On a bright sunny day in Cupertino, California, I crammed into my seat, unlocked my laptop, connected to Wi-Fi and checked in on Slack. Apple's WWDC keynote was about to begin. This time, however, I added a new step to my live event coverage routine. I plugged the Xreal One Pro glasses into my MacBook and activated the dimmer. They became my smart display-enabled sunglasses.
For the next 2 hours, I covered Apple's announcements wearing Xreal's display glasses, and they worked better than I expected. The One Pros projected my laptop monitor clearly, removed glare that would have overwhelmed my laptop screen and allowed me to watch the stage presentation at the same time. And it got better: By activating Xreal's auto transparency mode, the glasses dimmed the world when I looked at my virtual screen, then became transparent again when I looked at the stage to follow the action.
The future of truly useful everyday AR glasses isn't here yet, but wow, with things like the Xreal One Pro, it's getting close.
The Xreal One Pros tether with USB-C, but can project a larger display than before. (Shown here with the separate Eye camera plugged in below the bridge.) Scott Stein/CNET
A floating display on demand
Xreal's glasses, like all glasses in this product category, use a USB-C cable to tether into whatever you're plugging into. Essentially, they're a tiny wearable monitor with speakers in glasses form. Whatever device supports USB-C video out will work with these glasses, either to mirror your screen or act as a second monitor.
While I've used Xreal's glasses to watch movies on planes (really fun and portable) and do work on my laptop and iPad (helpful on planes too, since space can be cramped, and my laptop lid doesn't always open fully in economy), the idea of covering a whole live event where I needed to be fast, effective, multitasking and not screw up was a whole different story. I'm happy to say the experiment worked, largely because of the auto transparency mode I never realized existed before -- thank you, Norm Chan of Tested, who told me about it as we sat down at the keynote.
Xreal's glasses have three dimmable lens settings that turn the outer glass either transparent semi-dark or close to opaque. It makes them instant sunglasses and also helps the display show up better in bright sunlight. However, these glasses won't block outside light completely -- light bleeds a bit through the dimmed lenses unless you're sitting in a completely dark place -- but the image is still extremely viewable, and looks good.
The transparency mode really made looking at the stage and my own laptop keyboard (and my phone) easier. Xreal's glasses aren't like normal glasses: They have layers of lenses, including the prescription inserts I stacked on top. But they can be used to look around, check messages, even (as I did) shoot some on-the-fly social videos and share them with CNET's social team.
Beyond transparency mode, other adjustments include screen size, projection distance, location of the screen and whether it's anchored or floating in my field of view.
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