AC thVRsday
In his weekly column, Android Central Senior Content Producer Nick Sutrich delves into all things VR, from new hardware to new games, upcoming technologies, and so much more.
It’s been a long time coming, but we finally got to see Xreal Project Aura in action at Google I/O 2026. The hybrid smart glasses are designed to deliver a VR experience in a smart glasses form factor, so you get the full power of the Android XR platform without the bulk of a VR headset. Project Aura packs dual displays (one in each lens), speakers, and cameras to deliver an upgraded smart glasses experience.
Xreal is still outfitting Aura glasses with an upgraded X1S chip and a set of cameras that allow it to spatially track your position, so you can get that full VR spatial experience. This upgraded X1S chip focuses on improved speed and multitasking compared to the X1 chip in the current-generation Xreal One glasses.
Fundamentally different from every other pair of smart glasses
Xreal released many of the first official details of Project Aura after the Google I/O 2026 show yesterday, a full year after the initial unveiling at last year’s I/O. During a product briefing ahead of I/O 2026, Xreal told me to expect the glasses to make their commercial debut this year. Whether that’ll be alongside the new Samsung-built AI glasses in the fall, or slightly closer to the holidays, is up in the air.
Since Tuesday afternoon’s information release, there’s been some confusion about how Project Aura works. These glasses aren’t the same as current-generation glasses like Xreal 1S or Viture Beast. Those glasses are just a wearable monitor that you plug into another device, like your phone, laptop, or even a device like the Nintendo Switch 2.
Xreal Project Aura is intended to be used entirely on its own, though it also doubles as a wearable monitor, if you want. But normally, you’ll plug it into the compute puck I mentioned above and get the full Android XR experience. That means full spatial tracking of your surroundings and hand tracking (to enable natural movement and interaction), plus support for all existing Android 2D and spatial apps.
You can see it in action at the link below (jump to 12:16 if the link doesn’t do that for you).
The puck itself looks like a phone, but it’s not. It’s a clear evolution of 2024’s Xreal Beam Pro, including the dual USB-C ports on the bottom.
Xreal stopped short of announcing a specific Snapdragon chipset for the compute puck. Still, since it’s designed to offer the full Android XR experience, it’s going to be far more capable than the chipsets found in all-in-one XR glasses like Ray-Ban Display or even the monocular display glasses Google and Samsung are working on.
Project Aura features a 70-degree field of view (FoV), which is about 15 degrees wider than the best smart glasses available today, but still about 20-30 degrees narrower than a VR headset like the Meta Quest 3. Whether you’ll want to play VR games on this regularly remains to be seen, but the glasses should be perfect for mixed-reality games that overlay virtual objects onto the real world or use the real world as a backdrop.
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Based on Android Central managing editor Derrek Lee’s hands-on time and analyst Anshel Sag’s notes, it’s clear Xreal and Google have put some impressive work into translating the VR experience into a sleek pair of smart glasses. Sag says the narrower FoV is impressive and translates the Galaxy XR experience faithfully. As a regular Galaxy XR user, this is exactly what I was hoping to hear!
Additionally, the image quality and performance seem to be on par with the headset for daily tasks. Since the glasses have Gemini built in, they can detect faces and automatically dim the display so you can see the person standing in front of you best, making this feel even more like a magic floating display.
Project Aura doesn’t have a final product name, price, or specific release date, but we expect it to be available later this year, likely at a similar (or slightly higher) price to the new Xreal ROG R1 glasses announced last week. Xreal is sending out the first 1,000 devkits for free, which means there’s no real investment for developers to begin making Android XR spatial apps right now. The future looks very bright for this tech, and Aura will lead the way in the next big XR push.
