TL;DR
Even after Android XR’s announcement last year, we’ve only seen slow progress in the category, with either audio-only variants or bulky contraptions that completely cover your face. At I/O last month, Google demoed the more convenient intermediate option: smart glasses with built-in displays, though that won’t come until next year. Until Samsung delivers the first pair of Android XR-powered glasses, other brands are eyeing success by making an early impression, and XREAL is one of them.
XREAL is known for its immersive XR glasses that run off of other devices, such as your phone or laptop. Last June, however, it started teasing a new pair of XR glasses, called Project Aura, and said it would run completely independently (not entirely, since these are wired and use a puck as big as a smartphone to power them). In the following months, Google and XREAL gave us more glimpses of the Project Aura glasses, but without revealing key details. Thankfully, if you’ve been pining for these, your wait has come to an end as Project Aura has graduated into being an actual product, and it’s called just Aura now.
At the Augmented World Expo (AWE) 2026, where Snap Inc. also showcased its eye-watering $2000 Specs, XREAL is formally announcing its Aura glasses, running on Google’s Android XR platform and built on Gemini. These glasses are powered by Qualcomm’s newly announced Snapdragon Reality Elite platform, which delivers significant performance gains and local AI processing. The glasses also feature an XREAL X1S coprocessor to process “spatial” content for rendering on the optical see-through (OST) lenses. Unlike other smart glasses with displays, the XREAL glasses use an additional screen to project content.
This screen offers a 70-degree wide field of view, while cameras at the front of the frame enable hand-tracking gestures with tracking across all three dimensions.
To make the Aura glasses more compelling than just displays sitting on your face, XREAL is also launching a large catalog of interactive content, especially games you can play natively on the glasses. Among the ones launching right away are gaming titles such as:
Along with these, we’ll also see immersive video content, including Asteroid (short film) and Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker ballet act redone for spatial viewing. There’s a wide range of apps too, including Simply Piano XR, to help you learn how to play piano, ShapesXR and Frontline.io for tinkering with 3D designing, and Plynk Spatial to visualize stocks in 3D.
The XREAL Aura glasses with Android XR can now be preordered by customers in the US, the UK, and Japan at the company’s website for $99. When it launches later this year, backers will receive $199 in credits.
There’s a higher $299 tier as well for those who want the glasses on day one of launch. XREAL says this “Aura Founder Priority Pass” will be limited to the first 2,000 people who opt for it, and they will receive special numbered variants.
There’s still no word on the final price or the exact availability, but XREAL says the glasses would also be sold via Best Buy when they land in the US. Along with the US, Aura will be available in Canada, Japan, South Korea, and the UK, with a wider European release following in the second phase.
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