I Tried the Future of Smart Glasses at WWDC. They Weren't Made by Apple

On a bright sunny day in Cupertino, California, I crammed into my seat, unlocked my laptop, connected to Wi-Fi and checked in on Slack. Apple's WWDC keynote was about to begin. This time, however, I added a new step to my live event coverage routine. I plugged the Xreal One Pro glasses into my MacBook and activated the dimmer. They became my smart display-enabled sunglasses.
For the next 2 hours, I covered Apple's announcements wearing Xreal's display glasses, and they worked better than I expected. The One Pros projected my laptop monitor clearly, removed glare that would have overwhelmed my laptop screen and allowed me to watch the stage presentation at the same time. And it got better: By activating Xreal's auto transparency mode, the glasses dimmed the world when I looked at my virtual screen, then became transparent again when I looked at the stage to follow the action.
The future of truly useful everyday AR glasses isn't here yet, but wow, with things like the Xreal One Pro, it's getting close.
The Xreal One Pros tether with USB-C, but can project a larger display than before. (Shown here with the separate Eye camera plugged in below the bridge.)
Scott Stein/CNET
A floating display on demand
Xreal's glasses, like all glasses in this product category, use a USB-C cable to tether into whatever you're plugging into. Essentially, they're a tiny wearable monitor with speakers in glasses form. Whatever device supports USB-C video out will work with these glasses, either to mirror your screen or act as a second monitor.
While I've used Xreal's glasses to watch movies on planes (really fun and portable) and do work on my laptop and iPad (helpful on planes too, since space can be cramped, and my laptop lid doesn't always open fully in economy), the idea of covering a whole live event where I needed to be fast, effective, multitasking and not screw up was a whole different story. I'm happy to say the experiment worked, largely because of the auto transparency mode I never realized existed before -- thank you, Norm Chan of Tested, who told me about it as we sat down at the keynote.
Xreal's glasses have three dimmable lens settings that turn the outer glass either transparent semi-dark or close to opaque. It makes them instant sunglasses and also helps the display show up better in bright sunlight. However, these glasses won't block outside light completely -- light bleeds a bit through the dimmed lenses unless you're sitting in a completely dark place -- but the image is still extremely viewable, and looks good.
The transparency mode really made looking at the stage and my own laptop keyboard (and my phone) easier. Xreal's glasses aren't like normal glasses: They have layers of lenses, including the prescription inserts I stacked on top. But they can be used to look around, check messages, even (as I did) shoot some on-the-fly social videos and share them with CNET's social team.
Beyond transparency mode, other adjustments include screen size, projection distance, location of the screen and whether it's anchored or floating in my field of view.
The Xreal One (left) next to the One Pro with Eye camera attached (right). They work and look nearly the same.
Scott Stein/CNET
One Pro vs. One: subtle differences
I reviewed the non-Pro Xreal Ones earlier this year. Compared with previous Xreal display glasses, they have better built-in audio, and the ability to pin the really sharp 1080p microOLED display in space to anchor it, making them work a lot better as plug-in monitors for tablets, phones or laptops (or handheld game systems like Steam Deck).
Xreal's Pro version of the One glasses cost $100 more ($599, going up to $649 after June 30) but have a few advantages. The microOLED projection system still projects down from the top of the glasses into thick angled lenses (called birdbath displays), but the One Pro's lenses are flatter, smaller, and reflect less light from my surroundings. The display area's a bit wider -- 57 degrees field of view, versus 50 for the Ones — but that really just makes the 1080p display feel a bit bigger, and more clearly visible at the edges of the large virtual screen. Prescription lens inserts like I use rest flat against the lenses: it's chunky but better than before.
I don't think you need the Pros, but their slightly better performance could be worth the difference to avoid fatigue.
The small Xreal Eye camera plugs under the bridge of the glasses.
Scott Stein/CNET
Optional camera isn't necessary
I tried a tiny plug-in camera, too, called the Eye (sold separately for $99), that slots into the bridge of the One series glasses. They're designed for future use with AI apps, potentially, but right now they can capture photos and video clips on the glasses' small 2GB of storage. Images can be offloaded on the iPhone by going to a "transfer" mode in the glasses settings that turns the glasses into a USB camera, and the Photos app was able to just find the glasses and import the images. It's clunky, but it works, although you need to tether the glasses via USB-C like you do in regular display mode. These Xreal glasses don't work wirelessly on their own.
Test photo out of the NJT train.
Scott Stein/CNET
The camera takes passable photos and videos, but not as good as Meta Ray-Bans. I think the camera's here to flex another feature: a full six degrees of freedom mode that can pin a display in space and then be there as you walk around the room. It's not necessary for most things I do, but it shows how these glasses could, in future versions, evolve into something more like 3D augmented reality. Xreal's work with Spacetop, a software suite that can float arrays of apps from laptops, shows where things could go. Xreal's future Android XR developer hardware, called Project Aura, may take things further next year.
I'd skip the camera for now and just get the glasses, but I'm really curious where Xreal flexes these functions next.
These glasses are coming with me on work trips.
Scott Stein/CNET
When they're good, they're great
Like I said in my Xreal One review, these glasses and their microOLED displays are excellent for movie watching. They're surprisingly effective for doing work, too, since they can pin a display (or a semi-curved wide-angle monitor, thanks to an included setting) in place. I do notice the 1080p resolution limit a bit more now that these glasses can give an even larger display size, and it's something I expect future glasses to address in the next year or two with higher-resolution microOLED chips.
At a show where Apple announced new Vision Pro software updates but no word on any glasses of its own, I couldn't help but think about the Xreals on my face. The future is arriving in bits and pieces, but lots of smart glasses are already here and changing fast. And, yes, they're actually useful. The year 2026 may be massive for new smart glasses and AR, and my WWDC 2025 experience with Xreal One Pros proves that the evolution is well underway. Now it's your turn, Apple.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

