Asus joins forces with XReal for AR gaming glasses

Wearable shows, as soon as assumed to be the longer term, are right here. In truth they’ve been right here for years, they usually’re beloved by their customers…that are nonetheless a tiny, tiny quantity of precise folks. But if you happen to’re certainly one of them, otherwise you’re within the tech, you already know XReal. Which might be why Asus teamed up with the corporate for its first set of gaming-grade show glasses. 

Meet the Asus ROG XReal R1 AR, then take a breath after you say that identify. It’s a set of show glasses broadly modeled on current XReal designs, most notably the XReal One Pro, however tuned particularly for gaming. The thought is that you just throw these glasses in your bag together with your gaming laptop computer or Steam Deck Asus ROG Xbox Ally, plug it in, and get a large OLED show wherever. How large? 171 inches, or at the least the equal of that, if an actual one was sitting about 4 meters (13 toes) out of your face. 

All that’s nothing new when it comes to glasses-based shows. The factor that makes this an Asus ROG collaboration is that it’s the primary one with 240Hz of refresh on its tiny shows. That’s aggressive with a mid-range gaming monitor or a fairly good OLED TV for gaming. Granted, that’s at a considerably pedestrian 1080p decision — for a “virtual” show 4 instances as massive as a typical 4K TV, having one quarter the decision isn’t nice. But this can be a very totally different type issue, in any case. Since I’m declaring some low spots, 2ms of latency isn’t nice in gaming phrases, nevertheless it’s in all probability not a deal-breaker. 

The R1 AR will get all the opposite goodies of high-end XReal glasses, together with a 57-degree viewing space, anchor and comply with modes for the digital window, open-ear audio system with licensed tech from Bose, and auto-tinting electrochromic lenses (the “glasses” a part of the glasses can get darker or lighter). These have a neat trick: They can tint darker once you’re trying on the digital display screen, then robotically lighten once you look away. To, say, make sure that your youngster isn’t setting hearth to one thing whereas they play Minecraft in your non-head-mounted TV.

The ROG Control Dock, presumably included, can deal with connections past the usual USB-C. This permits for straightforward show output from a desktop PC, console, or what have you ever by way of HDMI or DisplayPort. It’ll work with an ROG Ally handheld out of the field, together with custom-made touchscreen controls for the digital show. But it ought to work with most USB-C show gadgets, like laptops and high-end telephones and tablets, with none further {hardware}. 

Oh, and it had LED lights on the aspect. Of course. How else would you already know that it’s for gaming? Other XReal designs can accommodate prescription glasses lenses, however there’s no point out of them within the preliminary press launch. 

The Asus ROG XReal R1 (deep breath) AR is scheduled to launch within the first half of 2026, however there’s no indication of a value. For the sake of comparability, the very related Xreal One Pro based mostly on the identical core X1 chip runs $650, not together with the ROG dock.