Smart pet technology firm Fi has launched the Fi Ultra Dog Tracker today. This new wearable device is claimed to be “the world’s first consumer wearable powered by T-Satellite with Starlink.” There seem to be a few qualifications in that statement, but they should not be necessary, as, according to our searches, this is indeed the first dog tracking wearable with Starlink integration. To be clear, the dog wears the Fi Ultra, not the owner.

Getting a collar-worn device for your faithful friend, integrating T-Satellite with Starlink, could deliver an important additional layer of security for dog owners. Previous products available in the pet tracker market could be of limited value in areas with spotty or absent LTE or GPS coverage. Satellite-grade dog tracking may therefore be a boon to adventurous dogs and owners who live and explore beyond the reach of traditional networks.

"Fi Ultra has transformed what's possible for dog owners," said Jonathan Bensamoun, co-founder and CEO of Fi. "Our mission has always been to strengthen the human-animal connection via data, to give dogs more freedom while keeping them safe, and with the power of T-Satellite with Starlink behind Fi Ultra, that mission now extends to every corner of the country and soon, every corner of the world."

Fi Ultra also features automatic switching between LTE and satellite coverage for continuous location tracking in remote areas. This new tracker can work in concert with the previously launched Fi Series 3+ and Fi Mini dog tracker devices.

Now, to what some will feel is a drawback, Fi Ultra is bundled with a subscription service. This might be inevitable due to the use of partner satellite and cellular connectivity, though. The scale of the fees is said to be $199 plus a $189 per year membership for new customers. Established Fi tracker customers can buy in for a flat $299 fee. The bottom line is, with a tracker like this, your dog should never have to face the perilous journey dramatized in Lassie Come Home.

One of Jensen Huang’s used leather jackets is up for auction, posted with an estimate of $40,000 to $60,000. Sotheby’s, better known as a purveyor of blockbuster fine art and historic artifacts, is auctioning this item of worn clothing. The storied auction house asserts this is a genuine article, as worn by the Nvidia CEO at an event in Taipei in 2023. It has also made sure the signature within the garment has been professionally authenticated. Having watched a few tech memorabilia auctions lately, I’d say the official estimate is on the low side.

Sotheby’s auction is titled ‘The Jensen Jacket: Jensen Huang's Tom Ford Leather Jacket.’ Its catalog notes that this signature black leather jacket has been Huang’s standard attire for more than a decade and has become “associated with some of the most consequential moments in modern technology.” This jacket, or one like it, has been on stage helping to define the rise of artificial intelligence. It may also have been worn by the Nvidia CEO visiting a humble street food vendor in a Taiwan night market.

So, it is important to understand that this is one of many jackets Huang has sported during keynotes, announcements, and special events over the years. Like any good auction house, Sotheby's has thus certified the provenance of this particular garment.

“The Jacket has been photomatched by PSA [Professional Sports Authenticator] to Jensen Huang, co-founder and chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., during the Hon Hai [Foxconn] Tech Day in Taipei on October 18, 2023,” writes Sotheby’s in its auction catalog. A very specific array of creases and deformities in the right-breast pocket flap appears to confirm that this jacket was worn by the Nvidia CEO at the Hon Hai [Foxconn] Tech Day in Taipei in October 2023. Sotheby’s also states that “The signature has been authenticated by James Spence Authentication.”

Any readers interested in grabbing this jacket will likely be interested in the condition of the garment. There are a few pictures on the catalog page, including a close-up, which was used to ‘photomatch’ this particular 2023 Tom Ford-made sample. As a Sotheby’s account holder, I also read the condition report, which begins with the assertion that “The Jacket and signature are in pristine condition.” But there follows a lot of legal jargon which can be summed up as – the actual condition and appearance of the jacket might not be perfect, nor look exactly like the photographic representations of it.

If you do splash your cash on this old jacket, you should be pleased to know that your hard-earned money will be going to charity. Sotheby’s says that the sale was organized by Long Journey Ventures to benefit the Edge Institute, described as “a non-profit that convenes people working at the frontiers of tech, science, culture, and society in pop-up villages (Edge Cities) to live together and experiment towards a brighter future.”

A low estimate to attract bidders?

Does the $40,000 to $60,000 estimate take into account the jacket's Jensanity factor, or AI inflation? Also, we are in an AI boom right now, with skyrocketing prices and valuations, yet people might have spent more than the top estimate for a mere NFT of this jacket a few years ago.

On a cautious note, though, we aren’t sure how many of these jackets the Nvidia CEO has in his wardrobe. And if there were another 10 or 20 that may someday be released for sale, then the expected price could slide dramatically.

A brand new Tom Ford SS2023 menswear collection jacket, without a sprinkle of genuine Jensanity, costs around $9,000. In that context, Sotheby’s estimate puts only a modest premium on this verified genuine Jensen Huang-worn and signed artifact.

Elon Musk’s Neuralink, along with several other startups, have been experimenting with brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) for years now, allowing patients who have lost mobility to control computers using their minds alone. However, most of these require invasive surgery to install the sensor needed to detect brain signals. Meta is working to change this with its Brain2Qwerty non-invasive BCI. Instead of relying on implants, this system uses a non-invasive magnetoencephalography (MEG) scanner to read the faint changes in a brain’s magnetic fields due to brain activity and then correlate this to keypresses on a virtual keyboard.

The latest release is actually the second version of the non-invasive BCI, with the first one released last year as proof of concept. This second version has significantly increased accuracy after it was trained on ten times more data for each test subject. The company says that its average accuracy now hits 61%, with the best participant capable of hitting as much as 78% word accuracy. By comparison, the previous version only had an average of 40% accuracy, while the best user only achieved 48%.

While this sounds like a big improvement, Meta concedes that this is still not good enough for clinical testing. The 61% average accuracy still feels hit-and-miss and would be difficult to use in everyday conversation. Nevertheless, the company says that it plans to use more data for training the system, and that it’s continuously getting better results from it so far. Another issue it’s facing is the size of MEG sensors. Current MEG technology requires massive hardware — even larger than the user and the chair they’re sitting in. There are promising advancements in MEG sensors, though, which could result in smaller devices that are more manageable to use in clinical settings.

Meta’s non-invasive BCI alternative to Neuralink and other solutions that require brain surgery is still a long way off from allowing patients to control a webcam and play World of Warcraft. But it is still an important development in neuroprosthetics, and it could eventually result in medical devices that patients could use to restore or improve their quality of life. Meta isn’t the only one working on BCIs that don’t require major surgery — a team from Georgia Tech has also developed a tiny BCI that could be easily slid under the scalp, while Valve founder and superyacht enthusiast Gabe Newell also built a startup intent on creating a BCI that doesn’t require a battery.

A software engineer has shared a video demonstrating their brand-new gamified running app for the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses. Highlights of the app, made by Stijn Spanhove, include a ghost racer to help you to keep pace with your best prior runs, coin pick-ups, sprint zone bonuses, and a mini leaderboard. This is only possible now because Meta recently added display capabilities for devs in the Meta Wearables Device Access Toolkit and the Web Apps pathway.

The embedded video shows several compelling features of the unnamed gamified running app. As you run, you can see the route with you and your ghost racer’s position superimposed on it. There are also status details such as run distance, completed distance, vs ghost distance, coins collected, and even a score in the HUD. We also note that the wearable feeds the display with pace and distance info, with the compass used to keep the map oriented in the forward direction.

Spanhove makes developing this app for the Ray-Ban Display sound like a walk in the park. “I built a web app for the glasses, loaded a previous GPX from Strava, and dropped game mechanics on top,” he summarized. GPX is a standard GPS file format that contains a route’s data and Strava allows users to export any past run as a GPX file. So, Spanhove just took a previous run and exported it for this gamified web app project.

The software engineer also told folks not to worry about having to run with their chunky flagship phone in their pocket. With this web app, processing is light enough to run smoothly directly on the device, assured Spanhove. “Been wearing a lot of AR glasses, these feel ok. Honestly, comfortable to run in,” he surmised.

Meta's Ray-Ban Display glasses

Meta launched its Ray-Ban Display glasses last year, with early adopters being able to get hold of these wearables starting in October. As you may infer from the name, these were built on Meta’s earlier glasses designs by integrating a micro display in the right lens. The new waveguide display meant wearers would be able to enjoy new apps with AR overlays. So, in effect, Meta’s Ray-Bans were upgraded to include a lightweight AR HUD.

On May 15, Meta opened up developer access to the display on the Meta Ray-Ban Display⁠ glasses with two build paths: mobile apps and web apps. This unlock means devs and enthusiasts can unleash their imaginations. Quickly, there were examples of the new AR glasses being used for quirky fun like boxing games, Tetris, Breakout, and even a utility to interact with your car. Our headlining gamified running example may be the most compelling new use for the glasses yet, though.

We reviewed the original Meta Ray-Bans in Feb 2025.

A robotics and animatronic cosplay enthusiast known as Zibartas has made a real-life NUSA Infiltrator jacket. If you aren’t familiar with the jacket’s lore, it is a bomber jacket from Cyberpunk 2077 with a tall collar that houses a display, here recreated in the “super rare white version.” That feature collar alone packs in $1,200 worth of flexible OLED displays driven by a pair of Raspberry Pi 4 SBCs.

Zibartas begins the video by talking about the inspiration provided by Cyberpunk 2077. As a cosplay enthusiast, the now iconic game has provided a great deal of inspiration for him. With the NUSA Infiltrator jacket design in his sights, the obvious question was – how?

The finished collar is lined with a quartet of flexible OLED displays, costing ~$300 each. Zibartas began by trying to drive them from a pair of Raspberry Pi 5s for portability with enough graphics muscle. However, after a week of pixel wrangling found that the hardware decoders of the Pi 4 were better for this particular task.

Next, the work on syncing the two pairs of displays needed to be done. “At the start, I used direct gigabit network, but it added too much of an overhead. So, I moved to pure hardware GPIO pulses and Python,” explained Zibartas. “In the end, I think I got it to as close as it can get.”

With the techy side of the equation solved, Zibartas moved onto the scissors and sewing stuff cosplayers seem to do a lot of. However, the construction of the curved collar would soon precipitate a tech problem, as the first screen to be fitted was damaged when Zibartas attempted to slide it into its upholstered EVA foam housing. That was a $300 mistake.

After a purported few weeks of extra testing the cosplay fan came up with a semi-rigid understructure for the collar. This bendy new design featured side tracks that resist twisting, so it is expected to prevent the issues that broke one of the OLED screens previously.

With the collar feature of the NUSA Infiltrator jacket now ready to go, we see Zibartas work on other fine details of the design. For example he 3D printed a shoulder-mounted ‘radar jammer’ section in flexible resin. Four indicator LEDs are built into this section, too. All these extra jacket components are finished appropriately in black, chrome, and so on.

As the jacket is fully assembled and finessed we learn that the two Pi 4s and two power banks will be hidden in pockets on the mid-lower back of the jacket and provide about three hours of screen and LED power.

For simplicity, right now, the screens show a pre-baked animation loop. However, Zibartas notes that “since it is Linux and HDMI-capable screens, the sky is the limit.” To prove the point, the video then cuts to the maker and cosplayer enjoying a Cyberpunk 2077 gaming session on the collar display hooked up to a Steam Controller.

An electronics, automobile, and DIY enthusiast has turned an old smartwatch into an interactive gear shift display in his 2001 Audi A4 (B5) luxury compact executive car. The project started as just a bit of digital bling for the gear stick, but inspired by fellow Redditor comments, Desmontei vibe coded a WearOS app to add gear indicator and media control gestures to the repurposed digital dial. The watch face was secured to the gear stick very carefully, using a 3D-printed mount with tight tolerances.

Don't throw away old smartwatches! 3D printed a custom housing to turn one into a Digital Shift Knob. ♻️🕹️ from r/3Dprinting

The video shared in Desmontei’s Reddit post shows the smartwatch display changing to match the current gear stick selection. It appears to work as expected, but it wasn’t easy to ensure it reliably reported the correct gear selection. The watch’s accelerometer and gyroscope read the angle of the stick to work out what gear the car is in. However, the data can be thrown off when going uphill or downhill, so dynamic calibration had to be added to the algorithm.

Desmontei’s repurposed TicWatch Pro 3 also doubles as an intuitive media controller. When driving, you can change tracks in Spotify with back, forward, and pause swipes on the screen. The techy DIYer intends to add yet more functionality in due course. Specifically, ‘Phase 2’ will link it up “to an OBD2 scanner via Tasker for live telemetry (RPM, Temp).”

For those who might wish to follow in Desmontei’s footsteps, there’s a lengthy (2 hrs) video to check out on the Desmontei YouTube channel. But, briefly, the DIYer “took an old TicWatch Pro 3 smartwatch and carefully cut the original casing with a rotary tool to extract just the OLED screen and motherboard. Then, I modeled a custom shift knob enclosure to house the electronics perfectly.”

The prototype’s tolerances had to be extremely tight “because I didn't want the screen popping out while shifting gears, and PLA was the easiest to test the fitment,” it is explained. If/when this prototype warps or breaks, “I'll use it as an excuse to reprint V2 in ABS or PETG,” Desmontei added. It’s a neat integrated solution, as the design bypasses the watch battery and is wired directly to the car’s 12V electrics.

Another change that may come in V2 could be the use of a second (reference) gyroscopic sensor in the car to make the gear shift position calculations more reliable. Desmontei's other exploits also include PlayStation and handheld modifications, as seen on their website.

The RayNeo Air 4 Pro is the latest in the company's long line of augmented reality (AR) glasses. We recently reviewed the RayNeo Air 3s Pro and were impressed by the steady improvements in functionality. The Air 3s Pro glasses were so good that I wondered what RayNeo could do with the hardware this time to further improve things with the Air 4 Pro.

Well, the company is iterating once again by introducing a new custom Vision 4000 image-processing chip with HDR10 support, and a four-speaker audio system developed in conjunction with Bang & Olufsen. And to my absolute joy, RayNeo now includes plastic light blockers in the box.

At $299, the Air 4 Pro slots in just above the Air 3s Pro.

Design of the RayNeo Air 4 Pro

One way RayNeo keeps costs down, at least compared to competitors like Xreal, is by keeping design and manufacturing costs low. The Air 3s Pro used the same chassis as the Air 3s, and the Air 4 Pro continues that trend. I cannot spot any meaningful difference between the Air 3s Pro and the Air 4 Pro I have sitting on my desk—even the color and feel of the plastics are the same. The Air 4 Pro weighs the same, at 2.68 ounces (76 grams).

