I recently picked up a pair of Xreal 1S display glasses with one very specific goal in mind: something I could use on longer trips on planes, trains, and buses to watch movies and TV without hauling around a full VR headset or squinting at my phone.
This is my first pair of display glasses, but I’ve spent time at both ends of the spectrum. I’ve owned full VR headsets like the Quest 2, Quest 3, and the Apple Vision Pro. Those give you a giant virtual screen, but they’re heavy, bulky, and not something you casually bring on a trip.
At the other extreme are products like the Meta Ray-Bans. They’re basically normal glasses with a bit of tech sprinkled in. Convenient, yes. Useful for watching a movie on a plane, not really.
The Xreal glasses sit in the narrow space between those two worlds. They don’t try to be a full immersive VR system, and they’re not just smart glasses with a few novelty features. They’re aimed squarely at one thing: acting like a portable, private screen you can actually use while you’re in transit.
Apple markets the Vision Pro heavily as a movie-watching device, but I never enjoyed that experience. The headset is heavy, and I never stopped being aware that it was strapped to my face. That’s very different from normal glasses, where after a few minutes you mostly forget they’re there. On top of that, the Vision Pro is fragile, bulky, and impractical to travel with. Bringing it along just to watch something on a plane or train would take up most of my personal item space, and it never felt worth it.
The Quest 3 has similar issues. It’s lighter and cheaper, so I worried less about damaging it, but it’s still awkward to travel with and not something I’d casually toss into a bag.
That’s where I hoped the Xreal glasses would be different, and for the most part, they are. They’re small and light enough to fit easily into a backpack, or even a fanny pack if you really wanted to. That alone makes them far more realistic to bring on public transportation. They’re also light enough that they don’t feel like they’re dragging your face down after half an hour.
Another thing I like is that they don’t have an onboard computer. Everything comes from my iPhone. That means one less device to charge or think about when I’m traveling. The glasses do drain my phone battery faster, but I already carry battery packs anyway. I have a MagSafe battery that snaps onto the back of my phone and charges it wirelessly, and I can still plug the glasses into the USB port at the same time. That setup works well enough that I didn’t need to buy anything extra.
I do wish there were a wireless option. Having a cable plugged into the phone adds friction, especially when you’re shifting around in a seat. Being able to just AirPlay to the glasses would be ideal. I understand why it’s wired, since the phone is also powering the glasses, but it’s still something I notice.
Because the glasses simply mirror my phone, every iOS app works. This turned out to be a bigger deal than I expected. On VR headsets, app support is always spotty. The Vision Pro still lacks official apps for major services like YouTube and Netflix, and on the Quest you often end up watching content through a browser. That’s fine at home, but it’s frustrating when you’re on a plane or train and want offline downloads to actually work.
With the Xreal glasses, I just download content ahead of time using the native apps. Netflix, YouTube, whatever. It all works exactly the way it does on my phone, with no workarounds.
One thing I really don’t like is that the iPhone screen has to stay on for the glasses to keep displaying content. Ideally, the phone would behave like it’s connected to an external monitor and let me turn the screen off. That would save battery and feel much cleaner. Because the screen has to stay on, I had to disable auto-lock while using the glasses. I hate doing that. Auto-lock is a basic security feature, and I’ve already had a few moments where I set my phone down, forgot about it, and came back later to find the screen still on.
For now, I’m manually toggling auto-lock on and off when I use the glasses. It works, but it’s annoying, and it feels like something Apple should be able to improve eventually.
The displays themselves are better than I expected. I’ve tried doing real work in VR before, and it never stuck. With the Vision Pro, the resolution was incredible and text looked perfect, but the headset was too heavy to wear comfortably for long stretches. With the Quest 3, I didn’t even get that far because the resolution wasn’t good enough for reading code. Text felt blurry and pixelated, and I gave up quickly.
Out of curiosity, I tried working in the Xreal glasses on my laptop while sitting on the couch. I managed about two hours without much trouble and probably could have gone longer. The text isn’t as sharp as the Vision Pro, but it’s noticeably better than the Quest 3. Clear enough that I didn’t feel eye strain or frustration.
That said, I’m not replacing my monitors. I still prefer a normal setup, and wearing what look like oversized sunglasses during a Zoom call would look ridiculous. But as an occasional option, it worked better than I expected.
Where the glasses really shine is watching movies and TV. You don’t need extreme resolution for that, and I actually prefer keeping the virtual screen a bit smaller so nothing clips at the edges of the field of view. The field of view isn’t huge, but it’s large enough that it doesn’t bother me.
The glasses have two display modes. One anchors the screen in space, and the other has it follow your head. For movies, I prefer the follow mode. For work, the anchored mode makes more sense, since you can look toward different parts of the screen without the whole thing shifting around.
They also include a feature that converts content into 3D. I was excited to try it, but was underwhelmed. It’s fine, but not great. It tries to guess what should pop out of the screen, and the results are inconsistent. Sometimes it’s more distracting than immersive. I turned it off after a few minutes and haven’t really felt the urge to use it again.
These are more comfortable than a VR headset, but they’re still not normal glasses. After a while, the nose pads start to bother me, and the top of the glasses gets warm. Not hot, just warm enough that you notice it. Little things like that add up and remind you that you’re wearing something on your face.
I don’t think I’ll use these much at home. I originally thought they might be nice for lying on the couch when the TV angle is bad, but I don’t find them comfortable enough to choose over just holding a tablet or phone.
Overall, for what I bought them for, watching movies and TV while traveling, I’m very happy with the Xreal 1S glasses. They hit a sweet spot that VR headsets miss by being small, light, and practical. I don’t expect to use them for much beyond travel, but for that specific niche, they work surprisingly well.
One other use case I’m curious about, but haven’t tried yet, is wearing them on a treadmill or exercise bike to watch content more comfortably. That might be a future experiment. For now, they’ve earned a spot in my travel bag.
Kyle Piira 