AR glasses productivity experiment

Required nomad equipment?

While in the UK, my wife and I decided to run an experiment. The question: can we replace our external travel monitors with AR glasses? Let's get into it.

What was our goal?

There are many AR and VR models on the market, so let me start with what we were NOT testing.

We were not looking for a fully emersive virtual environment where you can wave your hand to interact with virtual displays like in Minority Report.

We were not concerned with a screen that covered our whole vision, and only showed the outside world through front-mounted cameras.

We WERE looking for a three panel virtual display to replace three physical screens to perform productivity type work.

And we didn't want to break the bank.

What equipment did we test?

There are several options in the lower cost range. We considered the Virute Pro, Rokid Max, and Xreal Air 2 Pro, all of which live in a similar price bracket.

Ultimately we tried the Xreal Air 2 Pro and an add-on device, the Xreal Beam, which I will comment on later.

What's in the box?

I know, now you're picturing Brad Pitt, but let's move on.

The glasses are light weight, not much heavier than typical sunglasses. From the front, at a distance, they could even be mistaken for sunglasses.

However when worn, the nose pads cause the glasses to rest out from the face enough to signal these are not normal glasses. That said, they “blend in” far better than any other VR gear that you will find on the market.

There are three nose pads to choose from, a nice case, cleaning cloth, prescription glasses insert, and a USB-C cable to connect your AR glasses, we'll, to almost anything. Phone, laptop, or gaming system.

What about productivity?

Using Windows, we want two or three floating screens for productivity, allowing multiple screens of information to be available while reducing the weight and bulk of what we travel with.

With Xreal, you get software that runs on Android, iOS, or Windows, but the Windows software is still in beta, and we are Windows users.

Unfortunately, the beta software very much felt like it was in beta, and we never got it to run without crashing almost immediately.

So for our use case, it was a strike.

But what were the positives?

Let me talk about the Beam device for a second. It is a small, lightweight Android device that you plug the glasses into, and allows for a few pieces of functionality, but only one that I will mention.

The beam let's you place the screen at a fixed height, distance and size from your face. And once you set it, if you look away, and look back, the screen is still in the same position.

This is key functionality for productivity, and works really well for a single large screen. So if you are looking for a large private screen to work from, this might do the trick.

And you plug your phone, laptop, or gaming system into the Beam, so the other system does not have any work to process your floating screen. To your device it is just a monitor.

And what if you have a Samsung Galaxy?

This is where it gets really exciting. Samsung phones have DEX mode, which allows you to plug your phone into a monitor and the display will show a full-screen Chrome OS desktop screen.

Attach a Bluetooth keyboard and the phone turns into a track pad mouse, and you can utilize full productivity apps the same as if on a chromebook.

Add the AR glasses, phone, and foldable keyboard, and you have the most compact productivity solution on the market with a huge virtual screen!

While I love this, and would use it for things like writing this newsletter, it does not solve for our core need.

And is it fun?

Oh yeah, 100% fun.

We enjoyed watching some Netflix on a huge screen, gaming from the laptop on huge screens (It Takes Two), and casual browsing on a large screen.

Our search will continue when we're back in the States. We think the Viture Pro software might be solid enough to work for us, but that is for another day.

For now, if you want a fun gaming or entertainment screen on the go, Xreal Air 2 Pro is a good one.

For productivity, not yet, but maybe one day.

Until next time, have a good one.