The only superficial difference is that the “RayNeo” text has been replaced with the RayNeo logo on the left temple. In contrast, the right temple now has the words “Audio by Bang & Olufsen” imprinted on the side. Because of the similarities, my usual complaints about the plastic frame's cheap feel remain. Still, it doesn’t seem to affect durability, as I’ve used the Air 3s and Air 3s Pro extensively without any cracks or parts breaking.

RayNeo has finally listened to my constant complaints about not including a plastic light blocker for the front lens in the box with the Air 3s and Air 3s Pro. Since RayNeo doesn’t offer electrochromic dimming at this price point, light bleed can be an issue in especially bright environments (brightly lit rooms, outdoors, etc.).

The plastic light blockers snap right onto the front one-piece lens and do a good job of rejecting light when looking straight ahead. You’ll still notice any residual ambient light in your periphery, but this is still a much-needed upgrade. And in case you were wondering, the light blocker works with the Air 3s Pro.

The Air 4 Pro uses new 0.6-inch MicroLED projectors (1920 x 1080 per eye, 3840 x 1080 in 3D mode) from SeeYa, and includes dual bird bath lenses, up to a 120 Hz refresh rate, HueView 2.0 technology, and a native contrast ratio of 200,000:1. The most significant addition is support for HDR10, which RayNeo says is a first in this category. HDR10, developed by the UHD Alliance and the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), is an open-source, 10-bit standard for delivering higher contrast and a wider color gamut than traditional SDR content.

There are a few physical controls: a brightness rocker on the underside of the right temple, and a volume rocker and menu button in the same position on the left temple. The temples can be adjusted using a three-position hinge, and the USB-C port is on the right temple for connecting to your computing device.

The Air 4 Pro uses the same felt case I disliked on the Air 3s Pro, though it’s black instead of grey this time. It’s an obvious example of cost-cutting compared to the hard zipper case that came with the previous RayNeo AR glasses. One annoyance is that you have to press the button closure on the flip cover just right to snap it closed. RayNeo continues to provide a USB-C to USB-C cable, cleaning cloth, and a frame for prescription lens inserts in the box (along with the aforementioned plastic light blocker).

Specifications for the RayNeo Air 4 Pro

Using the RayNeo Air 4 Pro

Given my familiarity with RayNeo’s “Air” family, using the Air 4 Pro was like second nature to me. The controls fall easily to hand, so I quickly dialed the brightness up to the maximum level using the rocker on the left temple. The first thing I did with the glasses was plug them into my iPad Pro and open an HDR10 video on YouTube. However, every time it tried to select the HDR stream for the video, I received a playback error.

Then it clicked that I needed to press the hardware menu button to bring up the on-screen display (OSD). I was able to choose three picture modes (Standard, Movie, Eye Comfort), as well as SDR, AI-HDR, and HDR10. Once I selected HDR10, I went back to the YouTube video, and it played as intended in HDR.

Doing frequent back-to-back tests with the Air 3s Pro (SDR) and Air 4 Pro (HDR10) showed minimal differences in image quality. The colors perhaps looked a tad richer with a tiny bit more contrast on the Air 4 Pro, but it wasn’t a knock-your-socks-off upgrade. I also watched about 15 minutes of Marvel’s Thunderbolts on Disney Plus in HDR10, and again saw minimal gains compared to watching the same scenes on the Air 3s Pro.

My “eyes on” testing continued with an iPhone 17, a Lenovo Legion Go, and a MacBook Air. There wasn’t much of a visual quality difference between using the devices, but I found myself using the iPhone 17 and Legion Go while lying on the couch. I’d watch movies and YouTube clips with the iPhone, while I’d play Microsoft Flight Simulator on the Legion Go. When using my MacBook Air, I was happy to sit upright in my recliner and enjoy the massive virtual screen that the Air 4 Pro provides.

The light blockers came in handy for the brief time I sat on my back porch in the bitter cold to test how the glasses performed under outdoor light. Looking out at the trees in my backyard, the content was projected uninterrupted. Without the light blockers, I could see the outline of the trees and the sky through what I was watching.

While the visual upgrade wasn’t earth-shattering, the improvement to the audio quality was more tangible. Let me start by saying that the speakers on the Air 3s Pro are excellent, with good clarity, plenty of volume without distortion, and a hint of bass (or as much as can be expected in a glasses form-factor).

I found that the Surround mode sounded best to me, giving a “3D” effect to the audio experience. However, in every audio mode, the volume sounded slightly lower than what I experienced on the Air 3s Pro. The maximum volume level on the Air 3s Pro was already pretty loud, so dialing it back slightly wasn’t that big of an issue to me. That said, Surround mode was more effective than the “Spatial” option on the Air 3s Pro, and overall, speech in movies and music sounded better on the Air 4 Pro.

Bottom Line

Slow and steady wins the race, and that seems to be the mantra for RayNeo. The company has steadily iterated on its Air family, as we’ve seen with the Air 3s, Air 3s Pro, and now the Air 4 Pro. The Air 3s brought about a thorough improvement to the speaker system; the Air 3s Pro delivered brighter Micro-OLED projectors; and the Air 4 Pro comes with further tweaks to the speaker system, thanks to a collaboration with Bang & Olufsen and HDR10 support.

The result is an unbeatable value among AR glasses, with an MSRP of $299. The closest competition is the Xreal One, which has a street price of around $449. The Xreal One has better build quality, but it’s not worth the $150 price premium of the Air 4 Pro. And if you want to go even cheaper, the Air 3s Pro is now an even more compelling option with its lower $229 street price (down from $299).

China could overtake the U.S. in brain computer interface (BCI) technology leadership in the coming months/years, thanks to a fortunate mix of government support and investor enthusiasm. In a recent interview with the Financial Times (FT), Tiger Tao, the founder of Shanghai-based NeuroXess, highlighted the rapid progress of the firm’s BCI technology. NeuroXess (no relation to Intel XeSS) was set up in 2021 and has already reported some successful human BCI trials.

The FT report comes less than six months after we covered news of China’s plans to outpace Neuralink with a state-backed BCI blitz, to coin a phrase.

At that time, a sweeping government policy document came into effect, with a fast, aggressive roadmap. It sought to coordinate and combine China’s huge resources and oil the wheels of progress by streamlining planning, regulatory approval, and financing. At the time of writing, there have already been 10 invasive BCI trial programs in China. The hope was/is to produce two to three ‘world-class’ BCI companies by 2030, and it looks like NeuroXess could be one of them.

As for NeuroXess’ success, it seems to have been rapid. As mentioned in the intro, it was only founded in 2021. Now just half a decade old, it has recently boasted of using its BCI tech to allow a paralyzed patient to control a computer cursor. Moreover, the patient was using their BCI for computing tasks just five days after the implant operation.

NeuroXess technology

NeuroXess trials have been using invasive BCI tech, and partly because of this, the focus has been on areas of strong medical need – like patients with paralysis or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). No one without a strong medical need would be interested in a brain operation, and such a device being implanted.

The NeuroXess BCI uses a polyimide and metal mesh, but it sits on the patient’s brain and doesn’t pierce any brain tissue. This contrasts with Elon Musk’s Neuralink, which uses an implant bristling with microscopic threads to capture neural signals from within the brain. There have been concerns about electrodes going into brain tissue, causing scarring and thus the degradation of brain signal readings over time. Neuralink denies this is an issue, with its super-thin electrodes, butNeuroXess sidesteps the issue altogether.

Comparing Neuralink and NeuroXess in performance terms, the latest performance data shared by the FT suggests the former has achieved brain links at 10 bps in trials, and the Chinese tech is capable of 5.2 bps. You can see the NeuroXess speeds confirmed in the video linked in the intro.

While the race for the best invasive implant BCI continues, a BCI expert that the FT talked to noted that firms are using the latest knowledge from this frontier to the benefit of non-invasive systems. It is hoped that the advances could eventually improve non-invasive BCIs so much that operations/implants become minor or unnecessary, in general.

This optimization work is expected to be easier in China, with a virtuous circle coming into play: more data, lower costs, resulting in more users, and more data.

The idiom "getting more than you bargained for" is usually applied in the context of unwanted, nasty consequences. Occasionally, it's used in the literal sense, like when AI engineer Aimilios Hatzistamou found his newly-bought sleep mask unwittingly granted him access to other users' EEG data and controls.

The story is fairly simple and serves as yet another illustration of why software is almost always an afterthought for many a product. Hatzistamou bought the sleep mask as a completed Kickstarter product from "a small Chinese research company." He refrained from naming the company, but our best guess is that it could be the SLEEPU DreamPilot.

Hatzistamou's mask had recalcitrant connection issues, so he did what engineers do: took matters into his own hands. With the help of Claude Opus 4.6, he took apart the mask's Bluetooth protocol, only to find that it didn't follow any standard convention. Undeterred, he turned his attention to the Android application, which he used Claude to decompile and analyze (transcript here).

Much to no software engineer's surprise, he found some hard-coded access credentials in the app binary, apparently shared across all copies of the app (doh!), as well as the expected API endpoints for sending/receiving data remotely. Eventually, he and Claude mapped out the mask's 15 commands and functions, and had the communication protocol reasonably reverse-engineered.

It was then time to make a small web app to control the mask. That worked fine, and Hatzistamou could get his mask's information and control its functions without using the buggy Android application. Alas, that was not the end of the story. During the reverse-engineering, he had Claude poke at the remote data endpoints. When connecting to the MQTT services with the aforementioned hardcoded credentials, he did indeed get his sensor readings... along with everyone else's.

Hatzistamou estimated that among the received data, about 25 masks were in use right there and then, and he even captured the real-time EEG readings from two hapless people somewhere on the planet. Since the mask has electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) and the access credentials are the same for every device, he could theoretically tell other masks to trigger electrical impulses.

The engineer sent his findings to the company, as he actually sounds happy with the product, data issues notwithstanding. As a developer myself, this situation doesn't appear to show any malicious intent from the makers and serves as yet another unsurprising illustration of how low the bar has become for software development in this day and age.

If you like the idea of being able to capture POV photos and videos, listen to your favorite music without needing earbuds, and respond to messages without using your phone, then you'll love the Oakley Meta HSTN glasses.

These athlete- and outdoor enthusiast-focused AI glasses are now more affordable than ever thanks to a huge 15 per cent off the entire range. That means you can own them for as little as $339.15 (was $399).

The features speak for themselves: a 12 MP ultrawide camera for UHD photos and videos, two open-ear Bluetooth speakers, a custom 5-mic array, 32 GB flash storage, and up to 8 hours of battery life on a single charge.

These deals run through to February 16. If you missed the boat, head over to our Meta promo codes hub for the latest ways to save.

Get 15 per cent off Oakley Meta HSTN glasses

Thanks to the built-in ultrawide camera, the Oakley Meta HSTN is capable of capturing 3K videos and photos, all from your unique POV. Operation is super easy, with a simple tap of the capture button or saying "Hey Meta" getting the job done. With your media captured, it's then possible to share them instantly to Facebook and Instagram.

The Oakley Meta HSTN is much more than just a fancy camera. With built-in Bluetooth speakers, you can listen to music and podcasts and take phone calls. Using the app, the glasses can be connected to Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and more.

It doesn't end there, though. The combination of the camera, microphone, and speakers makes it possible to jump on a video call where the recipient gets a video feed of whatever you're looking at.

Sounds good, right? Go ahead and get the Oakley Meta HSTN for as little as $339.15 (was $399).

I had a chance to take a look at the RayNeo Air 3s augmented reality (AR) glasses last year and was impressed by the upgrades over the prior generation. RayNeo is back again, delivering another round of upgrades with the Air 3s Pro.

The biggest upgrade compared to the Air 3s is a significant boost in maximum brightness, which now measures 1,200 nits versus 650 nits. There are also minor tweaks, like the HueView 2.0 screen technology, but the overall design and features we loved in the Air 3s are still here. Best yet, the price is still attractive, coming in at just under $300.

Design of the RayNeo Air 3s Pro

Aesthetically, the Air 3s Pro looks nearly identical to the preceding Air 3s. The main difference is that the former has a dark grey plastic finish along the temples (with a shimmering, sparkling effect baked in), while the latter is silver. What hasn’t changed is the quality of the materials used on the glasses. The plastic still feels cheap, especially with the graining around the lens frames. However, RayNeo’s efforts to cut costs also mean that the decision has a positive effect on weight – the Air 3s Pro only weighs 2.68 ounces (76 grams), the same as the Air 3s.

The single-piece front lens remains, which sits in front of the two bird bath lenses that reflect the image projected by the two 0.6-inch Micro-OLEDs. RayNeo still doesn’t include a set of plastic light blockers to reduce ambient light, and you won’t find electrochromic dimming at this price point.

The Micro-OLEDs give you a resolution of 1920 x 1080 per eye, or 3840 x 1080 in 3D mode. Even with the next-generation HueView 2.0 technology, sRGB and DCI-P3 coverage remain the same at 145 percent and 98 percent, respectively. The 3,840 Hz DC+PWM “OptiCare” dimming system also carries over, along with the maximum 120 Hz refresh rate and a native contrast ratio of 200,000:1.

The temples attach to the frame using a three-position adjustment. The glasses ship in the middle “neutral” position, or you can adjust the temples one click up or down to suit your viewing preference. There’s a volume rocker and a menu button on the underside of the left temple, while a brightness rocker is found on the adjacent temple. The four-speaker sound system is also mounted on the temples, two on each side. The USB-C to USB-C cable, required to connect to a smartphone, tablet, or computer, plugs into the right temple tip.

RayNeo includes a fair number of accessories in the box, such as a newly designed carrying case. The company has switched from its hard zipper case with a carrying loop to a less substantial felt-style case with a button closure. It’s a step back in quality and is bulkier than the previous case. Other items included in the box are the aforementioned USB-C to USB-C cable, a cleaning cloth, and a frame for prescription lens inserts.

Specifications for the RayNeo Air 3s Pro

Using the RayNeo Air 3s Pro

I typically connect AR glasses to my smartphone to run the bulk of my eyes-on tests, but my iPhone Air infuriatingly doesn’t support video output. As a result, I had to perform testing with a borrowed iPhone 17 (from my wife), an iPad Air (M4), a MacBook Air (M4), a Mac mini (M4), and a Lenovo Legion Go.

