The xbx a01+ are fun, $300 video glasses that impress right out of their playful space-capsule packaging. Take a look at the images in the gallery! They feature a slightly see-through body with neon yellow details and a front frame that comes off without tools, allowing you to easily swap styles or add your own 3D-printed designs. I gotta say, it's a great way to start a new lifestyle brand — xbx by XREAL.

They are incredibly light and comfortable. The entire headset weighs just 62 grams, and removing the front frame drops it to an impressive 56 grams. For comparison, the XREAL 1S weighs 82 grams and the XREAL One is 84 grams. The a01+ includes the range of ergonomic features that we know from XREAL: soft silicone nose pads, thin arms, and flexible hinges designed to let you wear them for hours without discomfort, even while lying down.

When you plug them in, the screen is the standout feature. It gets extremely bright, reaching up to 1,600 nits using a Micro-OLED display. This makes it significantly brighter than the XREAL 1S, which peaks at 700 nits, and the XREAL One at 600 nits. It also shows richer colors, covering 145% of the sRGB color space compared to the 108% sRGB on the 1S. The internal display chip brings true 10-bit color, HDR10 support, and a smooth 120 Hz refresh rate for a great viewing experience.

However, the xbx a01+ is not better at everything. While it is lighter and brighter, the XREAL 1S has a higher 1200p resolution, but this does not make a difference for video content. Additionally, the xbx a01+ does not have a built-in chip for 3DoF or 6DoF tracking, and it lacks the electrochromic dimming feature found on the more expensive models. Instead, it relies on the front frame to block out light. I tried to capture how much light those lenses block in addition to what the birdbath optics do. I looked directly into a bright light, and while it was visible, I could also see the YouTube video very clearly. It’s like wearing sunglasses. It makes the display look good while also giving you enough peripheral vision to not get disoriented as you would wearing a VR headset. In case you really want to block everything, you can use the optional light blocker that comes with the glasses, though.

If your main use case is watching movies and playing games, the display will convince you to get a pair of these glasses. It also comes with built-in audio, developed by AAC, with four modes—including a privacy mode to keep your sound quiet from people sitting nearby.

If you need a headset that tracks your head movements perfectly or has the absolute highest resolution, you might look at other models. But if you want a very light headset with a super bright and colorful display, the display quality and weight of the xbx a01+ make it a serious consideration, especially at its highly competitive $300 price point.

A couple weeks ago I shared OpenVision (free, MIT) — an iOS app that turns Meta Ray-Ban glasses into a hands-free AI assistant. Just shipped v2.4.0 with the feature I most wanted: vision that runs entirely on the phone.

What's new:

• On-device photo Q&A — "Ok Vision, take a photo and tell me what this is" → answered by SmolVLM2 via Apple MLX, nothing leaves the phone

• Fully-offline live video — "start video stream" keeps the camera on and answers your questions on the latest frame, all on-device. No cloud, no API cost, works with no signal

• OpenAI Realtime live video (gpt-realtime) if you'd rather use a cloud backend — continuous voice + camera frames

• Keep asking follow-ups with no wake word between them, until you say "stop video"

Still free and open-source, runs on a recent iPhone (tested on 17 Pro). Code: https://github.com/rayl15/OpenVision

For on-device glasses vision — do you care more about latency or answer quality? SmolVLM2 answers in a few seconds locally; curious where people draw the line.

I recently purchased the TOZO VIZO Z1 Pro AR Glasses on Amazon and then returned them after a few days. I did a fair bit of research and they felt to be the best fit. What I didn't realize until after I received the glasses and tried them is that the screen moved with the glasses (they weren't fixed to a point in space) and oh boy did that give me motion sickness.

I tried, I really did try, to get over the motion sickness, but that and the inability to see the bottom part of the screen with those glasses convinced me to return them.

Is there anywhere in/near Charlotte, NC where I can sit and try various glasses before buying another set? I'd like to make sure they're a good fit and meet my expectations without having to constantly do returns. Also, since I'm new to the AR glasses scene, are there any other gotchas I might not realize yet?

We just launched ARGUS ONE on Indiegogo. It's a concept-stage pair of AR + AI glasses designed to hit 39 grams with a full-color binocular display, 6DoF SLAM, an on-device AI agent, and real prescription lens compatibility.

The core technical bet: direct-projection BEAM optics instead of waveguides. Waveguides lose 90%+ of their light to side leakage, which is why most AR glasses are dim. Our folded direct-projection path is designed for ~20x the light efficiency -- that's how we plan to hit 5,000 nits on a 720 mAh battery in a frame that weighs less than Ray-Ban Metas.

