Classification and Specifications
With the XREAL Air 2 Ultra An MR glasses enters the stage, consciously breaking away from the classic headset design. Visually, it resembles Ray-Ban style sunglasses - a path that META also took Project Orion followed. The difference: The XREAL Air 2 Ultra is already available and brings Android XR OS into an everyday practical form factor.
For businesses: AR glasses like the Xreal also open up new possibilities in the corporate sector, for example for product presentations or training. More on this on our page about Augmented Reality Agency.
For us at Design for real is precisely this combination of XREAL Air 2 Ultra, Android XR, and Unity XR exciting. And we wanted to know exactly what a Mixed Reality Brille can already do everything in this form factor.
Technical Specifications (Selection)
- Form factor lightweight, sunglasses-like design
- Displays: Dual OLED, Full HD per eye
- Field of view approx. 52° diagonal (smaller than with headsets due to form factor)
- Tracking Inside-Out with integrated cameras
- Functions Mixed Reality, Hand-Tracking, Gestures, Plane Detection
- Blackout three-stage directly on the glasses
- Operating System Android XR OS
- Price range: approx. 700–800 € (market and dealer dependent)
A practical plus point: the XREAL Air 2 Ultra can be directly on the PC operated and will be there like a External monitor recognized. With the included compute unit, it operates in the Eyeglass mode.
Form Factor & Comfort: Casual Rather Than „Headset Commitment“
The biggest advantage of XREAL Air 2 Ultra is it Form factor. Instead of pressing a heavy headset firmly onto your face, you put on lightweight glasses. This has tangible effects:
Comfort & Skin Appearance No heavily padded surfaces – therefore significantly less Skin redness unlike classic headsets, which can leave visible pressure marks after just a few minutes.
Everyday usability hairstyles and Makeup remain largely unharmed. This lowers the inhibition threshold for trying out MR experiences „just like that.“.
Social acceptance: You seem less isolated than with a VR headset; interaction with your surroundings remains more natural.
In the demos, we observed that especially female target groups den casual appreciate the portable character. Nevertheless, the look isn't perfect yet: the appearance causes the XREAL Air 2 Ultra relative far vGoose on the nose. From the front, it looks like a Ray-Ban.
Android XR OS & Operation: Familiar, but still thin in the ecosystem
Android XR OS appears in the interface strongly on visionOS leaning. Anyone who has used Apple's Vision Pro quickly feels at home. The decisive difference: navigation is not primarily done in the air, but per swipe on the computing unit (Smartphone-like device). Pressing and holding the compute unit's display activates a „“Space Mouse" Mode; Then you use the device like a laser pointer. Tapping functions as a click. It's surprisingly elegant—with limitations:
Keyboard/Mouse Switch: Does the virtual open? Keyboard on the processing unit (e.g. password entry), you temporarily lose Mouse function. Switching input fields or precisely marking content becomes unnecessarily cumbersome as a result. The UX seems poorly thought out at this point.
Eyeglass Wearer Topic Who for reading on a smartphone a Reading glasses When switching between the glasses display and the computing unit, a cumbersome rhythm is required. One must take off the NREAL glasses and put on the optical glasses each time the displays are switched.
The App ecosystem is current rudimentary:
Netflix and Prime Video run stably and make the XREAL Air 2 Ultra to a pleasant „mobile cinema“.
YouTube sometimes reverts to smartphone mode during startup in our tests.
There are hardly any games, and the ones that do exist are very simply constructed and seem more like tech demos.
Proprietary MR apps are hardly pre-installed. There's also an immersive photo and video player app.
For consumer use, the offering is therefore limited; for Companies & Prototyping it's already enough.
Blackout feature ensures outdoor suitability
A button on the temple allows the surroundings to be dimmed in three stages – from lightly tinted to significantly darkened. This is crucial outdoors: where HoloLens 1/2 were barely usable in sunlight, the XREAL Air 2 Ultra ready for use. This is a real added value for mobile presentations, outdoor demos, or bright trade show booths.
Mixed Reality in Sunglasses Format: Strengths and Limitations
Particularly noteworthy: The XREAL Air 2 Ultra brings Mixed Reality Features into one Sunglasses form factor. Of course, they do. Meta Quest 3 or Apple Vision Pro also MR features – but in significantly larger headsets. XREAL demonstrates that Interaction and hand tracking in a small form factor fundamentally possible.
Due to the form factor Field of View (FoV) limited. Virtual objects outside the FoV are simply not perceived – a known problem that the HoloLens 2 also had. Practical implications for content design:
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Set tips: Optical arrows, „Edge Beacons“, or Auditory Cues draw attention to content at the edge of the FoV.
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Composition thinking Key UI Elements and Interactions inside Place FoV; actively via onboarding Look around guide.
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Plan scene flow: sequences in such a way that users natural Head movements make, instead of „hiding“ information sideways.