The increase in maximum brightness was immediately noticeable in a back-to-back comparison with the older Air 3s. This was noticeable when sitting on my sofa in the den with the window blinds open, to let in natural light. Even when looking directly at the window from across the room, the image on the screen (from the iPad Pro) still came through clearly. I could just make out a hint of light peeking through the blinds, but it was totally manageable. Looking anywhere else in the room with the glasses on only showed a bright, clear image without any additional light bleed-through.

I primarily use AR glasses like the Air 3s Pro indoors, so the increased brightness to 1,200 nits lets me enjoy them with the image displayed directly in front of me. One upside of the increased brightness is that there is less need for a plastic shade over the front lens to block ambient light from spoiling the viewing experience. This is critical because RayNeo doesn’t include a plastic shade/light blocker in the box, and the glasses don’t feature electrochromic dimming. However, light bleed-through is still a problem outdoors, where even the Air 3s Pro's increased brightness isn't enough to overcome sunlight. In those instances, it would be nice to have 25 cents' worth of plastic to cover the lens.

I spent a great deal of time lounging on the couch watching Fallout Season 2 on Amazon Prime Video. Like with the Air 3s, the Air 3s Pro was an absolute champ regarding image quality. The imagery was bright and colorful, with nary a stutter in the frame rate. From the blue of Lucy’s uniform to the copious amounts of blood splatter, the dual Micro-OLED displays did an excellent job of providing a “big screen” experience (RayNeo claims that you get up to a 201-inch virtual display at a simulated 6 meters in front of your face).

More importantly, the image was clear and crisp across the entire field of view (which wasn’t the case on the older Air 2s but was rectified in the Air 3s). It cannot be overstated that blurriness around the periphery of your viewing area is a serious buzzkill for overall image quality and eye fatigue, so it’s good to see that the Air 3s Pro is on the right track in this regard.

The rest of my time with the Air 3s Pro was spent testing it on various other devices around the house. I spent about half of the day using the glasses as my primary display in macOS Tahoe 26.2 without a hint of eye fatigue. I also hooked the glasses up to a first-generation Lenovo Legion Go. I played Red Dead Redemption 2 for hours, creating as much mayhem as possible (to the detriment of my honor level).

Overall, I had nothing but positive things to say about the viewing experience with the Air 3s Pro on all the devices I tested. The same goes for the four-speaker audio system, which appears to be a carryover from the Air 3s (itself a massive upgrade over the Air 2s). The sound was clear and vibrant, with just a hint of bass (although I always ask for more when it comes to AR glasses). There’s only so much that you can do with speakers while working within the space constraints of a pair of glasses, but RayNeo strikes a delicate balance here with the Air 3s Pro.

Bottom Line

The RayNeo Air 3s Pro isn’t a groundbreaking revelation in the AR glasses space. It’s just a minor spec bump compared to its Air 3s predecessor, with the primary change being the new Micro-OLED displays, which offer a significant boost in maximum brightness. The excellent overall image quality, great speakers, and lightweight design.

However, the downsides of its predecessor haven’t been addressed: the somewhat cheap construction of the frame and temples, and the lack of a plastic light blocker (which would be beneficial when using the Air 3s Pro outdoors). In addition, another downside has crept in: the carrying case feels cheaper and less sturdy than the one that came with the Air 3s.

With that said, the Air 3s Pro is still a fantastic entry into the AR glasses world, and the $299 price tag makes it a compelling alternative to the Xreal One, which costs an additional $150.

OpenAI has signaled its intentions to become a major player in brain computer interfaces (BCIs). The scale of the firm’s first round of investment in Merge Labs, as it emerges from stealth mode, places it among the most heavily funded BCI efforts in the U.S., second only to Neuralink.

That’s because Merge Labs, co-founded by Altman, will be going forward with $252 million in its tech advancement war chest, reports Bloomberg. However, it admits there's a long road ahead.

OpenAI wasn’t the only contributor in this investment round, but it was the biggest. Another notable investor was Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve, which owns the gaming storefront Steam. Newell’s hat is already in this ring with his own brain tech company, Starfish Neuroscience.

OpenAI’s interest in Merge Labs BCIs could result in further public sparring matches between two of the biggest personalities in tech. Altman’s Merge Labs will be making ripples in Musk’s Neuralink pond. However, their approaches to BCIs, as we currently understand them, are quite different. These differences will likely be pivotal to their relative successes.

The limited amount of Merge Labs' currently public materials confirms that the fledgling BCI outfit will be developing fundamentally new approaches⁠ to this technology.

“We believe this requires increasing the bandwidth and brain coverage of BCIs by several orders of magnitude while making them much less invasive,” explains a blog penned by the freshly uncloaked firm. “To make this happen, we’re developing entirely new technologies that connect with neurons using molecules instead of electrodes, transmit and receive information using deep-reaching modalities like ultrasound, and avoid implants into brain tissue.”

No to invasive implants, yes to AI operating systems

Merge Labs also claims that the most recent breakthroughs in biotechnology, hardware, neuroscience, and computing will be adopted. The resulting BCIs, according to the company, will be “equal parts biology, device, and AI,” mixed into an accessible form factor.

So, in brief, Merge Labs BCIs will contrast with Neuralink’s approach because they will avoid implants into brain tissue. The key will be whether the firm’s technology can achieve workable results from “AI operating systems that can interpret intent, adapt to individuals, and operate reliably with limited and noisy signals.”

Distant horizons

The $252 million investment in Merge Labs sounds like quite a gamble, as Bloomberg’s report suggests the money will effectively establish a research lab to fix the disadvantages of the non-invasive BCI route. In other words, the money raised appears to be for a pre-prototype outfit, not a product-ready company. Meanwhile, Neuralink is pretty deep into testing its BCIs with humans, as are various Chinese competitors.

Xreal and Asus are two names that I never thought I’d see paired together in the same breath. However, that’s precisely what’s going on with the new ROG Xreal R1 augmented reality gaming glasses announced today at CES 2026.

Xreal is one of the most respected names in AR glasses, offering a wide range of products, including the Air 2, One, and One Pro. Asus has also experimented with AR, but we weren’t impressed with the AirVision M1 glasses we sampled early last year. Will this new collaboration make the ROG Xreal R1 a better product? We hope so.

At its heart is an all-new, world-first 240 Hz Micro-OLED technology with 1920 x 1080 resolution. This provides wearers with a simulated 171-inch virtual viewing space for everything from productivity tasks to extreme gaming. The glasses also offer a wide 57-degree field of view and three degrees of freedom.

The ROG Xreal R1 uses the same X1 spatial coprocessor found in the Xreal One family of AR glasses, which powers the on-display controls and helps to reduce latency when using the 3 DoF features (i.e., anchoring the viewable image in place, or tracking the image with your head movements) and motion blur while gaming.

As with most AR glasses, the ROG Xreal R1 requires a single USB-C cable, providing plug-and-play support for a wide range of PCs, smartphones, and tablets. Asus also notes that the ROG Xreal R1 will work natively with its ROG Ally handheld gaming PC. Going from the built-in 7-inch display to a virtual 171-inch display using AR glasses that weigh just 91 grams should really up the stakes for mobile gaming.

But the ROG Xreal R1 won’t just be limited to the ROG Ally; the optional ROG Control Dock features a DisplayPort 1.4 port and two HDMI 2.0 ports for connecting to a desktop PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X, or PlayStation 5 (among other devices).

To complete the gaming/entertainment aspect of the ROG Xreal R1, it features integrated speakers with Bose tuning. In addition, the ROG Xreal R1 features electrochromic lenses that automatically adjust transparency based on ambient light levels. If you don’t want to use the automatic setting, there are also three user-selectable dimming modes.

According to Asus, the ROG Xreal R1 will ship in the first half of 2026, but pricing hasn’t been announced yet. However, for reference, the previous AirVision M1 glasses originally debuted at $699.

I've had a chance to sample a wide variety of augmented reality, extended reality, and virtual reality glasses over the years RayNeo's X3 Pro puts a new spin on augmented reality glasses by using micro-LED waveguide displays embedded into the lenses. As a result, the X3 Pro looks even more like a pair of regular glasses or sunglasses, while providing a simulated 43-inch 3D display for your eyes and leveraging the power of Gemini AI.

Rather than serving as a media consumption gadget like the RayNeo Air 3s or Xreal One Pro, the X3 Pro is more of a device that can provide navigation, real-time image and text translation, take pictures/video, and more. It allows you to interact in real time without feeling as if you're not "enjoying the moment" while a smartphone is crammed in front of your face.

However, these space-age specs come with a hefty price tag ($1,099 early bird) and a painfully short battery life. Is the X3 Pro really a vision into the future or an expensive tech demo for the well-off enthusiasts?

Design of the RayNeo X3 Pro

The biggest compliment that I can give the X3 Pro is that they look and feel like a regular pair of sunglasses (or thick prescription glasses). They make me look a bit geeky, but they don’t have the same visual heft as traditional augmented or mixed reality glasses. At 2.68 ounces, they don’t feel too heavy on my face, and the frames around the lenses are much thinner than what you’d find on something like the RayNeo Air 3.

The first giveaway that you’re looking at something with more potential than a regular pair of glasses is the two cameras located up front, nestled in the bridge. Second, there are the protrusions near the temple hinges that house the micro-LED projectors and the slightly thicker-than-usual temples that house the electronics and speakers. Finally, you’ll notice a USB-C port at the end of the right temple.

The X3 Pro is made almost entirely of plastic, which contributes to its light weight. It's understandable to prioritize a lightweight design that isn’t fatiguing during everyday use. Still, the plastics used don’t really impart the quality you’d expect from a consumer electronics device retailing at well over $1,000.

RayNeo includes a high-quality, felt-lined carrying case in the box that has enough room for the glasses and the USB-C data/charging cable. There’s also a cleaning cloth, a prescription lens template, two custom nose pads (one comes pre-installed), a user manual, and a quick start guide.

Specifications

RayNeo X3 Pro Hardware

The X3 Pro is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 SoC, which has plenty of power to handle the computing required for augmented reality and artificial intelligence. It incorporates 4GB of RAM and a 32GB ROM. According to RayNeo, the glasses also feature Falcon Image technology, which facilitates spatial positioning and AR imaging (the X3 Pro supports 6 DoF). The positioning tech is used in combination with the dual front-facing cameras to ensure that what you see in the real world is properly aligned with the AR inputs you see on the displays.

Speaking of the displays, the X3 Pro uses a dual micro-LED projector system and optical waveguides embedded in the lenses. The optical engine can output 16.77 million colors, with a typical brightness of 3,500 nits and a peak brightness of 6,000 nits. The refresh rate is capped at 60 Hz, and the field of view is 30 degrees.

The power button is at the bottom of the right temple, while a shortcut is at the top. There are also two touch-sensitive panels on the outer edges of the right and left temples. The right touch panel supports swiping up/down/left/right to navigate the menu system. A single tap confirms an action, while a double-tap goes back in the menu system. A long press displays the control center. The left touch panel is primarily used for media functions. Swiping up or down adjusts the volume, while swiping left and right cycles through previous or next tracks. Double-tapping plays or pauses music, and a long press invokes the AI assistant. A four-speaker audio system is integrated in the temples

The glasses incorporate wear detection, so they will power off when you’re not wearing them, helping reduce battery consumption. Speaking of the battery, total capacity is a minuscule 245 mAh, which RayNeo claims is suitable for up to five hours of use.

Using the RayNeo X3 Pro

Given that I was shipped a prerelease version of the X3 Pro, the RayNeo AR iOS app would not detect or set up the glasses, as it only supports the X2 Pro. So, I reached out to RayNeo, who directed me to Apple’s TestFlight app, where I was able to download and install a prerelease version of RayNeo AR with support for the X3 Pro.

Setting up the X3 Pro was relatively straightforward: the RayNeo AR app automatically found the glasses over Bluetooth, performed the initial setup, and installed requisite firmware updates. It also presented a thorough walkthrough that guides you through using the hardware buttons and touch panels for navigation.

Once setup was complete, I decided to test out the RayNeo AR app, which is attractive and well-organized. There’s a large image of the X3 Pro front and center, with a battery life indicator directly below. You’ll also find your currently connected Wi-Fi network, along with shortcuts for capturing AR photos and videos, and for AR navigation in Google Maps.

Next, I actually wore the glasses and spent time getting used to the waveguide displays. They are surprisingly bright and sharp with good color. The main UI for the glasses appeared in the lower third of my field of view, with the following information always present: Time, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Battery. Swiping to the right reveals additional native apps you can select, along with a dedicated Settings app for managing a limited set of on-device controls.

The user interface on the X3 Pro was easily readable indoors, and the waveguide displays were bright enough for outdoor use. Once I got accustomed to the user interface, I next tried using the built-in AI assistant, which is invoked by long-pressing on the left touch panel. I was able to ask simple questions about the weather and breaking news items. It also recorded voice notes (it transcribed my grocery list quite well). Interestingly, even though the X3 Pro was connected to my smartphone, it was unable to complete my query, “How long would it take to drive to Greensboro, North Carolina,” without first asking me for my current location.

I then used the voice assistant to get directions to Target in Garner, North Carolina, and it repeated the address and said I could “get directions using navigation apps like Waze.” However, I was able to navigate to the built-in Google Maps app on the X3 Pro using the right touchpad. I scrolled right through the interface and found the app. I was then able to search for the Target in Garner by voice. It then asked if I wanted driving or biking directions. I chose walking (even though it’s a 12-mile trek), and an AR overlay appeared in front of me with distance calculations, an arrow pointing me in the right direction, a compass, and an arrival time.

On-device translation is accomplished using Google Translate, allowing me to translate foreign text into English or even translate spoken foreign languages into English in real time (I used a YouTube video of someone speaking Spanish to test live translation).

Additional native apps include Camera, Album (for your captured photos and videos), AI Recording, To-Do, Media, Phone (taps into your phone contacts), and Notifications (mirrors notifications from your phone).

The four-speaker audio system is surprisingly potent. While I wasn’t expecting AirPods Pro 3 quality, the X3 Pro holds its own with ample bass, low distortion at high volume, and good mid-range punch.

