AR glasses are still not suitable for AR, but they are solid secondary displays

Two years ago, at CES 2023, I looked into the augmented reality crystal ball and… anticipation And it won’t be long before we’re talking about “glass holes” again. Consumer Electronics Show 2025 It was full of augmented reality glasses, and you couldn’t walk five feet without finding another booth begging you to put a pair of glasses on your eyes. Glasses screens look better than ever. The controls feel tighter. However, they weren’t there yet, not by miles. The best glasses we’ve used were simply screen replacements.

Companies like Chamelo have introduced smart glasses with color-changing lenses. Aside from those, there have been legions of glasses that act as wearable cameras, basically the equivalent of a camera Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses Which has become increasingly popular over the past couple of years. These weren’t all small businesses either. side by side New mobile devicesLenovo debuted a pair of glasses, the Legion Glasses 2, priced at $400. It is an update to similar glasses from the company. Bound glasses from 2023 With much better clarity and brightness of the screen. You have to put them right on your face, but they offer great-looking little OLED displays and loud, clear sound.

These glasses are made specifically for mobile devices, although they are still an accessory to the mobile gaming experience. Likewise, XReal, maker of augmented reality glasses, showed off its $500 XReal One and $600 XReal One Pro. These glasses connect to your phone or computer to create a secondary display. It includes a switch to hold the image in place or make it follow your head where you look. Better yet, it offers a wide screen view when linked to a computer, so you can get that Apple device Vision Pro Mac mirroring is widely used Experience at a fraction of the price. It was our favorite cup of the conference, and earned a spot on our list Best in offer existing.

The functional augmented reality glasses at CES 2025 were filled with glowing green text

As our readers have been keen to point out, XRal’s latest release doesn’t fit the mold of “augmented reality” or even “extended reality.” It’s hard to hear, but all those glasses with true XR curvature were just prototypes. In the past two years since I wrote my original AR CES article, these glasses are still trying to fix the same issues.

Take TCL’s RayNeo brand, for example. The company held a RayNeo X3 Pro around my eyes and I tried to get them to translate text from Mandarin to English. It worked, at least most of the time. With so much noise around us, the glasses had difficulty accurately interpreting the language or hearing our commands. Even then, the translation was slow and cumbersome, and it certainly didn’t feel like a fully finished product. The glasses have touch controls on the right lever that work for the most part. As with the other glasses, they require you to place them precisely on your nose to see the experimental green text wall explaining the software connected to the AI. These were all similar issues I experienced with the company’s prototype glasses a couple of years ago.

At least the RayNeo glasses used Waveguide screens instead of a display, like the XReal glasses. The company also mentioned that its glasses include sensors for image recognition and hand tracking, but I wasn’t able to demo any of those capabilities. Eyewear brand Rokid also has a pair of glasses that display app menus that you can view on the glasses using some manual controls, but you’ll still only see green text displayed in your AR environment.

This was a routine problem I encountered with other brands’ products. I put on the LAWK One sunglasses with their wraparound shades around my head, and instantly felt like the kind of idiot who owns multiple jet skis and wants everyone to know what he’s doing. The glasses are designed for sports users who want to start race timers in augmented reality. Can the timer start? Yes, but then you have ugly green text blocking your field of view. LAWK also claims that its new viewing glasses can stream live on TikTok, but I wasn’t able to try out any of that functionality. These are closer to the Meta Ray-Ban sunglasses without a screen.

So far, no one has been able to solve all the problems related to augmented reality glasses

From what I’ve experienced, any true “augmented reality” glasses don’t feel like a complete product, though I wore similar designs at CES a couple of years ago. Just like the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, I have a hard time trusting AI models with all but the simplest queries, and without on-device processing, you’ll still be relying on external hardware for whatever you actually want to use them for.

Meta is one of the few companies that has shown us the potential of real augmented reality glasses, although we still don’t know when or if they will become a product you can buy. the Orion company project It uses a pair of augmented reality glasses, a motion-control wristband, and a processing tablet that you have in your pocket. Rumors suggest that Samsung may release it A pair of special smart glasses This year with more AI vision functions, although based on those hints, it certainly can’t be a phone replacement, at least not yet.

I’m bullish on AR glasses. They have an appeal that goes far beyond bulky and heavy VR headsets. XReal’s premium augmented reality glasses from last year were the best $700 Air 2 Ultrawhich also features some hand tracking and augmented reality capabilities. It was limited when I tried it last year with a UI prototype. It is difficult to develop an unrestricted user interface. the Spacetop G1 laptop From 2024 it uses the same XReal glasses instead of a traditional display, but runs on an Android-based operating system without the full functionality of a Windows PC or Mac. They’re a haven for developers, but not exactly the kind of device Joe Schmo would reach for first.

We’re still in the prototype phase of augmented reality, but companies believe there’s a market for these devices now. Only developers and self-proclaimed futurists will find most of these augmented reality glasses useful in everyday life. But if you’re on a cheap flight without a TV built into the backrest, these light, strap-on secondary glasses might be a good way to watch a movie without the bulk of a laptop or — worse yet — a bulky Apple device. Vision Pro headphone.