XREAL debuts titanium AR glasses that turn physical objects into digital items at CES 2024

XREAL Air 2 Ultra arrives at CES 2024

At CES 2024, XREAL, formerly Nreal, introduces the new addition to their Air series augmented reality glasses in the form of XREAL Air 2 Ultra. The AR sunglasses come with dual 3D environment sensors equipped with computer vision capabilities that help transform physical objects into digital items for apps.

This means that the users can build their own 3D space and apps anywhere, see the augmented reality world floating before their eyes, add digital objects from their physical environment, and control everything using their hand gestures. XREAL’s Air 2 Ultra is posing to be a more budget-friendly alternative to Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3, which the company says will start to ship in March 2024.

images courtesy of XREAL

Titanium AR glasses for 3D-app building

The introduction of XREAL Air 2 Ultra is joined by the unveiling of The Spatial Life experience at CES 2024, a new way to show how these AR glasses work. The experience can transform 2D applications and widgets into fully immersive 3D settings and setups that visitors to CES 2024 and XREAL’s booth can play around with and test out.

Since the AR glasses scope out the entire surroundings through their 3D sensors, the apps and widgets that the users can see on the glasses can be moved and overlaid, similar to a web browser with numerous tabs open. In this way, the user can multitask and work on several apps everywhere at once.

XREAL introduces Air 2 Ultra, its new AR glasses that can be experienced at CES 2024

Looking at its design, XREAL Air 2 Ultra does look like normal summer sunglasses with AR capabilities. It weighs 80 grams and is designed with weight distribution in mind since it comes with adjustable temples that offer three positions along with three nose pad options.

These options let the users get the right fit for them when they put on the AR glasses. XREAL claims their smart device as the world’s first titanium AR glasses, which are equipped with a Micro OLED panel from Sony. For the viewing experience, XREAL’s AR glasses get a Full HD screen for each eye with a field-of-view of 52 degrees and 42 pixels per degree, elements that are expected to be higher than Apple Vision Pro.

XREAL’s Air 2 Ultra AR glasses come with Micro OLED panel from Sony

XREAL’s AR glasses turn objects from physical to digital

So far, this AR glasses version has a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz and a peak brightness of 500 nits, which XREAL says can make the images look crisp and vibrant in different lighting conditions. The smart device also features an audio system similar to the one used in cinema and directional audio technology which helps reduce sound dispersion so only the users can hear the sounds and there is minimal disturbance to others. Other features of XREAL’s AR glasses include image tracking that helps the users build apps that can respond to and follow images in the natural environment, and transform the physical objects into 3D images for the apps.

There’s also hand-tracking so users can interact with the 3D spaces and apps using gestures, plane detection to monitor the horizontal and vertical viewing degrees, depth meshing to generate a 3D representation of the physical environment, and spatial anchor which allows a shared screen between other users so they can collaborate on tasks using a single screen. As of publishing the story, XREAL’s Air 2 Ultra AR glasses are priced at 699 USD.

visitors to CES 2024 can test out XREAL’s new AR glasses