3)
I think that AR glasses could be very useful for professional use, such as industrial applications and in other limited environments. But that's it.
Smartphone users clogging up walkways or walking out into traffic have been a nuisance for decades.
I predict that AR-glass users out and about would only get worse.
And then there's the spying issue. You can't tell what the glasses are doing. When there are many different brands out there all different and you can't learn them all, so you'd have to expect that they are filming you when you don't want to.
Just ban them all in public, except perhaps for people with special needs (who could wear e.g. bright red ones with polkadots -- that nobody else wants to). That would be better for everyone.
Re: Industrial applications only please (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Industrial applications only please (Score:4, Insightful)
There's definitely going to be "market confusion" between this sort of thing and "pervert glasses". Like with so many things, Meta has shit in the well. However, these actually look like they could be good - the idea that you can turn any space into a massive monitor for your laptop is awesome.
The initial apps offerings look... well, predictably crap. They're just some US-focussed stuff they threw together to get some sort of 'hook' to lure consumers. I don't imagine any of it is any actual use. But to some extent, that's to be expected. It's what else they have available that's going to be the real good stuff.
As for actual applications people might buy them for - you're right, industrial could be a good one. I reckon clerical could be too (massive monitor type stuff), and maybe entertainment - depends on how good it really is (no one's going to pay >$1000 for a worse TV than they already have).
I'm not going to be any sort of early adopter here, but I look forward to seeing these in stores so we can actually try them out. There *might* be a use for them (unlike pervert glasses, which apart from perving, seem to have no discernible use for 99% of the world).
Re:Industrial applications only please (Score:4, Interesting)
From a 1960s comedy:
It was an absolutely absurd thing to say in 1967, but in 2026 the joke is about as dated as anything can be. I wonder if young people today even get it.
I don't know when you went larval, but your low uid suggests it was probably a very long time ago. I speculate that a few decades back, a type of tool once thought to be for business (which IBM had earlier predicted had a worldwide market size of about a half dozen) somehow fell into your hands, and you fell in love at a personal level. No? Did I guess right?
In a lot of industries, people learn about tech at work first, and then maybe adopt it personally. But with computers, at least for GenX-and-later, it mostly worked in the reverse: you get a personal computer and master it, and then when you're 18 you show up at a business totally loaded with years of experience and skills.
Why? Because unlike Bessemer converters or bucket wheel excavators or magnetic resonance imaging machines, computers are cheap. All the "capital" (if you can even honestly call it that) you need is just a few thousand dollars at most, maybe even just a few hundred.
The way things have worked in the last few decades (I'd think especially for old Slashdotters) is that the "professional" tool was already very familiar long before you got the job where you work with it. And anything involving cheap electronics is going to remain like that. Unless it's just totally illegal, there's no way millions of people aren't going to have it and use it personally.
All the crap I wrote above was just to say: special needs is everybody. Don't hop in your time machine and tell 1979-me that I can't use a computer, or I'll become a very angry kid, and by 1984 I would consider it an inexcusable Act of War.
Now if you wanna mandate wearable displays be bright red with polka dots, you might get away with that. But don't be surprised if you end up changing fashion itself. Wearable displays don't really appeal to me yet (they haven't been commoditized where I can choose from many manufacturers, all of whose product can run the same defacto-standardized Free Software, just like how an x86 motherboard can) but maybe some day the market will produce a wearable display that I would be willing to use.
If it's bright red with polka dots, then I just might end up losing the black-band-shirt-and-jeans look, and start dressing like the love-spawn of Liberace and Quetzalcoatl, just so my glasses match the rest of me.
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Remember when people here were hyping up Apple's Vision Pro as being the next big thing for professionals and on-the-go working? Unlimited massive monitors all around you on the plane, instructions overlaid over the thing you are working on, AI vision built in.
Who needs a 92 inch TV when you can put on a Vision Pro and watch a movie on the crapper?
