Xreal Aura is a new wired headset powered by Android XR

At the Android Developer Summit connected Wednesday, Google’s smart glasses partner Xreal launched its caller Xreal Aura wired astute glasses, powered by the Android XR and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Reality Elite platforms. The companies had teased the glasses earlier successful the twelvemonth at Google’s I/O developer conference.

As Meta expands its propulsion into astute glasses, competitors similar Apple and Google are keen to merchandise their ain devices. Much similar it did with Android smartphones, Google is relying connected an assortment of partners, including Samsung and Xreal, to bring devices powered by its Android XR level to consumers.

The caller Xreal Aura astute glasses are tethered to a smartphone-like instrumentality for processing power, alternatively than handling each the computing themselves. The glasses past show the contented successful the wearer’s tract of view.

The device’s design, meanwhile, is person to Meta’s astute glasses than Apple’s Vision Pro, which is simply a larger headset.

Xreal Aura uses Sony’s Micro-OLED show with 1200p solution astatine 120Hz and a 95-degree tract of presumption — surface specs that enactment the glasses supra the Ray-Ban Meta Display connected paper. However, Xreal’s astute glasses are heavier astatine 95 grams compared to Meta’s 69 grams, and you person to transportation the puck.

At launch, the Aura supports galore fashionable Google Play apps and games on with circumstantial XR experiences, including NBA App for Android XR, Nevatars, Fallout: Factions, Project Hail Mary: Journey Among the Stars, NASCAR XR App, and San Francisco Ballet Company’s The Nutcracker.

Users tin opt to plug a machine oregon handheld gaming console straight into the Xreal Aura via USB-C to marque it an augmented display. The instrumentality tin besides let for assorted amusement and productivity usage cases by spinning up a multi-monitor setup oregon a large virtual screen.

For audio, the Xreal Aura uses Bose’s tech to powerfulness its dependable portion watching videos oregon listening to music.

Given that the caller astute glasses are powered by Android XR, Gemini is disposable to users arsenic a Q&A adjunct and tin assistance users to recognize on-screen context.

The Xreal Aura is disposable to bid starting contiguous successful the United States, Canada, Japan, and
South Korea. The 12GB + 256GB mentation costs $1,279 with a constricted motorboat terms of $1,099 done December, and the 16GB + 512GB mentation is priced astatine $1,499 with a motorboat terms of $1,299 done December. The institution said it volition commencement shipping by Mid-November.

In May, Xreal CEO Chi Xu told TechCrunch that gathering a astute solid concern is hard and everyone is losing money. He besides said that the Aura glasses volition person a wide scope of usage cases, and the manufacture has reached an inflection constituent of having the close hardware, software, and plan astute glasses to scope scale.

“You request each the cardinal pieces acceptable — you request the hardware ready, the operating strategy needs to beryllium ready, and past you request a large idiosyncratic interface,” Xu said astatine that time.