While I appreciated the ability to perform menial tasks on the glasses, navigating using buttons and the touch panels was slower and more cumbersome than just whipping out my iPhone. In addition, the pictures taken with the camera were awful. While the X3 Pro lets you take images with the AR overlay embedded, I could only get it to work from the home screen. Attempting to take an AR image or video while in an app like Google Maps wouldn’t work at all.

But the biggest letdown is battery life. The battery drains incredibly fast on the X3 Pro. I was at 50% and opened the Google Maps app to test the aforementioned trip to Target. Within less than 10 minutes, I received a warning message that the battery was below 30%. Even if I wanted to make the full 12-mile walk to Target, the battery would likely be dead before I reached the half-mile mark.

Even playing music caused the battery to drop quickly. I listened to “Last Christmas” by Wham! And “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree” by Brenda Lee, and saw the battery drop from 35 percent to 32 percent in that short time (roughly six and a half minutes).

In general use, I never got more than an hour’s worth of battery life from the X3 Pro, despite RayNeo’s claim of up to 5 hours. Using Google Maps was by far the worst offender in terms of battery drain.

Bottom Line

The X3 Pro feels more like a nifty tech demo. It shows what’s possible when you combine a fast SoC (Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 Gen1) with a sleek and lightweight glasses frame. It can help lighten the load on your smartphone by taking pictures, translating text and speech in real time, recording voice notes, and even providing navigation directions with Google Maps.

However, the touch-sensitive controls are cumbersome to use, and I expect higher-quality materials from a device that carries an MSRP of $1,399 ($1,099 for early birds). The real nail in the coffin is battery life, which, in my experience, never lasted more than an hour, and much worse when using Google Maps.

Have you ever imagined what it would be like to interact with your PC without a mouse? We've already seen the likes of Apple's Vision Pro introduce friction-less pointing mechanisms where it almost feels like what you think is what magically happens on-screen. Ideas for something similar for PC have floated around before, with the most iconic one probably being Leap Motion from 2013, and now a new contender has stepped into the ring. Meet Prolo Ring — a smart wearable that allows you to control your PC with your finger.

At first glance, the Prolo seems like any other ring, maybe slightly taller than a usual one, but still not anything gaudy. The Kickstarter campaign tells us that the ring is made up of anodized aluminum, comes in three neutral colors, and has three core components: a 6-axis motion sensor, a trackpad, and a "modstrip" that all combine to make up the entire feature set.

The trackpad is arguably the main selling point. You can tap, hold, and swipe to trigger various actions, such as selecting task or simulating right-clicks for opening context menus. You can also tap it to play/pause media, swipe up to increase volume, along with various other app-specific actions. This is before the app comes in play, which enables full customization so you can set up macros for all sorts of stuff, which the demo video shows nicely:

Beyond the touch-sensitive surface, you can press the modstrip situated at the top of the ring to enhance the trackpad's functionality, essentially acting like a modifier. This unlocks a whole new level of flexibility. The app, again, opens you up to a lot more tricks for the modstrip.

Lastly, the motion sensor enables over 40 air gestures, like swiping through a slide of pictures by subtly waving around your finger. This is reminiscent of Google's Soli, a radar-based motion detecting system that largely died down since its debut on the Pixel 4 XL failed back in the day. It's always seemed awkward to flail around, trying to get a gesture to trigger, but the promotional material shows it won't require such grandiose intentionality, so maybe there's hope.

The Prolo Ring is available on Kickstarter right now, you can back it up for $99 to get your hands on one, but you'll need to pledge $129 to get the wireless charging case. Speaking of, you'll get 8 hours of battery life on a single charge, and the dock can let you squeeze up to 30 days worth of juice. The ring connects via standard Bluetooth and can do a lot of the gestures without the companion app, which means it's compatible with every operating system/platform out there.

Unfortunately, there is one big caveat — licenses. Each ring comes with a single-use license that will allow you to access pro features on one device. If you want to use your ring across, say your computer and phone, then that one license won't be enough, which, by the way, isn't even included in the Basic or Standard Editions that we mentioned earlier to begin with. Only the $149 Pro and onwards gets you the license, and you need that to tweak gestures, do custom remapping, and build macros. It's unclear whether you can buy the license separately, though.

China appears to be moving fast to establish itself as a brain computer interface (BCI) leader. The nation's latest advance is the release of a medical device industry standard, the ‘Medical Device Terminology Using Brain-Computer Interface Technology,’ reports IT Home (machine translation).

While many BCI headlines revolve around the Elon Musk-backed Neuralink system, increasingly, we are seeing breakthrough advances from China. Earlier this year, we reported on a tetraplegic patient skillfully playing racing games, and another subject enjoying complex PC games such as Black Myth: Wukong and Honor of Kings.

For a while now, China has let it be known that it will try to coordinate its broad range of BCI research and development talents and commercial enterprises for the benefit of its industry on a wider scale. Earlier this month, we reported on a significant milestone towards this goal, with a state-backed blitz coordinating ministries, planners, and regulatory bodies, and laying out 17 steps from R&D to commercialization.

Returning to our headline news, and another piece of the jigsaw puzzle has been slotted into place. According to the source, China’s equivalent of the FDA will implement the new BCI standard from January 1, 2026.

An excerpt from the official release shows that the new standard, number YY/T 1987 – 2025, concerns “Medical devices using brain computer interface technology.” As with computing, setting a standard in any field can be a vital advantage to early adopters in the market. Standards setters can earn a range of advantages, and widespread use and adoption of useful early standards can establish an entity (company, country) as a clear leader.

The long walk from 'what if' to 'what is'

Over the years, there have been many and varied attempts to replace the ubiquitous computer mouse. Here’s another one, called Finger Maus. As 3D Printing Industry magazine highlights, this innovation comes from Mausware, a startup backed by American artist, designer, and inventor Max Eternity. Finger Maus has been in development since 2020, and should hit crowdfunding (Indiegogo) very soon. Whether it can rival the best wireless mice in 2025, remains to be seen.

Finger Maus is claimed to improve on your typical deskbound mouse in several ways. The first major benefit of this finger-sleeve mouse, according to its maker, is that it can be comfortably worn on one of several fingers, and it will particularly appeal to user niches like the elderly, or those with any movement impairments.

While Mausware’s Indiegogo is yet to materialize, despite mentions of an August launch by the source, there are more product details on the firm’s website. Here we learn that the Finger Maus is all things to all people – typical marketing. However, some things are difficult to dispute, such as the fact that the new wireless pointing device is small and light (25g), and that it doesn’t require a "mousing" surface to do its stuff.

In the above Finger Maus video, you can see a few more aspects of the Finger Maus Ultra design, which aren’t mentioned by the two linked sources. There are two nubs to the left of the Finger Maus, as worn, which we guess are used for things like left and right-clicking, scrolling, or another modifier. On the top of the mouse is a USB-C port, for recharging, and it is also likely used for firmware updates. On the underside of the device appears to be a transparent window for the sensor.

Also in the video we see that a Finger Maus ‘Classico’ is teased, a more rounded model which looks like it has a flexing joint. Until now, we’ve only been sharing images, details, and specs for the Ultra model.

Another feather in the Finger Maus cap is there by virtue of its green credentials. Apparently, this 20g (some sources say 25g) wearable uses “80% less plastic” than a typical mouse. Moreover, being “made from plant-based, 3D printed resin that is non-toxic and biodegradable,” its eco-credentials are further boosted.

Best to wait and see?

A start-up has come out of stealth with a demonstration of what it claims to be “the world’s first near-telepathic wearable that enables people to communicate silently, seamlessly, and at the speed of thought.” Alterego is the name of the new firm, and it says it will pioneer how humans interact with tech – and each other.

In the embedded video above, you can see a demonstration of the Alterego wearable hosted by Arnav Kapur, CEO and co-founder, who is joined by Max Newlon, COO and co-founder of the company. Kapur started work on the first versions of the Alterego wearable at MIT Media Lab. Newlon previously grew a neurotech startup incubated in the Harvard Innovation Labs into a $1bn company.

The key claimed features of Alterego wearable are:

• Type at the speed of thought (no keyboard required)
• Restore speech capability for those with impairments
• Silently search the internet
• Control apps and devices hands-free
• Ask questions about the world around you (via on-device cameras)
• Hold silent, private conversations with others
• Unlock new levels of human-AI collaboration

The demo

At the time of writing, we haven’t had access to any Alterego wearable device images. We know that it is worn around the ears like spectacles, but rests largely on the back of the head, as we can see this in the video presentation.

To start the demonstration, Kapur begins to send text by the power of thought. Of course, this is easily extended to adding notes and reminders to a smart device app.

There are also “tiny cameras built in” to the device to make sense of the surrounding environment. We see this demonstrated when Kapur holds a postcard in his hands, points to an image detail and silently asks about it. Next we see more smart device integration, as the CEO tells the wearable AI assistant to set a reminder based on the interaction.

Next up we see Newlon join Kapur, put on his headset and take part in a silent conversation with Kapur. At this time, we get a momentary but better glimpse at the size of the (currently) wired wearable device. The pair talk about the benefits of ‘telepathic’ communications, in noisy environments, for example.

The last demo in the video shows Kapur communicating with a Mandarin Chinese speaker. Communication seems slick and friction free – even between different languages – thanks to a translation layer.

The technology

Maxell Japan has launched a portable ‘Walkman’ cassette player, but this retro audio tech is boosted by modern convenience. The new Maxell MXCP-P100 (h/t Liliputing) looks a lot like the old Sony, Aiwa, Panasonic, and other cassette players which were popular personal music accessories in the 1990s. However, it adds useful new 2020s standard features like Bluetooth (v5.4) and a rechargeable battery that connects to a USB Type-C charger you probably already own.

It is quite surprising to see a new cassette Walkman launched in 2025. The Maxell product page might capably answer questions about the product, its abilities, and specifications - but it doesn’t really address why it reckons launching such a product in 2025 is a good idea.

In the west, Maxell was best known for its tape and disc media, not player hardware. So, that’s another surprise about this announcement. However, it is good to see that some thought has been put into the player mechanism.

There has been talk of very limited audio cassette mechanism availability in recent years, not surprisingly, and the only remaining producers aren’t supposed to sell stellar quality components. Thus, it is good to see Maxell directly address mechanism quality. It says that the new MXCP-P100 includes a brass flywheel that “reduces rotational irregularities and provides high quality sound.”

Some other key features of this portable cassette player are its battery life – it is claimed the rechargeable battery lasts nine hours using wired headphones, or seven with an active Bluetooth connection. A USB charging cable comes in the box.

The device is quite portable at 210g, which is lighter than many modern smartphones. You will have to add the weight of a cassette tape(s) to the carry weight, too. Maxell’s MXCP-P100 measures 122 x 91 x 38mm.

Feline accessories specialist Rabo of Japan has updated its monitoring app with AI smarts. According to a news release (machine translation) from the company earlier this week (h/t The Register), the Catalog cat collar and app can now alert pet owners’ about their animal’s ‘Stress Score.’ We thought a large attraction of cats was for relieving their owners’ stress... On the topic of new features, there’s also a beta test feature in the app that can alert you if your cat vomits.

Before the above updates, the information passed to pet owners from the Catlog cat collar and app were already quite extensive. According to our machine translations of the app’s UI, the app monitors and can report back when your cat is doing the following:

• Eating
• Drinking water
• Sleeping
• Running
• Walking
• Resting
• Grooming
• Vomiting (beta)

In addition, the Catalog app appears to monitor and chart your feline’s breathing and body temperature.

Last but not least, when highlighting the current abilities of the Catalog system, the app can also be usful if your moggy disappears. Cats can be quite adventurous, and go missing from time to time. Rabo's app can help give reassurance regarding the location of your animal, its health, mood, and so on.

Now with added stress – thanks AI

Late last year, I had spent time with the Xreal One, the latest in the company's long line of augmented reality (AR) glasses. At the time, we didn't have access to the company's flagship Xreal One Pro, but that changes today. We now have that higher-end model in hand, and it's an impressive addition to Xreal's extensive AR glasses family.

Additionally, we were provided with the Xreal Eye accessory, which adds photo, video, and 6DoF support to the glasses. It’s an impressive technology showcase for what’s possible with modern AR glasses. Still, with an as-tested price of $699 (including the Eye attachment), Xreal is targeting a narrow segment of the market.

Design of the Xreal One Pro

From the outside, the One Pro looks very similar to the cheaper One. The frame is nearly identical, meaning you get the same thick frames and side arms, a prominent bulge at the top of the frame to house the Micro OLED displays, and a detachable front frame (which can be replaced with Xreal-supplied accessories in different colors or finishes).

The most significant change lies with the lenses, onto which images from the Micro OLED panels are displayed. On the One, Xreal uses a triangular birdbath design that is popular in this segment. However, the One Pro uses a new flat-prism lens design that is over 40 percent smaller. Not only does the flat-prism design reduce the visual heft of the glasses, but it also boosts the total field of view from 50 degrees on the One to 57 degrees on the One Pro.

Xreal has also shifted away from the software-only configuration of the interpupillary distance (IPD) on the One to a two-SKU approach with the One Pro. The company offers one SKU of the One Pro that covers people with an IPF of 57 to 66 mm and a second SKU for 66 to 75 mm (our review unit). Further adjustments in +/- 5 increments can be made within the software.

Like the One, the One Pro features three levels of electrochromic dimming for the lenses. The darkest setting doesn't completely block out all environmental light, but it is sufficient to provide an immersive experience when watching media content. I have mentioned before that electrochromic dimming, while the more expensive option, is highly preferable for AR glasses. Cheaper solutions use clip-on black plastic shields to block ambient light — it's an all-or-nothing approach. Xreal allows you to dial in the amount of light coming through to suit your environment without dealing with a plastic shield that's easy to lose.

Each arm on the One Pro is constructed of high-quality plastic with a soft, matte black finish. Open-air speakers are incorporated into each arm, while a USB-C port is featured at the end of the left arm. The right arm is more populated, as it features a programmable Quick button at the top. On the bottom is a red "X" button, which, when double-tapped, projects the menu system on the display. A single tap will execute a command within the menu system. Further back from the X button lies a rocker switch that navigates up and down in the menu system. If the menu is not active, the rocker switch adjusts the display brightness.

Specifications for the Xreal One Pro

Using the Xreal One Pro

Connecting the One Pro to a smartphone, tablet, or PC is a straightforward experience. Since the AR glasses connect using a USB-C cable, you’ll find wide support with any device that supports video over USB-C. For my purposes, I tested the One Pro with an iPhone 16 Pro, 14-inch MacBook Pro, and a Lenovo Legion Go S.