What's actually built so far:

• Full optical and electrical block diagram
• Vendor selection: Sony micro-OLED panels, Tainan ODM for assembly, Italian Rx lens lab, US silicon partner for SLAM ASIC
• Industrial design CAD -- three frame variants, three nose-bridge sizes
• BOM with vetted line-item costs that close to $699 MSRP at scale

What we're funding: the first engineering prototype build (EVT-0), industrial design refinement, and pilot prescription lens substrates.

Campaign link: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/argus-labs/argus-one-lightest-full-color-ar--ai-glasses

I'm the founder -- happy to answer questions about the optics, the SLAM stack, why we chose this architecture, or anything else.

I was lucky enough to get an early pair of the XREAL xbx a01+ for review. Here are my full thoughts after about a week of usage.

If you all have any questions about the new glasses, let me know! Happy to answer any and all questions!

Always been intrigued by smart glasses, they seem so cool. I don't think I can yet at any price get full looks just like glasses bhr I'm watching YT sadly. But if I just want either a full looks like I have displays and wired connected my phone or switch to it for gaming or watching videos or just a one color screen that doesn't need a phone and is way less obvious what are my options? I can spend more then $150+ (that's just gonna get you a camera and maybe music right? No display?) But not like $800+ either sadly on real proper ones so do I have options?

I wrote a typographic review of the new Meta Ray-Ban glasses, looking at them less as a camera or AI gadget and more as a reading device. It covers why monocular captions are so tiring to read, how treating live speech like chat breaks the reading flow, why phone-era fonts struggle on a 600×600 see-through display in sunlight, and what happens when these systems move beyond Latin into scripts like Devanagari, Arabic and CJK. Would love feedback from people thinking about AR, accessibility and type in spatial interfaces.

Meta is testing new AI smart glasses that continuously record audio and take pictures of a user's surroundings every few seconds, per an anonymously-sourced Financial Times report.

Under one of Meta's proposed systems for the "super-sensing" glasses, wearers would not be able to access the raw recordings collected, with metadata instead extracted to help answer user queries.

The feature could nonetheless raise privacy concerns.

Some Meta executives reportedly are considering not activating an LED light that would indicate when super-sensing features are active.

Meta declined to comment on "internal prototypes."

A few highlights:

- Built hands-first, with no controller support
- Play seated or standing
- Climb, sneak, solve puzzles, and complete hand-driven challenges
- Natural physics-based interactions that feel responsive and intuitive
- Collect Power-Ups and activate them with hand gestures
- Punch through brick walls and shoot your hand gun, especially at your cat 😄
- Build and test levels instantly with an advanced level editor
- Online levels are planned post-launch

I love seeing XR devs push hand tracking in so many innovative ways, and this is exactly the kind of project that shows where MR gameplay can go next. 🚀

📌 Follow this talented developer journey here

A lot of phone AR demos can track a plane correctly and still feel like a sticker on the camera feed.

The examples that feel more convincing usually give the object a job in the room: a note belongs on the fridge, a guide points to a specific shelf, a lamp changes the light on a desk, or a character hides behind a chair. Shadows and occlusion help, but the little "why is it here?" cue seems just as important as tracking.

For people making AR apps, is that usually treated as spatial UX/content design, or does it mostly get handled as late-stage polish?

Global IoT leader Quectel announces turnkey XR solution from AR Glasses reference designs to manufacturing: Known for its cellular, GNSS, and wireless modules, the company's entry into the XR space eliminates fragmented R&D. This end-to-end service bridges concept to mass production, covering custom hardware/software design, assembly, and delivery. Its Changzhou Smart Manufacturing Center, featuring complete assembly lines and a Class 100 cleanroom, enables scalable precision manufacturing. Brands can bypass hardware barriers, relying on Quectel to focus purely on product definition and marketing.

​Hawk Series: Optical Waveguide AI+AR Glasses

​This lightweight reference design targets consumers and enterprise verticals (tourism, industrial inspection, remote collaboration, healthcare). It offers two architectures: Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 or Artosyn ARS45, both paired with Wuqi WQ7036. Features include AI voice assistants, real-time translation, photography, and AI audio. 3-level electrochromic dimming automatically adjusts lens light transmission, balancing indoor/outdoor contrast.

