Xreal Pitches $299 and $849 Smart Glasses as 171-Inch Virtual Screens

Q: How much battery life does powering a massive virtual screen actually drain from your phone or laptop during a long flight?

Expect a noticeable hit on a phone, but a more modest one on a laptop. In hands-on testing cited in the additional material, Xreal-style display glasses drew about 15% of a flagship Android phone’s battery per hour, around 5% extra per hour on a 50–60Wh laptop, and roughly 6–7% per hour on a Steam Deck-class handheld. On a long flight, that means a 5,000mAh phone could lose well over half its battery in four hours if it is powering both the glasses and video or games. If the phone is also handling gaming or other heavy tasks, the drain can be faster. That aligns with reviewers’ broader point that phones are the least forgiving host device for these glasses. A laptop is usually a better match. A thin laptop with a 50–60Wh battery might give up roughly 20% of its charge over four hours just from the glasses, before accounting for whatever the laptop is doing itself. In practice, total drain depends on screen brightness, whether the laptop’s own display is turned off, and the workload. Turning off the built-in screen can offset some of the extra power use. The glasses themselves are relatively efficient compared with a portable monitor. The bigger battery risk comes from the host device because Xreal’s current models have no internal battery and act like a USB-C display on your face. For a long-haul flight, they are practical with a laptop, handheld, or seat power; with a phone alone, battery anxiety is much more likely.

3 articles · Updated · WIRED · Aug 24

$849 ROG Xreal R1 and $299 xbx A01+ turn a laptop, phone or handheld into a face-mounted virtual display, with the pricier model projecting a 171-inch screen and allowing it to stay anchored in place.
Xreal's glasses work best for gaming and video because they are light, battery-free and private to the wearer, but text often looks blurry, long sessions cause eye strain and heat, and frame speakers can leak audio.
The cheaper A01+ runs cooler and weighs less, yet its 50-degree field of view, lower image quality and lack of screen anchoring make it more disorienting for work or reading.
IDC says virtual monitor glasses are the fastest-growing smart-glasses segment and projects about 3 million unit sales in 2026, while Xreal is using the category as a stepping stone to its sub-$1,500 Project Aura device with Google later this year.