A couple years ago, I purchased a pair of AR glasses and wore them as a replacement for my computer monitor. I worked in them. I played games with them. I loved them, briefly and passionately, before eventually allowing them to disappear onto a shelf. Despite delivering on their promise, I grew tired of them after only a few months.
AR glasses provide the largest screen in your home
They’re also small enough to be part of your everyday carry
I love innovative hardware, and that’s part of the reason I do what I do. I’m a sucker for both cyberpunk and science fiction, and few pieces of tech scream both quite as loudly as AR glasses. You pop them on, and you have a 100-inch virtual screen that can display whatever you want—the Samsung DeX desktop, the latest Life Is Strange game, or a new episode of The Diplomat—without anyone else being able to see what you’re doing.
AR glasses tend to look like oversized sunglasses, and most must connect to a separate device that does the actual computing. Since wireless technology would currently introduce too much latency, this connection is done via a USB-C cable connected either to your phone, a conventional PC, or a dedicated hub. The glasses and cable can usually be tucked away inside a rather bulky glasses case.
I used AR glasses whenever I wanted a larger screen than my phone
A massive virtual display both for work and play
In the late spring of 2024, I replaced my desktop monitor with a pair of XREAL Air 2 Pro AR glasses, a slightly upgraded version of the XREAL AIr 2. I would walk into my office, connect the glasses via USB-C cable to my Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5, place my hands on my Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and get to work.
During this time, I also explored how much fun AR glasses could be. I played through much of game developer Don’t Nod’s back catalog using NVIDIA GeForce NOW, AR glasses, Samsung DeX, and what is still one of the best Bluetooth game controllers you can buy today. These remain some of my fondest adulthood gaming memories, for they offered me a quiet reprieve at night at a time when my kids would not go to bed if they thought I might be having fun playing a game on the TV in the living room. I curled up under the blankets in a darkened room as I silently enjoyed Twin Mirror and Tell Me More.
These glasses similarly provided a compelling way to watch a movie. It was with these glasses on that I watched the anime film Maboroshi about teenagers living in a world stuck in a time loop.
I found AR glasses to be better for entertainment
But even then, there were too many annoyances
Anything you have to wear on your face is already partially annoying, so that’s the foundation that other annoyances are building on top of.
For example, my glasses pulled power from my phone using its sole USB-C port, and I quickly discovered that I needed a way to keep my phone alive during a typical workday. While a wireless charging pad was viable, that combined with asking my phone to power an external display for several hours straight just seemed a surefire way to toast and drastically reduce the life of a battery. I instead purchased an XREAL Hub that provided an extra port for simultaneous use and charging.
I found the bigger issue to be the how well the glasses rendered text. Text was sharpest at the center of the screen and fuzzier as I looked toward the edges of my workspace. Yet even when text was at its crispest, I ultimately found 1080p to be too low a resolution, even despite the OLED panels.
When working and watching media alike, I grew annoyed by the way the virtual display would follow along with my every slight movement. Since the display stayed centered in my field of view, rather than being anchored in place, it would move every time I leaned my head. This is an issue that XREAL has addressed with its newer model.
- Weight
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82g
- Refresh rate
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120 Hz
- Resolution
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1200P
- Field of view
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52 degrees
The XREAL 1S AR glasses offer a virtual display of up to 500 inches via Sony Micro OLED panels with a 120Hz refresh rate and a 1200p resolution, plus a peak brightness of 700 nits. They serve as an external display for a phone, PC, or game console.
I found all of these issues were solved when I invested in a larger, significantly more expensive virtual reality headset instead—the Samsung Galaxy XR. That device has a separate power source that’s easy to charge while in use, has much higher-resolution 4K displays, and can anchor windows wherever I like. It was hard to go back to my older AR glasses after that, despite a heavy headset introducing its own set of issues. I ultimately decided to sell my pair.
Yet this headset still suffered from what remains my biggest issue with any type of AR tech—it remains rather anti-social. If I’m laughing at Kim’s Convenience on the TV, a family member is welcome to sit down and share in the experience with me. If I’m laughing on the sofa at whatever is going on in my large sunglasses, I ultimately just look strange. That is a hurdle I have yet to see any AR product overcome.
At this point, my Galaxy XR headset has no longer replaced the AR glasses on my desk—they’ve taken over their spot on my shelf, where they are likely awaiting the same fate as my glasses. There’s much I prefer about working in augmented reality, but I don’t live in isolation. There’s nothing quite like watching a movie at night in AR glasses, but I now rather put that money toward a display that I can share with others.
Stephan is the sports journalist for the Maple Grove Report.