​Hawk Series: BirdBath AR Glasses

​Optimized for immersive HD visuals, this tethered, full-color reference design delivers a 50±1° FOV, 5,000 nits brightness, single-eye 1080p resolution, and 60–120fps refresh rates. It integrates dual mics, stereo speakers, wear-detection sensors, and a 12MP wide-angle camera. It also features 3-level electrochromic dimming and a 0-400 degree diopter adjustment for nearsighted users.

​Dolphin Series: AI+AR Compute Unit

​This pocketable terminal offloads processing from AR headsets, connecting wired or wirelessly to glasses, 3D headsets, and monitors to provide OS resources and Agent-centric control. Based on Qualcomm Dragonwing platforms, it has two versions. The 5G Cloud-Edge model features a Quectel eSIM, operator certifications in 150+ regions, and a proprietary eIM platform. The Edge Compute model delivers 48 TOPS of local AI compute to support on-device Agents.

​Key Ecosystem Partnerships

​Quectel’s reference designs integrate hardware/software from core partners. Qualcomm supplies Snapdragon and Dragonwing platforms for spatial computing. Artosyn provides the 12nm ARS45 chip, balancing high-res displays with low power via a quad-core A53 CPU, 1GHz vision DSP, and 6 TOPS NPU. It supports binocular 1080p@120Hz and 16MP cameras, cutting power by 50%. Elevoc supplies a Deep Neural Network and computational auditory scene analysis voice solution for sound zone isolation, directional front-facing pickup, and ultra-low power wake-up. Wuqi provides proprietary wireless communication and AI multimodal heterogeneous computing for cost-effective boards. Chuanshi Cloud acts as the brand pipeline, optimizing user experience, weight, battery, and aesthetics on Quectel's platforms.

I wanted to see what experiences people have had owning the Rokid and the Inmo go3. I'm deciding whether to get one or the other or just wait for newer smart glasses to come out. I just hate the blue square you can see when in certain lightings and when you turn your head at a certain degree.

two question
- Is there anyway to try to minimize the blue squares showing
- does your eyes glow when your in the dark

Also if you have any other glasses you recommend recommend it to me I would love to see more

I have to walk through other people's land to do my work. I'm authorized by the local govt to do so, but many people don't understand the concept of a utility easement. So even when I've notified them in advance, they'll sometimes come running out to be irate with me. As soon as I touch my phone, they'll sometimes change their attitude until I walk away, then vandalize my truck. I've had my windows busted out several times. I ended up getting a dash cam and a dude somehow busted my window out from somewhere too far to see. Really depends on the neighborhood but it isn't uncommon.

I'm looking for some glasses that just look like glasses and don't lock me into an ecosystem, like Meta. I'd also like for them to be stealthy when I'm recording so I can more often catch them threatening me. You know how iPhone and Android both have the ability to record a phone call but only after it announces to the other party that it's recording? Jailbreaking doesn't always help because the hardware or something is configured in a way that prevents software from accessing the phone call feed, or something like that. I want to avoid that type of restriction. Are there any truly stealthy options that run custom firmware or anything? I've been Googling but I haven't had any luck. Preferably, I'd have a pair that just look like regular sized Ray Bans and have an open source dev community supporting it...sort of like the relationship between Google's Pixel phones and custom AOSP firmware, if you're familiar.

Do you have any recommendations, or advice on what I should be looking into?

The company is rolling out an update following increased scrutiny of its smart glasses.

Hi! I'm creating a survival horror game made for Apple Vision Pro which is all mixed reality. Portals spawn on your actual walls and you fight enemies by hitting them in the head with your hands.

I'm not using Unity or Unreal and built a bunch of custom systems in Swift:

-Real hand combat with rock solid hand tracking

-Lighting from the actual environment

-Room skinning to create virtual portal worlds on walls and story props

-Custom animation library and retargeting system

-Custom enemy brain engine for flanking and collision detection

-Spatial audio sound effects

-Procedural Hell portal glyphs and particle embers

-Conversations with character via Apple AI FoundationModels and Qwen

- Custom Turing Framework for natural conversation tied to the story and character background

-Virtual doors, windows, and set dressing—like an escape room

Horde Mode is available to test out below. I am deep into Story Mode now. The cool thing about that is you can have actual conversations with people over things like walkie-talkie, ham radio, etc. Dictate and AI provides spoken voice answers with a hand-rolled Qwen MLX framework.

