Xreal One Pro: Smart Glasses Feel Apple Vision, Can Be Used on iPhone but Still Halfway There

Jakarta - In the midst of the long wait for Apple's smart glasses, Xreal tries to fill the market gap by presenting Xreal One Pro. This device offers a spatial computing experience that can be used immediately with iPhone and iPad, although it still leaves many compromises.

The Xreal One Pro is the successor to the Xreal One released in early 2025. This Pro version comes with major improvements to the screen and field of view, but it still can't be called a fully smart glasses.

"This is not the full smart glasses experience many people imagined, but rather more like a screen floating in the air in front of your eyes," wrote reviewer Mike Wuerthele.

Thick Design, Similar to Futuristic Sunglasses

From the outside, the Xreal One Pro looks like a thick pair of sunglasses with a large frame that hides the electronic components inside. The glasses arm houses speakers tuned by Bose engineers, as well as a USB-C port on the left side for cable connections to other devices.

On the right side, there is a brightness control button, a menu button, and one additional shortcut button. The metal hinge that connects the arm and the front frame feels sturdy and flexible.

The outer lens can be darkened like sunglasses or made more transparent to help see augmented reality elements while maintaining privacy. Behind it, there is a second lens that serves as an AR display medium.

For users with glasses, Xreal provides a special stand for prescription lenses, although lenses must be purchased separately. The weight of the Xreal One Pro reaches 3.1 ounces, much lighter than headsets like the Apple Vision Pro, but it still feels if worn for a long time.

Wider and Brighter Screen

The main improvement of the Xreal One Pro is in the screen technology. This device uses the latest 0.55-inch Micro OLED with a viewing angle of 57 degrees, up from 50 degrees on the previous version. For comparison, Apple Vision Pro has a viewing angle of around 100 degrees.

The screen brightness increases to 700 nits, with an effective resolution equivalent to 1080p and a total of about 4 million pixels. The 120Hz refresh rate helps reduce flicker and potential motion sickness.

"The additional brightness makes the device much more comfortable to use in a bright room," wrote the reviewer, although the difference is barely noticeable when used at night.

Better Audio, Can Record Voice

The internal speaker of the Xreal One Pro gets a new sound chamber design and is tuned by Bose. In addition, these glasses can also record stereo sound, suitable for online meetings. The noise-canceling system helps keep the sound clear in a somewhat crowded environment.

The Xreal One Pro works as an external display. The device is connected to an iPhone, iPad, laptop, or tablet via a USB-C cable that supports DisplayPort. If the device does not have USB-C, users can use an HDMI to USB-C adapter.

The Xreal X1 chip inside the glasses is tasked with regulating the position of the virtual screen in three dimensions. There are several display modes, such as Anchor which allows the screen to be mounted on one point in the room, Follow which makes the screen always follow the direction of view, and Side View which displays a small screen in the corner of the vision.

All settings are done directly from the buttons on the glasses, without additional applications or intermediary devices. "It's a nice touch, because I don't like extra screens just to set up the screen," wrote the reviewer.

There are still many shortcomings.

Despite offering an interesting visual experience, the Xreal One Pro has a number of weaknesses. This device cannot be used independently and always requires a host device. The built-in cable is even reported to be broken after only a few days of use.

The camera is also not included. Xreal offers an additional camera module called Xreal Eye for 99 US dollars, which allows 12MP photo capture and increases the system from 3 degrees of freedom to 6 degrees of freedom.

"This feature should have been part of the Pro product, not an addition," critics said.

Wireless use is also not available natively. Optional solutions such as Xreal Beam Pro or a wireless HDMI adapter are considered less practical.

Not Fully Smart Glasses

Overall, the Xreal One Pro is more accurately referred to as a smart display than a smart glasses. It excels as a portable screen that can float in the air, is lightweight, and is easy to connect to an iPhone or iPad.

However, without content processing on the device, without a built-in camera, and still relying on a cable, the experience offered is not what many people expect from future smart glasses.

"It's a nice optical hardware, but burdened with cables and a lack of wireless features," wrote the reviewer.

The Xreal One Pro is currently selling for around $599 via the official Xreal and Amazon websites. At that price, this device has a very specific market, especially for users who want a lightweight alternative to large headsets like Apple's Vision Pro, while waiting for Apple to actually launch its own smart glasses.