New XREAL One 3DoF AR glasses show that while Meta talks, XREAL walks

When Meta unveiled its Orion glasses in September, a light was finally shone on one of the most exciting markets in tech: smart glasses. Mark Zuckerberg's fancy frames were a glimpse into the future, though that may be a long-distant future, with reports indicating that we won't see Orion's final form until we approach the end of the decade.

However, the era of facial computing isn't waiting around, and AR glasses maker XREAL has just unveiled its most advanced pair of smart glasses yet, the XREAL One.

Smart glasses, while by no means a new invention, are an emerging market, at least when it comes to mainstream recognition. That said, the tech you'll find within this category is leaps and bounds ahead of what you'd expect, even when compared to its Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro mixed reality cousins.

XREAL's new One-series of glasses (split between standard and Pro models) is a bold step in delivering the full standalone AR glasses experience of the future. While we've some way to go, these AR glasses are set to stand as the best effort yet.

XREAL One: The 'One' you've been waiting for

You may not be familiar with XREAL, but if I were to draw up a list of some of the more impressive achievements in this market over the last year, XREAL would make up 47.2% of it. Which is coincidentally also the market share the company claims within the augmented and extended reality industry.

XREAL's latest AR glasses showcase this prowess in full, not only offering a wider field of view (50-57 degrees), improved optics (with the One Pro featuring a flat Bird Bath design for the first time), brighter and more stabilized displays (that can render a screen up to 147 inches as viewed from a 4 meter distance), BOSE audio, and a redesigned interface, but also a proprietary chip that enables virtual elements to exist with 3DoF (three degrees of freedom) all maintained within the frames — no computing puck required.

The chip responsible is called the X1, and it's solely developed by XREAL. While companies like Meta, Lenovo, and reportedly even Samsung lean on Qualcomm's Snapdragon XR platform, XREAL is introducing its own silicon solution which is fine-tuned for speed, delivering faster chip-to-photon speeds (3 ms) than even Apple's Vision Pro.

The result is a supremely stable picture, devoid of flicker and blur, offering crisp, color-accurate images, with minimal latency at a universal 120Hz.

I've made great use of XREAL's Air 2 AR glasses over the last year, especially since the company released its Beam Pro device — an Android-based spatial computing solution that unlocks much of the true AR potential these glasses have.

However, the new XREAL One frames, with their X1 chip onboard, offer native 3DoF experiences, allowing you to enjoy more immersive AR experiences through any device with a DP over USB-C output.

What is 3DoF, and why is it important?

Previous models of XREAL glasses functioned as static, wearable displays. This allowed you to mirror the screen of compatible devices into your field of vision, but the image would remain squarely locked into place.

While this is fine for watching movies or playing games, it can be quite restrictive and the fixed nature of the screen can feel slightly off to the eye.

The company's Nebula software was developed to emulate a virtual environment, using the AR glasses' gyroscope to track head movements and render virtual displays in a 3D space.

This allows you to 'turn away' from anchored displays, with screens being virtually locked to a particular space. This is what is meant by 3DoF. While your head can turn, the virtual elements will remain in place, and it makes for a more comfortable and immersive static/seated viewing experience.

If you move or walk around, those displays will follow you, but they'll remain "anchored" to the direction you positioned them in.

6DoF is where you can move around freely and these virtual elements will remain in the position you placed them in, which is something you'll find in full mixed-reality headsets such as the Vision Pro or Meta Quest 3S.

The XREAL One's on-device 3DoF capabilities will produce a faster, sharper, and more natural viewing experience that improves comfort and makes these glasses a true standalone AR experience, and less of a wearable display.

Outlook

The XREAL One is no pie-in-the-sky campaign that hopes to bring AR glasses into the light of the mainstream. This is a company with the means of production to produce at scale and the backing of proprietary technology and industry partnerships that position them in the top tier of smart glasses manufacturers.

I'm a massive proponent of smart glasses. I wear a pair of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses every day, and I've found that AR glasses are a fantastic alternative to flatscreens.

However, the XREAL One-series of glasses is the first time we're set to see a true AR experience come to the company's catalog of wearables, and I can't wait to get my hands on a pair and see just how much of an improvement this next generation of frames really is.

The XREAL One-series is now available to preorder in the US from the XREAL online store and at Amazon, with the standard 50-degree FoV model available for $499 and the Pro 57-degree FoV model with flat Bird Bath optics available for $599.

The standard model will begin shipping in mid-December, while the Pro model is expected to begin shipping in early 2025.

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