Development for Xreal with Unity XR & ARCore
The XREAL Air 2 Ultra sets on Unity XR. ARCore provides AR functionality within this XR stack. For teams, this is strategically important:
Architecture & Strategy
Unity XR : Projects use the standardized XR layer from Unity. This keeps implementations cross-device and avoids lock-in into proprietary SDKs.
ARCore among others: ARCore takes over the AR Integration (incl. Plane Detection) on Android-Base also device-agnostic.
Advantage for teams: Who Unity XR and ARCore knows, can on the XREAL Air 2 Ultra without a new framework start. That's exactly why our developers at Design for real very quickly got along with the Xreal.
Current integration status (experiences from prototypes)
Early phase UnityXR with some bugs: The switch from XREAL to Unity XR is relatively new.Accordingly, some bugs still seem to occur during integration.
Example: Asymmetry in hand tracking In our tests, an object could be moved with the left hand, but not reliably rotate; but it worked with my right hand.
Examples of thinness: Demo/example projects are currently sparse. Developers have to deal with a lot of things develop, rather than adopting best-practice templates.
Outlook for Dev Support: If XREAL expands example projects and documentation and further stabilizes the Unity XR layer, productivity will noticeably increase. The potential is there – the stack is chosen correctly, maturity must follow.
Glasses can be used as an external monitor: Working and gaming in private
In addition to operation with the arithmetic unit, the XREAL Air 2 Ultra You can also connect it directly to a PC. In this „External Monitor Mode“ The glasses simply act like an additional screen.
This opens up some interesting use cases:
Working Discreetly on the Go: Content can, for example, be viewed on public transport without passersby being able to read along.
Gaming on the go: The glasses are compatible with devices such as Steam Deck, mobile gaming PCs, or even a Nintendo Switch.
Portable Screen: Instead of a bulky monitor, the display is right in front of your eyes—lightweight, portable, and unobtrusive.
Hardware Architecture & Mobility: External Processing Unit
The XREAL Air 2 Ultra is intentionally kept simple, since all computing power is offloaded to an external processing unit. XREAL currently recommends the Beam Pro, which must be purchased separately.
Modularity Through Various Processing Units
The concept is exciting: In theory, different computing units can be combined with the glasses. If a computing unit becomes too slow, you can purchase a more powerful model without having to replace the glasses themselves. Currently, however, only the Beam Pro is officially supported.
Beam Pro – Smartphone without telephone functionality
The Beam Pro looks like a smartphone, is similarly heavy to wear, but can no SIM card inserted and thus cannot be used as a classic telephone. This is somewhat disappointing, as one would have expected a telephony function from this form factor.
What makes the Beam Pro special, however, are the two forward-facing cameras, with which stereoscopic videos have them taken. These can then be directly on the XREAL Air 2 Ultra to be seen. The quality is high, even though they are classic stereoscopic videos without a parallax effect. XREAL is taking a similar approach to Apple with the Vision Pro, which enables immersive videos via the iPhone.
Today's Use Cases: Where the XREAL Air 2 Ultra Already Shines
Measure & Customer Demos: The low threshold factor arrives. Content can be presented without a „headset hurdle“ - especially for shorter interactions.
Lightweight MR Experiences Place, observe, simple interactions – especially where Field of view awareness and Cues were taken into account.
Media Consumption: Netflix and Prime Video run very well; it creates a pleasant, „private“ cinema feel on the go.
„Second Screen“ Work: Checking emails, reading documents – practical in quiet environments.
Still not idealprecise Hand interactions,
inchoate input concept Input (keyboard/mouse collision),
Conclusion: What the XREAL Air 2 Ultra can do today – and what's still missing
The XREAL Air 2 Ultra is a important intermediate step to MR in Everyday form factor. It shows that Android XR, Unity XR and ARCore in combination already convincing fundamentals deliver – despite visible Early-stage ambiguity.
Strengths of the XREAL Air 2 Ultra:
Elegant, casually wearable form factor
Comfort (no pressure points like with headsets), social acceptance
Three-stage dimming for outdoor suitability
Unity XR + ARCore: Developers Launch Without Proprietary Dead Ends
PC Mode & Computing Unit: Flexible Use Depending on the Scenario
Weaknesses / To-dos:
limited FoV → FoV-aware UX mandatory
rudimentary app ecosystem (YouTube problem, few MR apps)
Hand tracking still immature (inconsistent grab/rotation interactions)
Keyboard/Mouse conflict in glasses mode
Few dev examples, early Unity XR integration with bugs
As an inexpensive substitute for HoloLens-like use cases in a sunglasses form factor, the XREAL Air 2 Ultra is already exciting – especially for trade shows, showcases, and prototypes. For broad consumer scenarios, app depth, UI maturity, and more robust gestures are still missing. The direction is right: for mass adoption, the form factor – and therefore the XREAL Air 2 Ultra – will be crucial.
