I’ve always been a bit skeptical of smart glasses and mixed reality headsets. It’s not hard to find the utility of something like a Meta Quest in gaming, but Apple’s Vision Pro, for example, has never appealed to me in the slightest. Ahead of its first pair of Android XR glasses, though, I’ve spent some time with the XREAL One Pro and two things have become immediately clear – this is the hardware that could make Android XR shine, and XREAL will benefit greatly from Android XR.

If you’re unfamiliar with XREAL, I actually can’t blame you one bit. I always knew about this company, but the idea of glasses that put a screen in front of my face never sounded particularly worthwhile to me. But when XREAL mentioned it would adopt Android XR, I just had to give this tech a shot.

So, lately, I’ve been using XREAL One Pro, plugged into either a Galaxy Z Fold 7, MacBook, or a Redmagic Astra 2 tablet. The idea is really that simple. Whatever you’re doing, just plug it into the glasses and see it pop up on a 157-inch display (customizable) in front of your face. Initially, I wasn’t all that sure I’d find it useful, but a clear use case did immediately come up – airplanes.

Having a giant screen that floats in front of you and follows your movements is just so perfect in that context. It sure beats a seatback screen, and wearing them for a few hours on a flight is pretty comfortable too.

I’d never do this with a full headset, it’s just too bulky and weird-looking. XREAL One Pro don’t exactly look “normal.” They stick out from your face a little too far to be subtle, but the compact size in your bag and the cable running down makes it pretty clear what’s going on.

As for the actual quality, it’s pretty great. Like any screen in front of your face, it takes a minute to dial in the settings, but movies look great once you do. Mirroring my MacBook screen also made a great full-size canvas to do some work, all without worrying about the person in front of me reclining and ruining the whole experience. It’s not perfect, as while XREAL’s 3DoF tracking is fantastic on the ground, it has a tendency to drift around while on a flight, especially if there’s any turbulence.

The only trouble comes from the unfortunate fact that not everything works. When plugged into the Redmagic tablet, for instance, I ran into problems with certain video apps including Fandango at Home and Google TV, though the latter worked fine on my Fold over DeX. The 3D conversion mode also never worked on the Redmagic tablet, though it was pretty solid when it did work on my Fold.

And I think that’s where XREAL Aura with Android XR will “complete” the experience.

XREAL One Pro just builds on whatever you feed into it. The on-board controls and software are limited, and you simply can’t do anything without your secondary device. There are add-ons for gesture controls, and XREAL sells an Android phone that adds a UI to the glasses, but I think Android XR truly is the missing puzzle piece. XREAL seems to agree, as the company is pretty vocal about its vision for the future involving a lot more Android XR. And it’s not like the ability to plug in a device will go away, as Aura is set to support that.

There’s absolutely still space for what we have today. As mentioned, the simple ability to watch movies or get a bigger laptop display on the go rocks. But that’s where something like XREAL’s new A01+ glasses can shine, and for a lot less money at $299. I wouldn’t fork over $600 for XREAL One Pro just to get a bigger screen I can throw in my bag, but I’d definitely pay for the A01+, and XREAL 1S at $450 is also worth considering – I tried those out back at CES, and they work just about as well as One Pro, at least for the purposes I’ve mentioned here.

XREAL Aura is set to launch later this year, while One Pro, 1S, and A01+, are all available now.

Have you tried these out? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Follow Ben: Twitter/X, Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news:

Find him on Twitter @NexusBen. Send tips to schoon@9to5g.com or encrypted to benschoon@protonmail.com.