The experience with each device was excellent. I’m a huge 1/24-scale model car hobbyist, so on the iPhone, I spent hours enamored with the work of one of my favorite YouTubers: A4 Garage. With the One Pro, I was able to watch his surgeon-like precision as he handcrafted intricate chassis, interior, and engine details for a Citroen DS 21. Not only was the picture sharp and bright, but with my viewing distance set to 4 feet and a 177-inch viewing diagonal, everything looked massive in front of my eyes, like a true theater experience (minus the chest-rumbling speaker system).

I also used One Pro with the MacBook Pro, primarily for productivity tasks. Unlike with the cheaper RayNeo Air 3s, I had no trouble viewing text for long periods with the One Pro. The Air 3s would give me incredible eyestrain, which contributed to headaches because of blurriness near the edges of the viewing area. Thanks to the One Pro’s more targeted approach with IPD and the +/- 5 increment fine adjustments, I was able to avoid this problem. It also helped that the 57-degree field of view is larger than both the Airs 3s (46 degrees) and the One (50 degrees).

However, the most fun I had with the One Pro was playing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on the Legion Go S. Setup was as simple as plugging in the glasses and ensuring that the refresh rate was set to 120 Hz to make the most of the hardware. I usually play Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on the 75-inch 4K TV in my living room on an Xbox Series X, but it was an even greater experience on the simulated 177-inch display (note, the One Pro can scale up to 191 inches). The vast environments with lifelike foliage, coupled with the on-screen action, just felt more “real” as everything was right in my face.

Part of the appeal is that even with my 75-inch TV, I’m always aware that I’m looking at a TV. I can still see all the surrounding bits and pieces of my living room from the fireplace directly below it to the family pictures on the wall. However, with the One Pro and its electrochromic dimming set to maximum, all I see is the video output and nothing else. Even if I pointed my head towards a sunlit window or at the TV / laptop screen, minimal light bled through the lenses of the One Pro, which helped to lock in the immersion. This solitary focus on the content in front of you is what makes gaming with AR glasses like the One Pro so appealing.

Like the One, the One Pro has excellent Bose-tuned open-air speakers. Xreal has clearly spent a lot of time ensuring that its speakers have a decent level of bass and clear audio. However, as good as the speakers are, they can’t match a good pair of earbuds in ultimate quality. The biggest downside is that for all the up-close immersion that you get from the visual experience, you’ll still have to contend with environmental noise that isn’t present with a good set of noise-cancelling earbuds. However, this is not a criticism of the One Pro; it's simply a nitpicky observation. You can of course use earbuds or headphones instead of the One Pro’s speakers when you want something more immersive.

Using the Xreal Eye

Our One Pro review unit also came with an optional accessory: the Xreal Eye. The $99 accessory weighs just 1.5 grams and features a 12MP camera that can capture images or 1080p video at 60 frames per second (fps).

The Eye plugs into the bottom of the frame between the two lenses via a proprietary port (usually covered by a rubber plug). Once inserted, an on-screen tutorial appears and walks you through using the Eye and explains how to offload images to a PC or smartphone.

By default, a short press on the action button captures an image, while a long press starts recording video. You can capture videos up to 60 seconds in length, and there’s 2GB of onboard storage for holding your media files until you’re ready to offload them to an external device. To offload images, double-press the X button to bring up the menu button, then scroll to Quick Button Export Photos/Video Transmission Mode.

With Transmission Mode enabled, the Xreal One Pro showed up in my iPhone’s Photos app and allowed me to export the images. I was then given the option to delete the images from the One Pro if I wished.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find the photos or video to be particularly impressive from the Eye. In low-light conditions, photos looked drab and dark. Granted, images that come from modern smartphones are overly processed and AI-tweaked to perfection in just about any possible lighting scenario, so perhaps I’m just spoiled by that fact. Videos also looked fuzzy, more akin to something from an iPhone 4 than something more modern.

However, the real magic of the Eye comes with its ability to infuse the One Pro with spatial 6 degrees of freedom (6DoF) tracking. With this capability, the virtual screen stays in place while you move around your environment. This feature is usually enabled by using multiple forward-looking cameras, but Xreal is implementing it with just one (monocular SLAM), which limits its performance. In other words, tracking isn’t as steady or jitter-free as devices like the Meta Quest 3 or Quest 3s.

You can turn on 6DoF by going to the Spatial Display menu and enabling Spatial Anchor. I tried it out and it worked pretty well when playing a YouTube video. As I walked around my living room, the video kept playing and remained fixed in space. I don’t have a usage scenario where I’d use the 6DoF feature daily, but it’s a nice party trick to show friends.

Bottom Line

If you consider the One Pro’s image quality, user interface, sound reproduction, and overall build quality, it’s one of the very best AR glass products available on the market. With a 57-degree FoV and flat-prism lenses, the viewing experience is tough to beat.

However, we can’t talk about the superlatives without mentioning the elephant in the room: price. The One Pro costs a staggering $599, $100 more than the basic One. To make matters worse, the previously announced price is only valid for pre-orders through the end of June. Starting July 1, the price will increase to $649 due to the ongoing tariff war. It’s a tough pill to swallow for what will likely be an occasional-use device. That’s not to mention the added $99 cost of the Eye accessory, although I think that the image quality and 6DoF features aren’t worth the price of admission without a killer app to take advantage of the camera.

As impressive as the hardware is, the Xreal One was a hard sell at $499, and the One Pro is an even harder sell at $599/$649.

China's first in-human clinical trials of an invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) have launched, according to state media reports. This makes China second in the BCI race after the U.S., with its Neuralink technology, to enter the clinical trial phase for invasive BCI technology.

Ahead of upcoming larger-scale trials, this new BCI from the Shanghai-based Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology (CEBSIT) already seems to be a success. The country's Global Times states that a tetraplegic patient has already been using its BCI to control a computer, play racing games, play chess, and more.

"Now I can control the computer with my thoughts. It feels like I can move at will," said the unnamed tetraplegic to Global Times. Some background to the patient’s condition is provided by the source. Apparently, the patient lost both arms and both legs in a high-voltage electrical accident 13 years ago.

The man received an implant on March 25. Recovery was speedy, and just two to three weeks later, he was “able to control electronic devices with his mind, skillfully operating racing games, chess, and other programs,” says the source. It isn’t that long ago, but the report assures that “no infection or electrode failure reported to date.”

Progressing from computer interaction, the scientific team hopes to let its first patient get involved with robotic arm movement control trials. Added dexterity like this could enhance the patient’s quality of life. Longer-term plans involve interactions and training with robots, and similar intelligent devices that span the computer–physical realms.

The Chinese state media reports aren’t without their characteristic boasts. Comparing the new CEBSIT BCI with Neuralink, they say the former has “a cross-sectional area only 1/5 to 1/7 that of Neuralink's electrodes and flexibility over 100 times greater.” It adds that the neural electrodes used are the smallest and most flexible in the world. Their size and flexibility are better for the patient, so they barely perceive the implant’s presence. Moreover, such compact BCIs will minimize damage to surrounding brain tissue and provide better prognosis over the longer term. Overall, the CEBSIT implant is said to be 26mm in diameter and under 6mm thick.

With larger-scale clinical trials now greenlit, BCI systems such as this one from CEBSIT are expected to gain regulatory approval and enter the market in China by 2028. If these trials are a fair indicator of BCI benefits, they could “significantly improve the quality of life for millions of patients with complete spinal cord injuries, bilateral upper limb amputations and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,” notes the Global Times.

They've beaten Beinao

Researchers have developed a self-healing artificial muscle for use in soft robotics and wearable systems. It mimics the ability of animals and plants to detect and self-heal injuries. This transformative development by the University of Nebraska–Lincoln engineering team is claimed to address a longstanding problem with synthetic systems.

Injury sensing and self-repair are obviously important features of organic life forms, but present a complex challenge for robotics makers. Thus, the researchers have gone down the tried and trusted path of biomimicry here.

It is explained that the key development presented is a system that can identify damage from a puncture or extreme pressure, pinpoint its location, and autonomously initiate self-repair. For this purpose, a multi-layer architecture was presented at the recent IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Atlanta, Georgia.

The muscle, or actuator, has three layers. At the bottom is a damage detection layer, which is a soft electronic skin composed of liquid metal microdroplets embedded in a silicone elastomer in this case. Next, a stiff thermoplastic elastomer is used as the middle layer, and this material acts as the self-healing component. On top, there us the actuation layer, the layer which contracts and expands with the variation in water pressure.

To create a self-repair mechanism that functions without external intervention also requires a variety of monitoring currents which flow in a network across the ‘skin’ of this design. Damage can thus be sensed as disruptions to the electrical network. Ingeniously, this triggers the same network to deliver heat to areas of damage, melting the thermoplastic layer to seal ruptures. This is “effectively self-healing the wound,” says the researchers.

Starfish Neuroscience, a startup co-founded by Valve CEO Gabe Newell, has published an article revealing the first details of its brain-computer interface (BCI) chip.

The firm proposes a “new class of minimally-invasive, distributed neural interfaces that enable simultaneous access to multiple brain regions.” Moreover, a Starfish BCI could be the first fully wireless, battery-free implant available, if all goes to plan. According to its blog, the startup’s first chips are expected to arrive “in late 2025.” Perhaps the relationship with Newell means related tech will eventually find its way into gaming headsets and controllers.

In its report on the Starfish BCI news, The Verge notes that Newell’s fascination with BCIs began over 10 years ago, and that Valve once considered adding earlobe monitors to its VR headset products. As recently as 2019, Valve also publicly explored BCIs for gaming. Later the same year, Newell incorporated Starfish Neuroscience, and we are now seeing the first fruits as it emerges from stealth.

In its new blog post, Starfish says its BCI has the opportunity to do well thanks to two key features, its minimal size and the eschewing of built-in battery power. In regular use, the Starfish processor will consume just 1.1mW, it says. That contrasts with the Neuralink N1, which uses around 6mW.

• Low power: 1.1 mW total power consumption during normal recording
• Physically small: 2 x 4mm (0.3mm pitch BGA)
• Capable of both recording (spikes and LFP) & stimulation (biphasic pulses)
• 32 electrode sites, 16 simultaneous recording channels at 18.75kHz
• 1 current source for stimulating on arbitrary pairs of electrodes
• Onboard impedance monitoring and stim voltage transient measurement
• Digital onboard data processing and spike detection allows the device to operate via low-bandwidth wireless interfaces.
• Fabricated in TSMC 55nm process

Bradford Smith is just the third patient to be fitted with a Neuralink Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) yet, impressively, advancements in the technology have allowed him to edit and post a YouTube video using just his thoughts. Smith is affected by Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or ALS, a disease wherein the nerves that control his muscles degenerate, which has led to him being unable to move and talk. However, Elon Musk’s investments in Neuralink are finally paying off, and the patient was able to make so many advancements that were previously unheard of.

It was just February last year that the first human Neuralink implantee was reportedly able to move a mouse around by just using their brain. One month later, the patient has grown comfortable enough with the tech that they’re already playing chess and Civilization 6 using the BCI. These achievements are already impressive in their own right, but the second Neuralink patient upped the ante a few months later. In July 2024, Alex, who suffered from a spinal cord injury, received the BCI implant. After a month of getting used to the system, he was reportedly able to use CAD applications to build a custom 3D-printer charging accessory for the implant and play Counter-Strike 2 with his teammates

In the video we embedded, Smith shared what the BCI looked like: a small cylindrical stack about the size of five quarters with several fine electrode threads sticking out of it. It was implanted into his brain by a robot, ensuring that no blood vessels were damaged during the process. From there, the Neuralink connects to a MacBook Pro via Bluetooth, which processes all the neural data gathered from his brain.

Smith noted that the Neuralink is attached to his motor cortex, meaning it can only read his intended movements — not his thoughts and words. Initially, he tried moving his hands to move the cursor, but the system did not respond well. After further study, the engineers working on his implant discovered that moving his tongue is the best way to move the cursor. Bradford said that he doesn’t think about his tongue when moving the cursor, much like how you don’t think about moving your arm or wrist when operating a mouse. His subconscious quickly took over the operation, and he now controls a computer seamlessly through his BCI.

Aside from operating the mouse, the third patient was finally able to regain his voice with AI. Bradford and his team used old video and audio recordings, from before his ALS diagnosis, to train a speech synthesis AI. This allows us to hear him once again, narrating a video which he created himself — something that would’ve been impossible just over a year ago.

BCI technology advances apace

BCI technology is advancing at remarkable speed, with patients now able to use it to operate a computer by themselves. Elon Musk's firm isn’t by any means the only one working on it. For example, a Chinese company was reportedly working on a competing tech called Neucyber in April last year with the backing of Beijing. The government has even started working on a plan to standardize the technology, which would hopefully make it easier for different companies to cooperate.

Advancements in BCIs are helping paralyzed patients get some control over their lives back, allowing them to use computers without external assistance. And as this tech matures even more, maybe we will have a future where ALS and other debilitating diseases would no longer be a life sentence for those affected.

Researchers from Georgia Tech have developed a tiny, minimally invasive, brain-computer interface (BCI). The device is small enough to fit between hair follicles, and need only be inserted very slightly under the skin. It is thought that this super-compact new "high fidelity" sensor will make continuous everyday use of BCIs a more realistic possibility.

For many tech enthusiasts and futurists, BCIs play a large role in the expected evolution of human interaction with tech. However, some of the most advanced BCI systems we know of today are pretty bulky and rigid. Look at Elon Musk's Neuralink implant technology, for example.

Hong Yeo, the Harris Saunders Jr. Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech, decided to do something about this bulky invasive issue - while maintaining optimum impedance and data quality.

"I started this research because my main goal is to develop new sensor technology to support healthcare and I had previous experience with brain-computer interfaces and flexible scalp electronics," explained Yeo. "I knew we needed better BCI sensor technology and discovered that if we can slightly penetrate the skin and avoid hair by miniaturizing the sensor, we can dramatically increase the signal quality by getting closer to the source of the signals and reduce unwanted noise."

The Georgia Tech blog also mentions that this tiny new sensor uses conductive polymer microneedles to capture electrical signals and conveys those signals along flexible polyimide/copper wires. In addition to this naturally flexible construction the implant device is less than a square millimeter.

