The smart glasses industry has long been a "tortured dream" for Silicon Valley. The premise is compelling: replacing smartphones with lightweight computing devices worn on the face. However, for much of the last decade, the sector has resembled a financial black hole into which gargantuan investments have been sunk with little to no profit emerging.
“Everybody’s losing money,” stated Chi Xu, the founder and CEO of Xreal, during Google’s I/O conference. As a longtime partner of Google, Xreal is currently promoting "Project Aura," its latest effort to create functional XR glasses that people actually want to use. Xu acknowledges the immense difficulty of the task, noting that the industry has long struggled with bulky, uncomfortable form factors and negligible software benefits.
Now, however, industry insiders like Xu feel the business has turned a corner. This supposed inflection point is partly linked to Meta, whose 2023 partnership with Ray-Ban launched one of the first lines to achieve significant sales volume, even as its Reality Labs division continues to operate at a loss. Xu believes Xreal can finally lead the space because all key pieces are ready: the hardware, the operating system, and the user interface.
Xreal’s newest model, Aura, features wired smart glasses with integrated OLED displays, allowing for high-resolution video within the frames. The device is tethered to a “puck”—essentially a phone-shaped mini-computer that powers the experience and can be slipped into a pocket. This architecture allows the glasses to remain lightweight while delivering high performance.
In exchange for the external puck, users gain access to a variety of immersive experiences, including Google Maps, VR YouTube videos, and a “painting app” that utilizes hand tracking to create holographic imagery. The device also supports gaming and web surfing. Xreal promises a seamless experience whether users are following floating recipes while cooking, setting up private workspaces in public, or watching movies on a virtual big screen.
