During a recent flight from Los Angeles to New York City, I put a headset on my face to watch a movie.
I wasn’t wearing the Vision Pro or a Meta Quest. I was trying the latest pair of AR glasses from Xreal, a Chinese startup taking an unusually focused approach to face computers.
To call the Xreal One, which is available for preorder starting on Wednesday for $499, a pair of AR glasses feels like a stretch. While they do technically overlay graphics onto your field of vision, they really just function as a display mirror for your phone, laptop, or gaming console. But given the display advancements in the One over Xreal’s last Air 2 glasses, that may be enough.
The Xreal One uses a custom birdbath lens system to achieve what the company says is equivalent to a 1080p display with a 50-degree field of view. Practically, based on my experience watching Netflix’s Rebel Ridge from my plane seat (a very good movie), that translates to a fairly immersive viewing experience.
It’s not like watching something in the Vision Pro. But the fact that I was wearing an 84-gram pair of glasses that didn’t fully occlude my vision more than made up for the difference. The only time I felt the…