Half a day of usage

The tiny new hi-fi BCI might have one major drawback for certain applications. It only has a useful life of approximately 12 hours. So, perhaps we should think of it as a disposable, occasional use device.

In Georgia Tech field tests, six subjects used the new device for controlling an augmented reality (AR) video call. They used the BCI to "look up phone contacts and initiate and accept AR video calls hands-free." It proved to be 96.4% accurate in recording and classifying neural signals. However, the high-fidelity neural signal capture persisted only for up to 12 hours. Georgia Tech researchers stressed that during the half day, subjects could stand, walk, and run – enjoy complete freedom of movement, with the implant in place.

Perhaps we shouldn't get too excited about the possibilities of BCIs unlocking super-human powers, though. Recent research suggested that human thought runs at a leisurely 10 bits per second, so we might also need a brain overclocking upgrade to make the most of an advanced BCI's potential...

RayNeo has been quickly iterating on its line of augmented reality glasses. While the company’s glasses don’t boast the rich feature set of competitors like Xreal, pricing tends to be more affordable for shoppers.

The company’s latest glasses, the Air 3s, are another evolutionary upgrade that offer improved performance and vastly superior audio over prior generations while retaining the same affordability that has always been a draw for RayNeo.

Design of the RayNeo Air 3s AR Glasses

Since I recently reviewed the RayNeo Air 2s, I initially thought there was a mix-up in the shipment sent to me because the Air 3s look the same from the outside. This is both good and bad – while the design is attractive, the use of cheap plastics still doesn’t impart a substantial feel to the glasses.

The Air 3s includes a shaded, single-piece front lens. Unlike the Xreal One, this opaque lens doesn’t feature electrochromic dimming. You also don’t get a separate, physical light blocker in the box, so if the default dimming isn’t enough to block ambient light from ruining your viewing experience, you’re out of luck (unless you go for a homemade or third-party solution).

You’ll also notice the familiar silver-colored, three-position arms sprouting from the primary frame. The left arm contains a volume rocker and a menu button, while the right arm has a brightness rocker and a USB-C port at the end for the included USB-C to USB-C cable. I will mention that RayNeo no longer sticks the ugly FCC label on the outside of the right arm.

The Air 3s continues to use Sony Micro-LED panels, as do most consumer AR glasses. However, RayNeo has made some tweaks thanks to the inclusion of its HueView screen technology, which aims to provide a richer palette of colors. As a result, the Air 3s comply with the IMAX Enhanced standard, covering 98 percent of DCI-P3 and 145 percent of sRGB and delivering a native contrast ratio of 200,000:1 (up from 100,000:1 on the Air 2s). Maximum brightness has also improved slightly, increasing from 600 nits to 650 nits.

Long-term wearing of AR glasses can cause fatigue (as I experienced acutely with the Air 2s), so RayNeo has implemented its 3,840 Hz DC+PWM “OptiCare” dimming system. OptiCare regulates color output and minimizes flickering that could cause eye discomfort.

RayNeo also turned their attention to the audio subsystem, which was a sore point during my time with the Airs 2s. This time, the company uses an in-house designed and turned four-speaker setup with a claimed 200 percent boost in acoustic performance.

The box includes two nose pads, one of which is already installed. RayNeo also provides a sample frame for prescription lenses, a carrying case, and a cleaning cloth. The company continues to include a hard carrying case, although it has received a slight redesign compared to the version included in the Air 2s. It has enough room for the glasses, the USB-C cable, and the cleaning cloth.

Specifications for the RayNeo Air 3s

Using the RayNeo Air 3s

The Air 3s connects to supported devices (which support video-out over USB-C) with the included braided USB-C cable. The USB-C end that plugs into the right arm of the Air 3s has a slight downward bend, which prevents the cable from sticking straight out behind you.

There is broad support for most smartphones, tablets, PCs, and Macs on the market. I had no trouble using the Air 3s with a MacBook Pro (M3 Pro), Mac Mini (M4), iPhone 16 Pro, iPad Pro (M4), Lenovo Legion Go, and a Legion Go S. I attempted to use the glasses with the Asus ZenFone 10, but it was a no-go since the Android smartphone doesn’t support video-out via its USB-C port.

The Air 3s simulates a 201-inch virtual display projected six meters in front of your face and has a 47-degree field of view (FoV), slightly up from 46 degrees on the Air 2s. However, the most significant change I noticed with the Air 3s was that I didn’t experience the edge blurriness that marred my experience with the Air 2s.

The Air 2s were crisp towards the center of my field of vision, but became blurrier towards the periphery. This mismatch caused severe fatigue as my eyes attempted to lock on to on-screen text. I had no issues with the Air 3s, even after spending multiple hours using the glasses to write and edit articles.

As was the case with the Air 2s, I was able to thoroughly enjoy movies on the Air 3s. While it’s perfectly feasible to use the glasses for productivity tasks in Windows 11 and macOS Sequoia 15.4, I feel they are more at home when used purely as a media consumption accessory.

For example, I enjoyed playing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 and Forza Horizon 5 using the Air 3s with the Legion Go S. The former game was incredibly immersive with the “big screen” experience – playing it at night, with all the lights off in a room with nighttime also set in the game’s time settings is a transformative experience.

I also enjoyed just lounging around and watching movies on the Air 3s. I watched Inception and Oppenheimer with the glasses, and even managed to watch a good portion of one of my childhood favorite movies: Innerspace.

The enjoyable media watching experience was enhanced by another significant upgrade over the Air 2s: the audio system. I harped on the mediocre speaker system on the Air 2s, which sounded horrible and had issues with distortion. More problematic was the incessant buzzing and rattling that I experienced. The Air 3s exhibits none of those ailments and actually has performance more closely aligned with the Xreal One Series.

I still would have liked a tad more bass, but there’s not much else to complain about with the sound quality. RayNeo even includes a Whisper Mode 2.0, which cuts down on sound leakage from the speakers when playing multimedia content while wearing the Air 3s in public.

Bottom Line

The previous generation RayNeo Air 2s was a big disappointment; however, the Air 3s have improved upon its predecessor in two significant ways: the speaker system and the optics. It’s like night and day comparing the audio performance of the Air 3s with its predecessor. Audio sounds more precise, and there’s none of the plastic buzzing that plagued the Air 2s. The blurriness I experienced around the edges of the viewing area on the Air 2s has also been addressed with the Air 3s.

Even better, the improvements don’t come with a price hike compared to its predecessor. The Air 2s are currently available for $299 from Amazon, while the Air 3s will go on sale priced at $269, according to RayNeo. That’s a screaming bargain in the AR glasses realm, and makes the Air 3s a must-buy if you’re in the market.

While there numerous augmented reality (AR) glasses like the Xreal One and RayNeo Air 2s available for enthusiasts looking for the next generation of eyewear, the Ray-Ban Meta glasses is a comparatively straightforward eyewear experience. While those AR glasses provide a big-screen viewing experience in a familiar form factor, the Ray-Ban Meta more closely resembles traditional specs without the bulky frames necessary to accommodate micro-LED displays and complex optics.

As a result, the Meta glasses are a less ambitious and fundamentally different product, but one that deserves your attention nonetheless. Whereas AR glasses are more adept at providing an immersive multimedia experience or expanding your workspace for productivity tasks, our Ray-Ban Meta review unit (in the "Headliner" style) can be thought of as a helpful digital assistant that can scan your environment to provide beneficial feedback/information, capture moments with the 12MP camera, respond to your voice controls, and even playback audio thanks to the built-in speakers.

With a price of $299, the Ray-Ban Meta glasses are a pricey extension of the capabilities already built-in to your smartphone, but it’s still an interesting product that could find an audience because it looks like glasses more than anything else.

Design of the Ray-Ban Meta Glasses

Unlike AR glasses, our Ray-Ban Meta “Headliner” review unit mostly resembles a pair of thick eyeglasses/sunglasses. The frames are made entirely of plastic with integrated nose pads and foldable arms. Our review unit is made of translucent brown plastic (or as Ray-Ban calls it, "Shiny Warm Stone"), allowing you to see the electronics incorporated in the arms. The translucent plastic reminds me of turn-of-the-century iMacs, and it’s not exactly my cup of tea. I would have preferred solid black or blue if I had chosen a pair of frames for myself (which you can find on Ray-Ban’s website).

Besides the clear view of the internals, there are other giveaways to the intent of these glasses. There is a 12MP camera (3024 x 4032 pixels) on the top left of the frame and a round LED indicator on the top right. Other giveaways are two pogo pins above the nose pads for charging the glasses with the smart case, two open-air speakers (one on each arm), a capture button on the top of the right arm, and a power switch on the inside of the left arm.

There is a touch-sensitive area on the right arm, situated to the left of the Ray-Ban logo. You can swipe towards the front of the glasses to increase the volume and swipe in the opposite direction to lower the volume. You tap and hold to activate Meta AI.

The glasses are light without feeling cheap, and the metal hinge swings smoothly when you open them to affix them to your face.

The Meta glasses come in a faux leather case with an integrated battery that provides enough power for 32 hours of use (eight total charges for the glasses). The case has a USB Type-C port on the bottom for charging, and the snap-button enclosure has an integrated LED light ring that glows green when charging. When you slide the Meta glasses into the case, two Pogo pins supply power to recharge them.

Using the Ray-Ban Meta Glasses

Setting up the glasses was relatively straightforward. They came pre-charged so I could get started quickly. I left the glasses in the included case and downloaded Meta View, the companion app for the glasses, to my iPhone. The app searched for and found my glasses. It then performed a firmware update to ensure that the glasses were running the latest version of the software provided by Meta.

After that, I was on my own to explore the Meta glasses' many uses. My first step was to turn them on and place them on my face. After a little sound prompt to acknowledge that I was wearing the glasses, a male voice called out the percentage of charge for the glasses (in this case, 89%).

My review unit didn’t have a prescription or tinted lenses in place. Instead, it had clear lenses, allowing me to wear them around the house without impacting my vision (I wear contacts daily). Pressing the silver capture button on the top of the right arm snaps a picture. In my opinion, the images come out a tad underexposed, but they’re perfectly fine for a quick post on social media. Press and hold the capture button for about a second, and it will begin capturing video (1080p at 30 fps). However, due to space and battery constraints, video footage is limited to one minute in length by default, but you can extend that to up to 3 minutes. The Meta View app does warn that setting the time limit to 3 minutes will drain your battery faster. You can also select lower thresholds of 30 seconds and 15 seconds.

The round LED notification light is activated when taking photos or videos. When you snap a picture, the notification light flashes. Likewise, it blinks when you record a video. Meta implemented this feature to let those around you know that you’re recording, perhaps to reduce the “creep” factor. You cannot disable this notification light in the app.

Meta crammed five microphones into the glasses, so voices and ambient sounds are picked up well in video recordings with the glasses. Also, the captured video was surprisingly clear and crisp.

Once you’ve loaded the glasses with photos and videos, how do you offload them for future use? Well, you’ll need to fire up the Meta View app on your phone. On the app’s homepage, there’s a Gallery feature. Open the gallery, select the media you want to transfer to your phone and tap the Import button.

At that point, the glasses will create a Wi-Fi network to transfer the images to your smartphone. The time it takes to create the network and transfer the media files depends on how much data you’re trying to move (the glasses have 32GB of storage capacity). Of course, if your assortment is video-heavy, it will take longer. But to give you an idea of how long you’ll be waiting, I transferred 15 images and a minute-long video, and it took 15 seconds from the time I hit import until the last files were transferred to my iPhone. That included the time it took to establish the Wi-Fi connection between the two devices.

While you can transfer media whenever you want, you can also have the glasses perform this task automatically. The Meta View app can auto-import media when the glasses are turned on and charging within the case.

Meta AI Assistant

Besides the usual photo and video-taking tasks, the glasses also have a built-in Meta AI assistant. The assistant is invoked by saying “Hey Meta,” which responds with a sound prompt. You can then ask it questions as you would with Siri or the Google Assistant. I first asked it something simple, like, “What’s the weather?” However, the assistant told me that I needed to specify my location. So, I asked, “What’s the weather in Garner, NC,” and it told me: “In Garner, North Carolina, it's currently snowing at 27 degrees Fahrenheit. Today's forecast is a high of 29 degrees Fahrenheit and a low of 23 degrees Fahrenheit.”

That’s simple stuff, but Meta AI can also use the onboard camera to identify objects within your line of sight. For example, I looked at my dog and said, “Hey, Meta. What kind of dog is this?” It responded correctly, stating, “This appears to be a small, white dog with wiry fur. It may be a Schnauzer or Terrier mix breed.” I do in fact have a Miniature Schnauzer.

Meta AI correctly identified all sorts of objects, including food, plants, and household objects. Again, I can already do this by snapping a picture with my iPhone. However, the Meta glasses are a more low-impact way of identifying objects without needing to point-and-shoot with your phone.

You can even use Meta AI to perform more mundane tasks. You can ask it to take a picture or a video without pressing the capture button. For calls and messaging, you can give the Meta View app permission to access your phone’s contacts, WhatsApp, Messenger, Facebook, and Instagram. You can then make and receive calls or send messages using those respective apps using Meta AI. The onboard microphones and speakers are perfect for outgoing and incoming calls. Speech processing was impeccable, and callers on the other end said my voice was loud and clear.

Because the Meta glasses identify as a standard Bluetooth audio device, they can also be used to stream audio from your phone. I listened to tunes from YouTube Music and watched plenty of videos on YouTube and from my Plex Media library on my phone, using the glasses for audio. While lacking in bass, the audio clarity was excellent and distortion-free. There was none of the tinniness that I often find with cheap AR glasses. I’d liken the quality of the open-air speakers to the Bose-tuned speakers on the Xreal One.

The Meta View app has many settings to tailor your Meta AI experience. For example, there’s app integration with Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, Calm, and Shazam accounts. So, you can play music hands-free with Spotify and Apple Music or ask Meta AI to identify a song playing in the background with Shazam.

As I mentioned earlier in the review, the default voice for Meta AI was a synthetic male voice, which Meta calls Sage. There’s also another male voice, Indigo, and a female voice, Aspen. However, four celebrity voices that use AI to produce speech are available: Awkwafina, John Cena, Kristen Bell, and Keegan-Michael Key. I find Keegan-Michael Key to be hilarious, so I settled on his voice for Meta AI.