WIRED

30 minutes ago

• WIRED

How to Convert an Analog Bike to an Electric Bike

Michael Venutolo-Mantovani You can save yourself thousands of dollars on an electric bike by upgrading your current ride. Let us walk (or cycle!) you through it. Courtesy of Science Photo Library via Getty Images All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. Say you want to get a bicycle up and down hills with a minimal amount of pedal power. What do you do? The first option is simple: buy an electric bike. However, ebikes aren't cheap. These days, the least expensive but still reliable ebike you can buy is Aventon Soltera 2.5, which costs around $1,200. You can rent an ebike, or find a city bike program that uses them, or, if you're really lucky, find an ebike in a lending library. Or you can just make your regular bike into an electric bike. That is, you can slap an aftermarket unit on your traditional bike, creating a motor-assisted ebike with little more than your bicycle and any of a variety of aftermarket power sources. What used to be a very niche field with only a small handful of offerings has become a cottage industry full of contenders and pretenders, and any number of startups offering a readymade conversion for your bike. So how do you turn your traditional bike into an ebike? And what are some of the best offerings out there? We'll walk you through it. If you don't see anything you like, make sure you check out our guides to the Best Electric Bikes or the Best Electric Scooters. Hot to Throt Well, first, you need to decide what kind of conversion you want. There are two basic kinds of ebikes, pedal-assist and throttle, with many newer models boasting some combination of both. Pedal assist is a mechanism that provides an added boost of electric power when you're pedaling. Via the use of cadence and/or torque sensors (how fast your pedals are rotating and the power that's being applied to them, respectively), pedal-assist units kick on at a certain point, making pedaling easier. Sometimes pedal assist can be so minimal, it's difficult to tell just how much work you're doing versus how much of the load your bike is handling. Throttle units act more like a motorcycle or moped, allowing the rider to either twist a tube mounted near the handgrip or use a thumb-based knob to deliver immediate power to the wheels. Throttle-based ebikes can be ridden without pedaling. When it comes to ebike conversions, where your power comes from and how it's delivered can look several different ways. Some mechanisms deliver power to either your bicycle's rear or front hub. Others are situated in the bottom bracket (that is, where the cranks meet the bike frame). And some newer conversion kits act something like a treadmill mounted to your bike, using rollers to help propel your wheel forward. Roll the Clip Photograph: Stephanie Pearson Having said all that, it's important to consider your level of bicycle know-how when it comes to what kind of ebike conversion you want to undertake. If you're a wrencher, the conversion process is generally straightforward, regardless of the type of unit. If you can change a tire or swap out your cassette, you'll probably be fine with a bit of trial and error and the help of YouTube tutorials. If you're asking yourself, 'What's a cassette?' it's probably best to visit your local bike shop and have a pro handle the work. Those 'treadmill' style conversion kits—such as the Rubbee X, Livall PikaBoost 2 rear-wheel units, or the Clip front-wheel unit—are typically the easiest to install, as you simply need to fix the machine to either your bike's seatpost frame or its fork, make sure its rollers are contacting your tire, and off you go. However, that 'contacting your tire' bit is a bit of a rub (pun intended), as the added contact with your rubber might lead to some extra wear. As disc brakes are becoming ever more the norm (as opposed to a traditional rim brake), Skarper offers a conversion unit that is equally as simple to install to your bike's disc-brake mounts and can be done by almost anyone who knows how to use an Allen wrench. The cool thing about each of these aforementioned units is the ease with which they can be attached and removed, meaning your ebike conversion isn't permanent. With them, you can use your road bike as a commuter during the week, yet keep on with your weekend group rides on the weekend. Hub It Out If you're looking for something more permanent (and way more powerful), units such as the Bafang M-Series replace your traditional bottom bracket with a motor that can deliver up to 1,000 watts of added power to the crank arms of your bike. However, as replacing a bottom bracket is one of the more involved things you can do on a bike, this isn't something you'll want to swap in and out. Somewhere in between the clip-on ease of units like the PikaBoost and the more permanent solution the M-Series offers, are the aforementioned hub-based power units, which tuck motors into the hubs of your wheels. Many of these units also offer battery packs that are meant to be attached to your bike's existing bottle cage mounts. Among the many options for hub-based power units, it's hard to beat the Zehus, which requires nothing more than replacing your existing rear wheel with a Zehus-outfitted wheel. Similarly, Cytronex, one of the earliest and longest-standing ebike brands around, offers a hub-based conversion kit that, while a bit more involved, should take no more than a few minutes of setup. With the explosion in popularity in ebikes, this list is barely scratching the surface. For each of the units mentioned here, there are a dozen or more aftermarket competitors offering similar products. Do your research, talk to the experts at your local bike shop, and decide which unit is right for you and your needs. Once you do that, keep the rubber side down! Power up with unlimited access to WIRED . Get best-in-class reporting that's too important to ignore for just $2.50 $1 per month for 1 year. Includes unlimited digital access and exclusive subscriber-only content. Subscribe Today .

