ASUS’ Republic of Gamers (ROG) division has just revealed a pair of augmented reality glasses designed exclusively for gamers who want to see a large screen without having to tote a gigantic monitor around. The ROG Xreal R1 glasses, developed in collaboration with Xreal, a company known for its consumer AR hardware, provide a virtual display right while still allowing you to see your surroundings.
These glasses weigh 91 grams and are quite light on your face, even when gaming for hours on end. Simply put them on like your usual shades, connect them to whatever device you’re using, and a crisp virtual screen will appear right in front of you. From a distance of about 4 metres, that virtual screen is roughly the size of a 171-inch TV, which is a big thing because it takes up the majority of what you generally focus on when you glance around. To sweeten the bargain, all of this is possible thanks to a 57-degree field of view.
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Each eye gets its own Micro-OLED panel from Sony, with a full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. ASUS has increased the refresh rate to 240 Hz, a first for a product of this class, ensuring that quick action remains fluid and without any blur or jitter. As an extra benefit, the motion sensitivity is quite responsive, with a latency of about 3 milliseconds between when you move your head and when the image changes.
As for sound, you get built-in speakers tuned by none other than Bose, so expect three-dimensional audio that immerses you in the action. Footsteps and explosions will be placed precisely around you, increasing your awareness while gaming.
The lenses on these things are also fairly clever, as they use electrochromic technology to modify their transparency as you gaze about. So when you look away from the virtual screen, they clear up so you can see what’s going on around you, and when you return your gaze, they automatically darken to make the display more visible. If you need to alter the transparency for different lighting circumstances, there are three manual options available.
Players can also control how the screen behaves: they can lock it in place using the built-in three degrees of freedom tracking (so it stays still as they glance about), or they can have it follow their perspective instead. There’s also a little chip inside that handles all the spatial changes for you, so you don’t have to move a finger.
There are several different connection options available to you. Simply plug the ROG Ally handheld into the glasses via USB-C for rapid setup, and that tiny screen transforms into a huge one while still allowing you to use all of the device’s touch capabilities. If you need more options, the ROG Control Dock will come in handy; this is a separate piece of hardware that adds two HDMI 2.0 connections and one DisplayPort 1.4, allowing you to connect numerous sources and switch between them with a single button click.
Unfortunately, the company has yet to disclose an official release date, but we do know that these will be available worldwide in the first half of 2026. What about pricing? We’ll just have to wait and see for now. For reference, the Xreal S1 AR glasses sets you back $449 USD.
