What if I told you that, just a couple months after Google and Samsung released the AI-infused, immersive Galaxy XR headset, I got to wear a pair of display glasses that can do almost the same thing? Xreal's Project Aura, a glasses-sized alternative to bulky headsets, is ready to slide into your jacket pocket next year.
Google announced its Android XR intentions a year ago, promising a return to AR and VR fueled by a lot of Gemini AI in a range of product forms from VR headsets to glasses. The Samsung Galaxy XR, a mixed reality headset similar to Apple Vision Pro, was the first Android XR product released, and these Xreal glasses could be the next. .
Project Aura wasn't the only thing Google showed me. I also got to try on the latest iteration of Google's upcoming competitors to Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses. They're coming next year from eyewear partners Warby Parker and Gentle Monster, and they'll work with Google's watches. And Samsung's Galaxy XR headset added more features: a Windows PC connection app, and photo-real avatars in beta called Likenesses that are similar to Apple's Vision Pro Personas.
Google's trumpeting out that it's serious again about glasses, just as Meta is ramping up its efforts and Apple could be around the corner with glasses of its own. While you may not even know if you want to wear smart glasses yet, Google's taking a multi-product approach that makes a lot of sense now that I've done the latest demos. It's the way these new glasses work with phones, apps and even watches that make me the most interested.
Xreal already made its own phone-like processor companion for its glasses (Beam Pro, seen here). Project Aura works like this, except the processor puck doesn't have a display. Scott Stein/CNET
Project Aura: Xreal glasses with a whole range of Android apps
Sitting on a sofa with Project Aura on my face, the prototype glasses immediately felt like VR shrunken to a far smaller form. I launched a computer window wirelessly, streamed from a nearby PC, and controlled it with my hands. I laid out multiple apps. I circled a lamp in the room with a gesture, which caused a Google search. And I launched and played Demeo, a VR game, using my hands in the air.
The most astonishing part to me? All this was possible with just a pair of glasses, even if they were tethered to a phone-sized processor puck. They also had a 70-degree field of view. Yes, that's smaller than what I see with VR headsets, but honestly more than enough to experience immersion. It felt like my VR and AR worlds were colliding.
Project Aura uses an adapted form of Xreal's existing display glasses. The puck contains the same Qualcomm XR Gen 2 Plus chipset used in the Galaxy XR. Using Aura, wandering around the room, was the closest I've seen to full AR glasses outside of Meta's Orion demo a year ago, or Snap's bulkier Spectacles. But unlike Orion, Aura's being released as a real product next year, at a price that should be lower than Vision Pro or Galaxy XR. (Snap's next version of Spectacles are coming next year, too.)
Also unlike Orion, Project Aura doesn't have full transparent lenses. Instead, it bounces its displays down from the top of the glasses, giving an AR effect but with some extra prism-like lens chunks in between (much like Xreal's One Pro glasses).
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