Forbes

38 minutes ago

• Forbes

AI Is Behind 50% Of Spam — And Now It's Hacking Your Accounts

AI is taking over the spam and phishing sectors. getty Artificial Intelligence is, I admit with a certain amount of begrudging respect, impressive to put it mildly. At least when it is used to help make work more efficient and leisure more, erm, leisurely. However, when AI is misused or employed for nefarious purposes, it becomes a concern for all of us. We've already seen this when the first big story broke as an AI attack on Gmail users went viral in 2024. Things have changed since then, and not for the better, as the latest research reveals. Now, half of your spam is generated by AI, and cyberattacks are increasingly using AI-powered methods. Here's what you need to know. It's official: more than half of the spam that you receive has been created using AI tools. That's the finding of newly published research, a collaboration between Barracuda and researchers from Columbia University and the University of Chicago, which found that, in April 2025, the actual number was 51%. This isn't altogether surprising. After all, AI does a better job, for the most part, in producing less spelling and grammatical errors, ensuring that linguistically the messages are understandable across geographies, and can be tweaked to have just the right tone to convince the reader to respond. And that, dear reader, is concerning. Not from the perspective of spamming in the broader sense, but rather when it comes to cybersecurity implications, as such techniques are applied to phishing attacks. The same report found that, already, 14% of the business email compromise attacks analyzed were AI-generated. Extrapolate that across all phishing attack scenarios, and I'm sorry to say, the situation will soon become untenable. Wei Hao, a PhD student at Columbia University, and one of the researchers behind the report, said that 'spam showed the most frequent use of AI-generated content in attacks, outpacing use in other attack types significantly over the past year.' What the research also found was that AI-generated emails didn't differ significantly from human-generated attack emails, at least not in terms of engendering a sense of urgency. It appears that AI, like human attackers, recognises the effectiveness of this method in persuading a recipient to act and become a victim. 'Urgency is a deliberate tactic commonly used to exert pressure and elicit an unthinking response from the recipient,' Hao said, which suggested 'attackers are primarily using AI to refine their emails and possibly their English rather than to change the tactics of their attacks.'

CNET

42 minutes ago

• CNET

Act Quickly to Nab a Pair of Our Favorite Headphones With 20% Off

We'd all like to own some of the best headphones, because why wouldn't you want better music or audiobooks? They can be pricey, especially if you're looking for things like high-quality noise-cancelling or other features. You can find deals that offset that though. Right now, there's a deal on that knocks 20% off the Edifier W830NB headphones as long as you use the on-page coupon. That brings the price down to $64, and given that these headphones are on two of our "best of" lists, that's an excellent price. The W830NB headphones look sleek, which is always a nice bonus for over-ear headphones. They offer a frankly absurd 94 hour battery life, and have some of the best noise cancelling we've tested, especially at this price. They even manage to squeeze in spatial audio, and an impressive sound quality as well. They're great whether you're listening to music, podcasts or even making calls. You can even fold them away when not in use for easier storage and better portability. Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money. There's no doubt in our minds that these headphones are worth it. Given how good they are and the fact that the discount is decent too, this is definitely one of the best headphone deals going on right now. Why this deal matters We review a lot of headphones here at CNET, so it takes a lot to truly stand out. The fact that these ones do so then, is worth paying attention too. We think these are incredible headphones at full price, so saving 20% is a no-brainer.