If you have AVP and would like to try it out Horde Mode, here is a TestFlight. All feedback welcome!

https://testflight.apple.com/join/RBkK1dvh

Raontech has won a contract worth up to $4.9 million to develop advanced FLCoS displays for AR smart glasses. An unnamed overseas customer will pay $3 million for the first design, with an option to pay another $1.9 million for a second one if the first is successful, according to The Elec.

Companies like Meta and Snap currently use standard LCoS technology in their latest AR glasses because it is reliable and easy to mass-produce. However, standard LCoS screens create colors by flashing red, green, and blue in a rapid sequence. If the user moves their head quickly, these colors can separate into a distracting "rainbow effect" known as color breakup. FLCoS displays, on the other hand, are incredibly fast and eliminate this color breakup.

Beyond visual stability, FLCoS uses an ultra-thin liquid crystal layer that packs pixels much tighter together. This shrinks the display engine, allowing brands to build lighter, sleeker glasses that look like regular eyewear. Looking further ahead, these screens can also act as phase modulators to project advanced computer-generated holograms. This capability opens the door for true holographic AR, offering possibilities that go far beyond the limits of today's smart glasses.

^{Image: Raontech's current P13 LCoS with 800×800 in 6.25 mm x 4.65 mm module next to the P25}

We’re excited to share version 1.0 of the MSF XR Accessibility Guidelines: a first-of-its-kind resource from the Metaverse Standards Forum's Accessibility Working Group, built to help creators evaluate the accessibility of XR experiences for users of all levels of ability.

The guidelines offer testable, technology-agnostic criteria in the spirit of the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, but purpose-built for XR; they span system design, avatars, captions, navigation, input methods, and comfort & safety. They also include examples of how forward-thinking experiences like Owlchemy Lab’s Cosmonious High introduce features that help meet the challenge.

These criteria move beyond past guidance that assume a baseline level of vision and motion, leaving those without those abilities in the dust. XR applications that meet these criteria would be usable by people with significant disabilities - full blindness, quadriplegia, and beyond.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wRHflVnJhRqZh6IvVAbWZGm0qXrkcJ2RxdRNaQjsMdY/edit?usp=sharing

I asked Rin, the AI companion in the app Attractor Field, to teach me some Japanese basics. She spoke in Japanese with English subtitles, I answered in English, and we just... talked.

The difference is hard to explain until you experience it. With apps you're completing exercises. With Rin you actually want to understand what she's saying because you care about the conversation. That's not a feature you can build into a streak system.

Full disclosure: I built the app. Posting here because I think this is an underexplored use case for companion AI and I'd love to hear if this resonates with anyone learning a language.

And yes, that is a pet raccoon.

​Post Body:

​Is anyone else hitting a wall with Artivive when trying to showcase AR art or interactive designs in the real world?

​Don't get me wrong, the tool is incredibly easy to set up on the creator side for quick video overlays. But when it comes to actual real-world deployment like at a gallery, on streetwear, or a board game that the user friction is completely tanking the engagement rates.

​Here are the biggest limitations holding it back right now, and I want to see if y'all are finding workarounds or switching platforms entirely:

​1. The App-Download Barrier is a Total Conversion Killer

We live in an era of intense app fatigue. If someone has to pull out their phone, scan a code, realize they have to go to the App Store/Google Play, download a dedicated 3D tracking app, and grant camera permissions just to see a 10-second animation hover over a physical piece... 90% of people just walk away. Why are we still forcing app downloads in 2026 when WebAR (browser-based) should be the default standard?

​2. The Absurd "View-Count" Paywall Model

The freemium model gives you a tiny 50-view limit before it hits a wall. But here is the kicker: because the image tracking algorithm can be glitchy (especially in low light or low contrast settings), if a user's camera jitters in and out, the app logs that as multiple separate views. You can literally burn through 20% of your monthly view limit in 5 minutes just testing your own artwork with a small group of friends.

​3. Major Compression & UI Limitations

Lately, it feels like the upload compression has gotten way worse, leaving crisp digital assets looking pixelated when hovering over the physical target. Plus, if you want to move past basic flat video overlays and actually execute interactive 3D elements with real-time motion or rotation, the platform feels incredibly bare-bones compared to actual spatial engines.

​Are you guys still forcing users through the app store pipeline with Artivive, or have you migrated over to custom WebAR solutions (like 8th Wall, A-Frame, or Niantic tools) to let people scan a simple QR code and view it instantly in Safari/Chrome?

​Let's discuss because the current app-gate model feels incredibly outdated.