Battery Life

Battery life isn’t the glasses' strong suit. Meta says that with normal use, they will last up to four hours per charge, but your mileage will vary. That figure largely depends on what you’re using the glasses for. If you’re taking a lot of pictures and videos, expect to use up the battery in an hour or less.

Starting with a full battery (just 154 mAh), I used the glasses to take a couple dozen photos and one 30-second video. I also performed about a dozen Meta AI requests, including two that required taking a snapshot to identify objects. I also played some YouTube Music at a moderate volume with the glasses. After an hour, the battery dropped from 100% to 75%, which matches Meta’s estimates. However, when capturing a copious number of 3-minute videos, I saw 50% battery erosion in just an hour.

If you intend to go heavy on video capture, bring the camera case with you. Meta says the case will take your glasses from empty to 50% in around 20 minutes. A full charge from empty takes around 75 minutes with the charging case. The charging case provides 32 hours’ worth of juice, enough to recharge the glasses from empty to full eight times.

Bottom Line

I’ve enjoyed using the Ray-Ban Meta glasses. They’re very low-impact, mostly resembling a pair of glasses with no obstructions blocking your field of view (unlike AR glasses). The images and videos taken with the glasses also look good, although not as good as on a modern iPhone or Galaxy smartphone. However, they’re good enough for social media or sharing with family.

In addition, Meta AI is generally useful. It provides quick answers to questions without needing to check your phone for help. It also answers calls, allows hands-free access to popular music streaming services, and has good audio quality, allowing you to better enjoy those glorious tunes.

But best of all, the glasses allow you to capture moments without getting in the way. Whipping my phone out to take a picture can waste precious seconds to capture something happening before my eyes versus just clicking the capture button on the glasses. If I’m at a school performance for one of my kids, I’d feel a bit out of place with a smartphone outstretched in front of me, which gets in the way of me enjoying the performance rather than just looking at the stage like a normal human being.

In moments like these, I can appreciate what Meta is trying to accomplish with these glasses. Whether it’s worth spending at least $299 is up to you.

When you think of augmented reality (AR) glasses, companies like Xreal or RayNeo might spring to mind. Asus is not a company we’d typically associate with this product class; however, the company isn’t afraid to branch out into new territory. Enter the AirVision M1, Asus’ take on AR glasses.

The AirVision M1 glasses are designed for use primarily with Windows-based devices and specifically to pair nicely with Asus’ ROG Ally gaming handheld series. They connect to a PC with a USB-C cable, offer up to a simulated 100-inch virtual display, and weigh just 87 grams or 3.06 ounces.

Asus says that the AirVision M1 is equally adept at boosting your productivity while working or giving you a big screen experience while gaming with a handheld gaming PC. However, AirVision M1 is a flawed product with a hefty retail price of $699.

Asus AirVision M1 Design and Hardware

The AirVision M1 doesn’t stray too far from the formula we’ve seen with similar AR glasses, like the Xreal One. The glasses are made entirely of plastic, which isn’t necessarily bad. But in this case, the plastic quality seems subpar compared to most Asus products I’ve interacted with. Not only does the plastic have a thin, hollow feel to it, but the graining seems bargain-basement, and an errant fingernail easily scratches it. It’s more in line with the $300 RayNeo Air 2s.

This cheap plastic is used on the arms, the lens frames, and the prominent bulge behind the lenses that houses the electronics and micro-LED displays. I expect more from Asus, as the $499 Xreal One feels like a much higher-quality device in every way.

From the front, you’ll see that the top portion of the lens frames is made of black plastic, while the lower half is clear plastic. It’s an interesting design choice that I’m not completely sold on, but picking a pair of frames to suit your face is a highly subjective topic. However, unlike the Xreal One Series, there are no provisions for swapping out the front frame for a different design or color – what you see is what you get.

At the very top of the lens frame is an ambient light sensor, which automatically adjusts brightness depending on current conditions, and a noise-canceling microphone. On the back of the frame, there’s a wear-detection sensor to determine whether you’re wearing the glasses. A slot on the bottom of the frame allows you to clip in the nose pads. Asus provides two sizes in the box to help you find the best fit for the bridge of your nose.

The right arm doesn’t have much going on besides Asus AirVision M1 branding, some regulatory information, and a speaker. The left arm is where all the action takes place. There’s a USB-C port at the end of the arm to connect to a PC or smartphone, a speaker, and a touch-sensitive strip for controlling the glasses. For example, you can swipe along the strip with a single finger to raise or lower the brightness level of the glasses. You can perform a single-finger tap to center your virtual screens or use a single-finger double-tap to switch your current viewing mode. A two-finger tap can make your display revert to transparency mode.

In addition to the previously mentioned nose pads, Asus includes a prescription lens holder, USB-C cable, plastic light shield (for blocking ambient light), cleaning cloth, and carrying case in the box.

Asus says that the AirVision M1 weighs 87 grams, which is the same weight as the Xreal One.

Specifications for the Asus AirVision M1

Using the AirVision M1

Asus says the AirVision M1 is designed for PC use, so I carried out most of my testing with Windows-based systems. Although Asus says the AirVision M1 was intended to be the perfect companion for the ROG Ally handheld gaming PC, I don’t currently have one on hand to test. However, I have the next best thing: a Lenovo Legion Go and a Legion Go S.

AR glasses like the AirVision M1 are ideal for gaming on handheld devices. The Legion Go has an 8-inch display, while the Legion Go S shrinks that to 8 inches. The AirVision M1 can simulate a 100-inch virtual display, deeply immersing users in a gaming environment.

Before firing up a gaming session, I installed the Asus AirVision app on each test machine. The AirVision software provides more granular control over the AirVision M1. The app allows you to set up virtual displays with three distinct modes. Working mode gives you three displays: your primary in the middle, flanked by two virtual displays. Gaming mode gives you 21:9, 32:9, and 48:9 ultra-widescreen aspect ratios for gaming, which could benefit racing and flight simulators. There's also an Infinity Mode to give you a wealth of screen real estate for collaborative projects.

Asus also provides two custom modes for tinkering, including adjusting the number and placement of virtual displays. However, the number of virtual displays you can deploy at one time highly depends on your system's hardware capabilities. When I tried using two or more virtual displays, a warning message about performance degradation popped up.

The Display Settings menu allows you to choose from several picture modes (Standard, Theater, Office, Game, and Eye Care), and you can directly adjust the screen brightness here (instead of using the slider on the left arm of the glasses). For a less jarring experience when transitioning through multiple virtual workspaces, there's also a Motion Sync option that you can turn on or off.

The Distance Settings menu lets you control how far out in front of you the virtual display is positioned. I settled on 3 meters, which was optimum for me. You can also adjust the interpupillary distance (IPD) with software on the AirVision M1. You'll want to dial this in to achieve optimum clarity when wearing the glasses, with a range of 53.5 mm to 74.5 mm (which should cover most of the population).

When it came time to play games, I fired up Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, Forza Horizon 5, and Forza Motorsport. While the colors were on point and the picture was bright when playing these games with the AirVision M1, the on-screen images had a hint of blurriness that I couldn’t shake. My IPD is 71 mm, but no matter how much I tweaked the slider bar under Distance Settings, text and images were never totally in focus. This isn’t a problem I’ve encountered with Xreal or RayNeo glasses. I’ve sometimes had blurriness near the outer edges of the displays with AR glasses, but never directly in the center, like with the AirVision M1.

The fast-moving action with games like Forza Horizon 5, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, and even slower-paced games like Red Dead Redemption 2 mostly masked the blurriness. But when the action stopped, and I had to look at static menu screens, it became an issue. As you might expect, the issues with less than crisp text also reared its ugly head when attempting to perform productivity tasks. Working in Microsoft Edge, Word, and Excel was a chore because my eyes fatigued very quickly as they tried to focus on the text in front of me. Again, I’m no stranger to eye fatigue when wearing AR glasses, but it usually happens after a few hours of use, not a few minutes.

Another note: Asus claims that the AirVision M1 can support a maximum refresh rate of 72 Hz. While this is true, 72 Hz is only supported if you install the AirVision app in Windows. Without the app installed in Windows, the glasses refresh at 60 Hz. If you attempt to use AirVision in macOS or on a smartphone, you’re also limited to 60 Hz.

The speakers on the AirVision M1 are also rather poor. Music sounded flat, as did engine sounds while playing racing games. Gunshots and explosions in Cyberpunk 2077 were muffled, which detracted from the gameplay. I hate to harp on the point, but the Xreal One with its Bose-tuned speakers sounds much better in this area, and has a $200 lower price tag.

Bottom Line

The AirVision M1 AR glasses are not a good first effort from Asus. They feel like they should cost hundreds less than the $699 as-tested price. I also had out-of-focus issues with the glasses (your mileage may vary), which made viewing text for more than a few minutes a fatiguing experience.

The glasses default to a 60 Hz refresh rate unless you’re running the AirVision app in Windows, whereas most glasses in this price class (and many priced well below) natively support 120 Hz. But that’s not all; Asus provides a plastic light shield to block ambient light, while the $499 Xreal One offers electrochromic dimming, negating the need for an add-on device. The speakers are also lacking, which is especially egregious for a device that costs this much.

It’s difficult to recommend the AirVision M1 in its current form. For $499, the Xreal One offers a 120 Hz refresh rate, electrochromic dimming, far superior build quality (including a titanium lens frame), a good audio experience, replaceable front frames, on-device controls that don’t require a separate app, and support for virtual desktops in macOS (and coming soon to Windows).

For people looking to expand their viewable footprint when consuming content, augmented reality glasses are a relatively low-impact option for consumers. With a form factor that resembles a pair of oversized sunglasses, AR glasses can easily slip into a backpack and don’t make you look like a total knob to passersby.

RayNeo, a subsidiary of TCL, is expanding its reach in this segment with the Air 2s glasses. If you recall, I reviewed the RayNeo Air 2 in late 2023, so read on to see what’s changed with this newest release.

Design of the RayNeo Air 2s

The design of the Air 2s is not too far removed from the preceding Air 2. They resemble a pair of stylish sunglasses, but they have some key differences. All the primary hardware for the Air 2s resides in the large module at the top of the frame. You’ll find most of the electronics here, including the dual 120 Hz Sony Micro OLED displays. The side arms are also much thicker than you’d find on a traditional pair of sunglasses, and for good reason.

The arms house four speakers (two on each arm) and are adjustable. The arms feature a three-position adjustment (there’s a default position and one click up or down, which angles the arms 5 degrees in either direction).

A single rocker switch on the bottom of the right arm adjusts brightness. A matching rocker switch resides on the bottom of the left arm, which adjusts the volume of the integrated speakers. Finally, a single menu button on the left arm allows you to control a limited number of settings (pressing the volume rocker moves up and down within the on-screen display). A USB-C port is located at the end of the right arm, and you can connect to your smartphone, laptop, or gaming console with the included USB-C to USB-C cable.

Given its price point, the Air 2s isn’t quite as feature-packed as some of the competition, like the Xreal One or even the Xreal Air 2. The front visor is a single piece of shaded plastic. RayNeo doesn’t include black plastic light blockers to reduce ambient light, and there is no fancy electrochromic dimming feature.

The whole thing is made of plastic, and the arms feel hollow and pretty cheap. The silver finish on the outside of the arms looks nice, but RayNeo makes a critical aesthetic faux pas here. The FCC label for the Air 2s is visible when wearing the glasses. And it’s an ugly sticker displaying a barcode, the serial number, and the model number for the Air 2s. It also has an icon of a garbage can with an X through it, signifying that you shouldn’t just toss the Air 2s in the trash and instead recycle it. Well, the exterior label is trash – stick it inside the arm where it’s out of sight like other manufacturers.

The box has two nose pads, one of which is already installed. RayNeo also includes a demo frame for prescription lenses, a carrying case, and a cleaning cloth. The hard carrying case is a nice addition (it wasn’t included with the preceding Air 2s) and provides enough room for the glasses, the USB-C cable, and the cleaning cloth.

Specifications for the RayNeo Air 2s

Using the RayNeo Air 2s 

Like all the recent AR glasses that have hit the market, the Air 2s connects via USB-C. This connection gives it nearly universal compatibility with a wide range of computing devices, from late-model iPhones to Android smartphones to tablets to PCs to Macs.

I was able to successfully connect to a MacBook Pro (M3 Pro), Mac Mini (M4), iPhone 16 Pro, iPad Pro (M4), and a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 2-in-1 convertible. It was a simple plug-and-play affair with each device.

When I plugged the Air 2s into the Macs or ThinkPad X1, the glasses sprung to life within a few seconds, displaying my desktop in front of my eyes with little drama. The Air 2s supports up to a 120 Hz refresh rate, which I confirmed within the Display settings dialogs for Windows 11 and macOS Sequoia 15.2.

According to RayNeo, the Air 2s projects a screen 201 inches across at a virtual distance of six meters away with a 46-degree field of view (FoV). The picture was incredibly crisp at the center of the viewing area and got slightly blurry towards the left and right edges.

I’ll note that this blurriness is likely exacerbated by the fact that unlike the pricier Xreal One I recently reviewed, the Air 2s doesn’t have physical or software controls to adjust the pupillary distance to ensure optimum clarity and eye comfort.

I used the glasses for various tasks, from typing a portion of this document in Microsoft Word on the MacBook Pro to playing a few games on the Mac Mini. I also did some light photo editing on the ThinkPad X1 in GIMP. I was fully capable of typing and navigating through Windows and macOS with the glasses while wearing the Air 2s and using a mouse and keyboard for navigation. However, after using the glasses for about two hours straight, my eyes started fatiguing while looking at text. I’d suggest taking regular breaks to avoid such issues.

However, I had a much more pleasant experience watching media on Macs, PCs, and iPhones. When watching movies and TV shows, I had no qualms about picture quality or image sharpness. I spent several hours watching multiple episodes of Marvel’s What If without any eye fatigue or strain.

While I had no issues with the images displayed on the twin Micro-OLED displays, I couldn’t say the same for the newly upgraded audio system. Just like the previous Air 2, the speakers on the Air 2s were lackluster. Although the Air 2s doubles up on the speakers (it now features four), I had the same issues with bass, distortion, and mid-range performance. There was also an annoying issue of the frames of the glasses rattling/buzzing when the volume was at 25% or higher. It’s highly distracting when trying to enjoy music or even people talking while watching a movie. To avoid the issue altogether, I simply plugged in my AirPods Pro to handle my audio needs while wearing the Air 2s.

