For most of this year, Android XR glasses have been something Google showed on stage. As of this week, you can order a pair.
Image: XREAL
XREAL opened pre-orders for its Aura glasses on October 28, the first glasses built on Google’s Android XR platform to go on sale. They cost $1,099 at launch, $200 off the regular price, with the offer running until the end of the year. Shipping starts in mid-November in the US, Canada and Korea, and on November 2 in Japan.
What you’re getting
Aura looks like a chunky pair of sunglasses, weighing just under 95 grams, connected by a cable to a small “compute puck” that holds the processor and battery. Keeping the heavy parts off your face is what lets the glasses stay relatively light.
Inside the transparent lenses are Sony Micro-OLED displays running at 1920×1200 per eye with up to a 120Hz refresh rate. You can lay out up to five virtual screens around you, mirror your laptop over a cable, and control everything with hand gestures, a touchpad on the puck, or a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. There are three nose-pad sizes, and custom prescription lenses are available.
Gemini sees what you see
The headline feature is Google’s Gemini assistant, which can see what you’re looking at and help with it. Google says Gemini “works across everything in view, including your laptop window,” and can highlight what to focus on, whether that’s in the room or on a screen. That’s the kind of everyday AI help Meta and Samsung are also chasing, but here it’s paired with a proper display.
Plenty to do on day one
Launch content is often where new platforms fall down. Aura arrives with more than 150 experiences built for it, plus access to the huge library of standard Android apps from Google Play.
The highlights include an NBA app that puts a basketball court on your table, viewable from any angle, plus custom experiences from Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ and NASCAR. On the games side there’s Fallout: Factions, a mixed reality Project Hail Mary game set during the film’s journey to Eridani, and Resolution Games’ Demeo. There are Android XR exclusives too, including Asteroid, an interactive film from director Doug Liman that’s free for Aura owners, and Nevatars, featuring Andy Serkis.
Our take
Earlier this month we wrote that while Meta and Apple keep us waiting, XREAL is the company actually shipping AR glasses. Aura is the clearest example yet. It isn’t cheap and it isn’t wire-free, but it’s a real product with a real launch date, running Google’s platform and arriving with a respectable app library.
It also lands at a telling moment. Meta has just said it will only release new VR headsets for major breakthroughs, Samsung’s camera glasses arrive next month, and Snap’s $2,195 Specs are due this autumn. Aura sits between them all: a proper display, Google’s AI, and a price under half of Snap’s. If the experience lives up to the launch line-up, this could be the device that shows what Android XR is really for.