Xreal Aura AR glasses open for preorder at $1,279, with launch coming weeks

The Xreal Aura comes in two configurations, and the price difference is all in the compute puck, the small pocket computer the glasses plug into:

• 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage: $1,279 in the US, $1,829 in Canada.
• 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage: $1,499 in the US, $2,149 in Canada.

Xreal also listed prices for Japan (¥229,800 and ¥269,800) and South Korea (₩1,990,000 and ₩2,290,000). It could not say at launch whether any apps would actually need the extra memory, so the cheaper model is the safer bet for most buyers.

The glasses frames come in two sizes, medium for faces measuring 60-66mm across and large for 66-72mm, and either size ships with the puck.

For context, Samsung and Google’s Galaxy XR headset, the first Android XR device, cost $1,799 when it arrived last year. Aura is cheaper, lighter and aimed at wearing out in the world rather than on the couch.

Xreal has not given an exact date. Its official line is that shipping begins soon and the launch is just weeks away. Here is how the rollout works:

• Reservation holders: anyone who paid a deposit before Oct. 7 got an email that day to choose a size and configuration and complete the purchase.
• Founder’s Edition: only the first 2,000 of these pairs are firmly tied to launch, and Xreal co-founder and CEO Chi Xu said they will ship this year.
• Everyone else: orders open to the general public in the coming weeks. New customers can still pay a deposit now for priority delivery.

The first wave goes to the US, Canada, Japan and South Korea. Xreal says more markets follow in 2027 and that country-by-country timing will be announced later, so there is no confirmed date or price for Europe or the UK yet.

Aura is a pair of glasses with clear lenses that place apps, video and virtual screens on top of the room around you. The frames weigh under 95 grams, about the same as a pair of chunky sunglasses, because the heavy parts live elsewhere. A cable runs to the puck, which holds the battery and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Reality Elite chip and runs Android XR.

That puck does a lot. It doubles as a trackpad, has a fingerprint sensor and clips to a pocket or hangs on a lanyard. Inside you get Google Play for apps and Google’s Gemini assistant for AI help. Cameras on the glasses track your hands so you can point and pinch, and Bose tuned the built-in speakers.

The field of view, meaning how much of your vision the virtual images can fill, is 70 degrees measured diagonally. That is among the widest of any see-through glasses and well up from the 57 degrees of Xreal’s older models. You can also plug in a laptop or other device with USB-C video and use Aura as a giant private monitor. Early testers found the image sharp and bright, even outside in sunshine.

Meta’s VR Glasses are the obvious rival. Both weigh around 100 grams, both use a corded puck with the same Qualcomm chip, and both greet you with a floating grid of apps. The difference is how you see the real world.

Aura’s lenses are transparent, so you look straight through them. Meta’s glasses block your view and show the room on screens using cameras, called passthrough. That gives Meta a wider, more immersive picture and eye tracking, so you select things by looking at them, but Aura keeps you directly connected to your surroundings.

Timing favors Xreal. Meta’s glasses aren’t due until spring 2027, so Aura has a head start of several months with buyers who want this kind of device now.

For most people, Aura is still an early-adopter gadget. At $1,279 it costs more than most laptops, you have to carry a puck and a cable, and few reviewers have tested Android XR in depth. If you mainly want a big screen for movies on a plane, Xreal’s cheaper display glasses already do that.

The app list is starting to fill in. Owlchemy Labs, the studio behind Job Simulator, announced in late October that its new hand-tracking arcade shooter Hyper Visor will be an Aura launch title for $1.99 on Google Play. Its older hits are coming on day one as well, including Inside [JOB], Dimensional Double Shift, Vacation Simulator and Job Simulator itself.

If you are tempted, the smart move is to wait for full reviews. If you are certain, paying the deposit now keeps your place in line ahead of the public launch.