Check Out These Smart Glasses That Put Screens All Around You
Tech
Speaker 1: I'm here at CES 2024 and I've been checking out the X reel Air two Ultra. Now, these are a pair of mixed reality glasses. That X reel really wants to be a competitor to Apple's Vision Pro. So X reel has made glasses before, but a lot of those glasses were really meant to be a wearable screen, essentially a big display that when you put the glasses on, you get a giant TV in front of your eyes. So what this is though is a bit different. This is really meant to be a spatial computer. Again, kind of like the Vision [00:00:30] Pro and some other mixed reality headsets that are out there. So basically, I've had the chance to demo this, and once I put the glasses on, I'm able to look around the room and see different Windows, different apps. I'm able to switch between them and I'm able to manipulate everything and select things with this pinching gesture, which in my experience has been very, very responsive.
Speaker 1: Whenever I look around at something and then just go like this, it would select very quickly. I didn't have to do it multiple times. And I find that interesting because for me, there is usually [00:01:00] a little bit of a learning curve with those kinds of gestures, but this felt very intuitive and very natural, and the picture quality itself also looks really sharp, really crisp, really clean. I was watching a couple of movies earlier, like Life of Pie, despicable Me Too, an Avatar, and I was able to switch between them just by pinching. And every movie looked crisp and clean, almost just as if I was looking at a tv. But that's not the only thing you can do with this headset. Like I said, this is meant to be a fully spatial computer. So some of the other [00:01:30] demos I saw were having a big workspace in front of you so you could look at whatever your work project is on a much bigger screen.
Speaker 1: But then if I looked over to the left, I would see whatever music I was listening to, and then maybe if I looked over to the right, I would see YouTube videos and then maybe other apps that I have open. I have the X reel glasses on right now, and as I'm looking around the room, I'm seeing different things as if I was looking at a giant computer screen. So on one side of the room, there's a music player right in the middle, it looks like there's a workstation type of [00:02:00] screen. And then if I look over to the right, I can see YouTube videos. And then if I look down, I get even more information like stock prices and things like that. And yeah, it's like having a bunch of mini windows just kind of floating around you in the room. And if I want to interact with any of them, all I have to do is make this pinching gesture in front of me.
Speaker 1: And I've been using it throughout the demo and it's pretty responsive. I am watching Life of Pie right now in these glasses on a giant virtual screen in front of me. If I look down, I could [00:02:30] see the other movies that are available to me. So I'm going to switch over to Avatar right now. And yeah, all I did was pinch and it instantly switched. And the picture quality looks pretty impressive, very sharp, very colorful. It doesn't feel pixelated or anything like that. It feels like I'm looking at a tv. So these little cardboard tokens in front of me let you actually manipulate what's happening in the headset just by touching them. So kind of little external [00:03:00] controllers. And again, this is just a developer kit. It's not a real product yet. So this is just kind of meant to show what the headset can do and the possibility for maybe types of accessories or games that could eventually be developed for the headset. So as I'm looking at them, I can basically move this little chip right here, and it's changing what I'm seeing in the headset. So right now I'm looking at a text message. Actually, it's a full screen view of a text message. And not only is it a text message, but they come up with [00:03:30] this 3D model kind of illustrating the content of the message, which is really interesting. So I'm going to switch from the text message back to home just by moving this little chip.
Speaker 1: And as soon as I look at it, once I move it and look at it, the screen in front of me changes. So now I'm back in my workspace. The thing about these glasses is that unlike the Apple Vision Pro, these aren't a self-contained computer. You will have to plug them in to a phone or a laptop or really any [00:04:00] device that you want to connect to it. And even though anyone can buy these glasses right now, they're really kind of angling these at developers because they do want app creators and developers to create apps for this thing. So in addition to just mirroring your device, there will be some limited apps available right now, but they really want to kind of encourage developers to create more and build more experiences for this. So these glasses are mainly meant for developers, but anyone can buy them. Right now, they're available for pre-order, and it's coming out in March, and it'll cost 6 99. [00:04:30] So once again, these are the X reel Air two Ultra. Don't forget to check out CNET for more coverage.