These won't be any different. At least they don't need a front camera to relay the image to the screens just so you can see what is in front of you, but there sim
Re:Industrial applications only please (Score:4, Interesting)
Remember when people here were hyping up Apple's Vision Pro as being the next big thing for professionals and on-the-go working? Unlimited massive monitors all around you on the plane, instructions overlaid over the thing you are working on, AI vision built in.
The people who were hyping the Vision Pro were delusional about its price and performance, and were buying into some truly absurd use cases. Screen mirroring? We've had that for close to a decade before the Vision Pro was released, it wasn't used because it sucked for reasons that the Vision Pro didn't resolve.
However that doesn't mean that you ignore all applications for something. This abso-fucking-lutely has industrial applications. As do VR headsets. I've used VR headsets in a professional context on quite a few occasions, I've yet to find anything comparable for doing a model review (something that is done in industry for maybe building a new plant, or something as minor as re-routing a single piece of pipe).
I've also on several occasions used XR, and we continue to use XR for inspections. I've crawled through a desalter covered in gear all the while I was being fed audio/video and feeding audio/video to our expert based in Texas. It was a huge step up from the old days of sending them a photo via email, calling them on the phone and then being told, oh no can you go out again and take the photo from this slightly different angle.
Everyone who has used XR in industry has two things to say.
a) this is the future.
b) this is fucking bulky and I can't wait to get it off right now and I hope it's lighter and smaller during the next maintenance activity.
These products are now approaching the point where b) is becoming a non issue and the industrial applications for it are endless.
Sidenote: I had Vega in my office the other day demonstrating their new tuning fork sensors and I queried them about the QR code on the case. "Oh it takes you directly to the product manual." I'm happy for the next generation that will be able to walk into the field with glasses on, glance at the equipment and automatically have information relevant to them pop up in front of them on demand. Too many times in my life I've climbed to the top of the tower with one set of documentation in hand only to invent new swearwords when I get there and find the equipment wasn't as expected. Oh sure these days I carry a tablet with me, but using a tablet fucking sucks with gloves on.
Re: (Score:3)
Apples (pun intended) and oranges: Apple's Vision Pro was a massive, heavy, full head headset ... while this is basically just heavy sunglasses.
in time (Score:3)
Certainly nothing worth the cost of the glasses, the weight, and needing to charge it regularly.
$1k and 100gr is getting close (you also have to carry the puck, though, but that could fit in a pocket). battery life is reportedly 3-4h, that's disappointing. also, current price is early bird "offer". but still ...
pending testing (i probably won't), from the specs and press it looks like a solid product to me. i could find uses for such a device (after a few more iterations).
Remember when people here were hyping up Apple's Vision Pro
fanbois gonna fanboi, and most of those were influencers fishing for views anyway.
These won't be any different.
i don't expect any of this to be revolutionary, b
sigh (Score:1)
I get that slashvertisements have to exist to keep this place afloat, but "The glasses are available to order today" is such a massive fuck you. That's not what available means. The ordering website is available. The glasses are not. Advertisers are all gaslighters.
Re: sigh (Score:2)
If you want to call me professionally offended, then pay me, coward.
uh.. (Score:1)
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Why do all the smart/ar glasses do the glasses part poorly? for devices you want to see none of them do prescription lenses if they display anything
YMMV on the how well they do it, but both the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest 2&3 support prescription optical inserts, and XReal also supports prescription lenses (https://us.shop.xreal.com/products/xreal-one-pro-prescription-lens), and that includes this new XReal Aura (https://us.shop.xreal.com/products/xreal-aura ... it's listed on there under "Personalized Prescription Lenses").
This one's worth a comment... (Score:1)
"Yawn!" That's my comment. And the price tag makes it a hard "no" real quick.
No that innovative (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't mind the puck, but for personal use would want full opaque, reading mode for books, so hi res and not tiring, maybe not front lit, but minimal light emitting, and price in the low hundreds. I also cannot see optical transparency, totally distracting if you just want to read. Or watch a movie.
They will come, but at this price and this res, this one doesn't cut it.
Maybe in industry? But not for personal use, or not mine anyway.