I travel a lot, and I’m constantly searching for ways to replicate the productivity of my desk setup while on the go. Originally, I used portable monitors to create a dual-monitor setup in coffee shops and hotel rooms. I eventually upgraded to an Apple Vision Pro headset, which has a Mac Virtual Display feature that turns my laptop into a larger-than-life ultrawide screen. Augmented reality (AR) display glasses aren’t as good as your laptop display or portable monitor on paper, but their portability and convenience has me picking them up over objectively better options.
AR glasses work best for watching video and playing games. You don’t need the display sharpness required for crisp text in these applications. Still, I’ve found a few situations where I prefer to use AR glasses over my laptop, portable monitor, or Vision Pro headset. The compact size, subtle appearance, and comfortable wear of AR glasses make them an excellent option for screen mirroring and extended display workflows.
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Smart display glasses are best for phones and handhelds
Turn your small screen into a virtual display bigger than your TV
Credit: Hannah Stryker / MakeUseOf
I’ve never been much of a PC or console gamer, but PC gaming handhelds quickly won me over — they’re the best of both worlds. I own a Steam Deck, Asus ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, and ROG Xbox Ally X for gaming, and use them for both new and old triple-A titles. I haven’t been let down by the performance of these handhelds yet, but their displays leave something to be desired. Their screens are small, so you have to get pretty close to them for a good look. Since these handhelds aren’t the lightest, this isn’t the most comfortable.
This is where AR display glasses make for a noticeable improvement. I can plug in a pair of AR display glasses with a 120Hz refresh rate into my PC gaming handheld’s USB-C port for a big-screen viewing experience. These glasses offer virtual displays that your eyes perceive as being larger than your TV. For example, I’ve used the Viture Beast, which has a 174-inch virtual screen. I’ve also tried the TCL RayNeo Air 2 with a 201-inch virtual display. It’s not quite the same experience as looking at your 4K TV, but it’s certainly more enjoyable than using the tiny screen on a PC gaming handheld.
Credit: Bertel King / MakeUseOf
AR display glasses are perfect for handhelds like the ROG Xbox Ally X or Lenovo Legion Go, which have two USB-C ports. One can be used to connect the PC gaming handheld to power, and another is left for the AR display glasses — no adapter, hub, or dongle required. I took my ROG Xbox Ally X and the Viture Beast on a recent trip to the Bahamas, and I couldn’t believe how perfect a pair they were. Whether I was gaming on a plane or in the hotel room after a long beach day, I reached for the Viture Beast glasses every time I fired up the ROG Xbox Ally X.
Aside from the larger screen, AR display glasses were also superb for privacy and comfort. I could look straight ahead while playing my ROG Xbox Ally X with the display glasses on, saving my neck from being strained from having to look down at my tiny handheld screen. The privacy benefits couldn’t be understated, either. I could play whatever I wanted in a crowded airplane cabin without having to worry about prying eyes, or traumatizing a child in the row behind me.
If you like to download movies and TV shows to your phone before traveling, AR display glasses will come in handy. Instead of watching them on your small phone screen, plug the glasses into your device’s USB-C port to enjoy a large virtual display.
They can replace your laptop screen, too
Smart display glasses give you a large and private viewing window
I quickly realized AR display glasses could replace your laptop screen and portable monitor for the same reasons. In an economy seat on an airplane, I can’t fully open my 14-inch MacBook Pro’s screen. It’ll hit against the seatback of the person sitting in front of me, especially if they’ve reclined their seat. Even if I could, the brightness is blinding when the cabin lights are dimmed and the window shades are closed. A simple pair of AR display glasses proved to be the solution. I can use my laptop with the lid half-closed, and comfortably see all my windows through a virtual screen.
Display glasses aren’t truly augmenting your environment on their own. This is where the included AR camera and software features come into play. On the Viture Beast, you can use features like Anchor Mode, Smooth Follow, UltraWide, and Side Mode to truly augment reality. The SpaceWalker app enables the AR and XR features, including the ultrawide display. It creates a virtual ultrawide display in your environment, larger than the glasses’ field of view. As you move your head, you can see the expansive screen area delivered by the virtual ultrawide display mode.
This is the experience that makes AR display glasses a real alternative to a physical second screen. You can enjoy the same amount of screen space in virtual or augmented reality, in a glasses form factor small enough to fit in your pocket. I found myself leaving VR headsets like my Vision Pro or Meta Quest at home, choosing to take the AR display glasses on trips with me instead. I used them in places I’d never take a headset, like an EV charging station. I was able to work while my car charged, all without giving up my dual-monitor environment.
Smart display glasses have one flaw
They’re not as sharp as your other screens, and they won’t replace them
No attribution required; taken by author James BruceCredit: James Bruce / MakeUseOf
The one drawback that everyone should know about before buying a pair of AR display glasses is quality. You might see glasses advertise resolutions like 1080p or 1200p that look decent on paper, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Display resolution isn’t everything — a spec called pixel density is arguably more important. It tells you how many pixels per inch (or per other unit of measurement) there are in a display, and it gives you an idea of the sharpness. But this spec doesn’t work for AR display glasses.
They need a separate specification called pixels per degree, which measures how many pixels fit in a degree of the viewer’s field of view. This accounts for the perceived size of a virtual display at a specific distance, not the physical size of the display. While evaluating AR display glasses using pixels per degree, they will always lose in sharpness and pixel density compared to traditional screens, like your TV, laptop screen, or portable monitor.
Specifically, my MacBook Pro has a pixel density of 254 pixels per inch. If we assume a standard viewing distance of around 1.5 feet, that equates to about 85 pixels per degree. Now, let’s look at a pair of AR display glasses like the Viture Beast. They have a 1920x1080p resolution and a 58-degree field of view, which equals 33.1 pixels per degree. The results are clear: a quality display, like a MacBook Pro screen, will be nearly three times as sharp as even the best AR display glasses.
I can still be productive with AR glasses, whether they’re the ones from Viture or RayNeo. The text just isn’t as crisp or as legible as a typical portable display. When portability matters more than display quality, I always choose a pair of AR display glasses.
- Sunglasses?
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Yes, the shades are non-removable
- Connective Technology
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USB-C
- Brand
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RayNeo
- Speakers
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4 speakers
- Weight
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78g (2.75oz)
- Display
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Dual HD OLED
While the comfort and fit fall short as an all-day wearable, it’s an enormous virtual display and the visuals are stunning. For on-the-go gaming or pairing with the optional Pocket TV media player, it’s the best virtual cinema screen yet.