Bottom Line

The RayNeo Air 2s is a bit of a mixed bag in the world of AR glasses. The hardware isn’t as advanced and the build quality isn’t as good as something like the Xreal One. Granted, the newly launched Xreal One has an MSRP of $499 versus $399 for the Air 2s. But even the $399 Xreal Air 2 Pro offers a better experience and hardware all around (including electrochromic dimming).

However, the Air 2s’s trump card is street price. The glasses are currently on sale at Amazon for $319, and a $30 instant coupon reduces the price to just $289. That’s a compelling bargain for AR glasses. You’ll just have to remember that you don’t get any light blockers for the lenses in the box, and the speakers are rubbish. However, given that most of us have at least one pair of Bluetooth earbuds lying around, the audio issues can be quickly negated.

Razer has settled the suit filed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) (PDF) against it for the "deceptive advertising" of the Razer Zephyr mask the company launched in late 2021. As reported by Ars Technica Razer has paid a $100,000 fine and turned over $1,071,254.33 now due to consumers, to the agency. The FTC says that it will send “checks and PayPal payments to 6,764 consumers who purchased the deceptively marketed products. Recipients will get a full refund.”

It means that all 6,764 people who bought these Zephyr masks will receive the $99.99 they paid for a mask and a set of three filters. Those who bought the Starter Pack, which came with 33 sets of filters, will receive $150. In line with this, the FTC is warning people against scams, especially those that pose as representatives of the agency and ask for payment or information in exchange for the refund. If you’re one of the few buyers, you should cash your refund check within 90 days, as indicated on it, or redeem your PayPal payment within 30 days, says the agency.

For questions and clarifications, you can reach out to Simpluris, the refund administrator the FTC has tapped for the Razer Zephyr case at 1-833-285-3003. Alternatively, you can visit FTC’s Refund Program FAQ page to get some answers.

The Razer Zephyr saga began when the company marketed the mask as having “replaceable N95 grade filters for maximum protection” and that it was “FDA-registered and lab-tested for 99 percent BFE (Bacteria Filtration Efficiency).” It also claimed that the mask “offers greater protection compared to standard disposable/cloth masks, and filters air both inhaled and exhaled to safeguard you and others around you.”

These claims were found to be misleading to the consumer who might equate a mask having “replaceable N95 grade filters” as having the same efficacy as an N95 mask. Even a Razer executive was concerned about this marketing push after tech reviewer Naomi Wu criticized the Zephyr for its deceptive marketing. According to the company’s Director of Global Public Relations, “the ‘N95 grade filter’ wording that we’re using […] suggests that Zephyr is on par with officially certified masks. Do we have any certifications to back the N95-grade claim?” He said that Razer needed to boil down how the Zephyr mask provides N95 grade protection in two to three sentences. He also added, “And if we can’t do that, I’d recommend to stop using any ‘N95 grade’ claims in our marketing immediately.”

Furthermore, third-party tests hired by Razer showed that even though the Zephyr used N95 filters, it failed to perform at the required standard for the entire mask to be granted that certification. Its best results only had an 86.3% effectiveness with the fans on, and 83.2% with them off—and these were the best results. Other tests would often show lower numbers, meaning buyers who bought the Razer mask because of its supposed N95-level of protection had a false sense of security.

Tom’s Hardware tested the Razer Zephyr and our very own Andrew Freedman found that it had poor fitment around his and his wife’s face. This is a major requirement to ensure that all the air you take in goes through the filter, but the company’s one-size-fits-all approach for this mask meant that it almost certainly didn’t fit perfectly.

Even though the company removed all mention of N95 protection from the Zephyr page as of January 10, 2022, the damage has already been done, and some have already bought the pretty expensive mask. Furthermore, Razer said that it implemented a refund policy the day before for those who bought the Zephyr for its supposed N95 protection. But the FTC says that it did not promote this policy in its emails to consumers, instead just telling that that the mask “is not a medical device nor certified as an N95 mask.” Those who asked for refunds often ran into issues, meaning just 6% of those who purchased the mask, about 400 people, were given one.

Xreal’s long-running family of augmented reality (AR) glasses is welcoming a new generation. One year after the Air 2 family of AR glasses, the Xreal launched the new One Series, which comprises two distinct products: the Xreal One and the One Pro.

Although you can read more about the One Pro in our initial announcement article, my review today centers around the One. It represents a modest update to the Air 2, with a new in-house spatial computing coprocessor, a slightly wider field of view (FoV), a brighter screen, and a redesigned chassis.

With a price tag of $499 (up $50 compared to last year’s Air 2 Pro), the One is not an impulse buy for tech enthusiasts. In fact, its price tag makes it $200 more expensive than the mixed reality Meta Quest 3S. However, unlike the Meta Quest 3S, all of the main computing is done off-device as you attach the glasses to any USB-C or HDMI-capable device, from your phone to your laptop to your handheld gaming PC.

 Xreal One Design and Hardware 

The One represents an evolution in design compared to its predecessor, the Air 2 that we previously reviewed. The One still looks like a pair of oversized sunglasses, albeit with super thick frames and side arms. The frame holds the lenses and dual displays, which are top-mounted and fire down onto the triangular birdbath lens.

Compared to the Air 2, the dual Sony Micro-LED displays have increased in size from 0.55 inches to 0.68 inches (the same size as the original Air), dropping pixel density from 4,032 ppi to 3,320 ppi.

The arms of the One attach to the main magnesium alloy frame with a stiff hinge that is covered by a chrome metal plate. It's similar to the setup that we saw with last year's Air 2, but the hinge design looks better integrated this time. The arms are similarly styled and include built-in open-air speakers that are tuned by Bose.

The left arm features a single USB-C port, while an included, angled USB-C cable plugs into this port and then connects to your smartphone, tablet, PC, or game console that supports DisplayPort over USB-C. There's a red "X" button on the underside of the right arm that invokes the main menu system (on-screen display) with a double tap. Here you can adjust screen size, screen distance, brightness enhancement, color temperature, interpupillary distance (IPD), and more. 

Further back from the red button is a rocker switch, which allows you to adjust the brightness of the display, or while in the menu system, navigate up and down. Finally, there's a single black button on top of the right arm that Xreal calls the Quick Button. By default, it changes the tint level of the lenses, but it is customizable in settings.

Unlike the Air 2, which came with removable nose pad brackets in four different sizes, the One's nose bracket is integrated into the frame. You still get interchangeable "Air Cushion" nose pads in small, medium, and large sizes (medium nose pads were installed from the factory).

The detachable front frame is a big upgrade compared to the Xreal Air. It's made of thin black plastic that snaps around the lenses. The frame is easily removable and can be replaced with new frames that differ in color and finish. Although it's still a low-tech solution, it's far superior to the Air 2, which came with adhesive-backed covers (basically custom-cut stickers) that you could apply to the frame.

Another upgrade compared to the standard Air 2 is the use of an electrochromic dimming feature for the lenses, which offers three levels of dimming. At its darkest setting, it blocks most of the environmental light to give you a theater-like experience when viewing content. I much prefer this on-device arrangement over the plastic clip-on light blocker included with the Air 2.

The frame of the One is dramatically thinner than the Air 2. In addition, because of the electrochromic dimming, you don’t need to attach separate plastic light blockers to the glasses (as you do with the Air 2). Even though the One is about 10 percent heavier than the Air 2 (87 grams versus 72 grams), the difference while wearing them isn’t as noticeable as the slimmer profile you get with these frames.

Perhaps the most significant internal change is the switch to Xreal’s new X1 spatial computing chip, which was developed completely in-house. Thanks to the X1, a lot of the functionality and configuration of the One that was previously accomplished using a separate app is now performed on-device. In addition, performance with 3 Degrees of Freedom (DoF) tracking is vastly improved over the Air and earlier AR glasses.

Specifications for the Xreal One

Using the Xreal One

Given that the One connects via a USB-C port, it's natively compatible with many devices, including smartphones, tablets, and PCs/Macs or anything that has USB-C alternate mode (or HDMI with an adapter). Plugging the One into my iPhone 16 Pro presented my home screen in portrait orientation. Of course, viewing portrait content on the One isn't ideal. Luckily, opening an app like Safari and turning my phone into landscape orientation also put the content in landscape orientation on the One.

In addition, viewing YouTube videos or content from Disney Plus on the iPhone in full screen is automatically displayed in landscape mode on the One. With a single USB-C cable connection to your phone, using the One is a low-impact way of enjoying multimedia content on the go.

Viewing content with a MacBook Pro and a Windows 11 desktop PC was also similarly easy to set up. Simply plug the USB-C cable into a free USB-C port, and your desktop will be projected onto One's dual displays.

Once plugged in and ready to go, the actual experience of using the One is quite impressive. I played Guardians of the Galaxy on my Windows PC for a few hours and had no eye strain or discomfort issues. I was also able to fully leverage the 120 Hz refresh rate of the One in the game. Likewise, I also enjoyed Resident Evil Village on my MacBook Pro. When playing both games, I used the Anchor display mode so that the image tracked my movements if I rotated my head.

However, remember that the horizontal field of view (FoV) maxes out at 50 degrees with the One. As a result, content in your periphery can get cut off unless you select a viewing distance in the settings menu that is further away. Five feet was ideal for me, as four feet would clip content, forcing me to move my entire head from left to right. Mixed reality headsets like the Meta Quest 3 and Meta Quest 3S have a FoV of 110 degrees and 97 degrees, respectively.

When I was playing games, I decided to kick back and watch a few movies using the glasses. I sprawled out on my couch and watched Deadpool and Wolverine on a simulated 147-inch display with the glasses connected to my iPhone. The experience was quite immersive, especially with the electrochromic set to its darkest level to block out ambient light. 

The Bose-tuned speakers also sounded great when watching the movie. Usually, I’ll throw on my AirPods Pro or AirPods Max when watching movies are playing games with AR glasses. However, the sound reproduction was so good with plenty of bass and dynamic range that I didn’t bother making my viewing setup any more complex by adding headphones.  

The new X1 chip helps in several noticeable ways. The first plus comes with the on-device controls. A quick double-tap on the red button brought up the menu screen within the glasses, allowing me to change the virtual screen size from 147 inches to a massive 191 inches while I was working in macOS. I could then easily switch the viewing distance to accommodate the screen size. For example, I felt most comfortable with 147 inches at a viewing distance of 5 feet.

Another benefit of the X1 chip is decreased lag when performing certain operations. For example, the One supports Anchor and Follow display modes. The model anchors the picture in a fixed position in front of you. So, if you move your head left/right or up/down, the position of the display does not move. With follow mode, the picture tracks or “follows” your head movements. With the Air 2, Follow mode had some inherent lag as you moved your head around in real time. With the One, that lag is almost completely gone, and even quick movements of your head result in the picture tracking your movements with expedited precision.

Bottom Line

The Xreal One isn’t perfect, but it’s among the best augmented reality glasses currently available (we still need to test the One Pro). While slightly heavier than the Air 2, the One offers a slimmer frame, a more robust method for customizing that frame, and an overall more stylish aesthetic.

The X1 chip brings a wealth of advances to the platform, including bringing all controls on-device and reducing latency while viewing content. It will also enable future expansion for the One, including the $99 Xreal Eye, an upcoming camera add-on for taking photos or recording videos.

While the X1 chip greatly enhances the One's capabilities compared to its predecessors, its processing power is no match for dedicated mixed reality headsets like the Meta Quest 3 or Meta Quest 3S. However, what you give up in terms of sheer performance, which would allow you to play games and experience virtual content without a host device, you gain a lot in terms of a low-impact solution that more closely resembles a pair of regular sunglasses.

You’ll also have to settle for a 50-degree field of view, which while better than the Air 2’s 46 degrees, is not quite as wide as the 57 degrees you get with the One Pro.

I enjoyed using the One, and it’s truly an excellent device for consuming content while on a train or airplane. It’s even a great option for lounging around the house to take advantage of a virtual 147-inch display for watching movies. 

However, with a price tag of $499, it won’t be an easy sell unless you can find a way to use it regularly. Although it’s more cumbersome and definitely not something you’d want to wear out in public, the $299 Meta Quest 3S would probably be a better fit for someone wanting a more full-featured experience with virtual reality and augmented reality capabilities. 

Xreal is back at it again with another set of augmented reality glasses. Today, the company officially announced the new One Series, the company's most ambitious effort yet in the AR space. The One Series encompasses two products: the One and the One Pro.

At the heart of the One Series is a brand-new spatial computing co-processor, the X1, developed in-house by Xreal. According to the company, the new chip allows for smoother playback thanks to a low motion-to-photon (M2P) latency of 3ms when the glasses operate at 120Hz (according to Xreal, the typical industry measurement is around 20 ms). The company also touts its superiority over the $3,500 Apple Vision Pro, which has a 12ms M2P.

A lower M2P means you shouldn't see any motion blur or visual lag, whether you're using anchored or follow-screen modes. If you need a refresher, anchored mode is where the picture displayed to your eyes within the glasses stays stationary in front of you, even if you move your head from side to side or up and down. The follow mode is when the picture follows your head movements. So, if you look left or right, the picture moves and keeps up with your head tracking. The One Series can switch between these two modes using the red button on the bottom of the right arm of the glasses.

As with previous Xreal AR glasses, the One Series features two 1080p displays, giving you a full 32:9 aspect ratio for viewing content. On the Xreal One, you get a 50-degree field of view, giving you a nearly 21 percent greater viewing area than the preceding Xreal Air 2 I reviewed last year. 

The Xreal One Pro goes one step further by using a new flat-prism lens design, 40.9 percent thinner than the birdbath designs used in traditional AR glasses. As a result, Xreal improved the field of view to 57 degrees while producing a viewing area that is 63.6 percent larger than the Xreal Air 2. There’s also a standard electrochromic dimming feature on both glasses, which automatically darkens the outside lenses when viewing content (such as movies or TV shows) to block outside light. This saves you from lugging around a set of removable plastic light blockers.

Customization is also a big priority with this new generation. While the Xreal One features a fixed interpupillary distance (IPD) with further adjustments made in software, the Xreal One Pro will be available in two sizes to ensure a proper fit for a broader range of people. Xreal will offer a SKU that covers IPDs of 57 to 66mm and another SKU to cover 66 to 75mm. You just pick the one that fits within your range at the time of purchase.

Further adjustments can be made (with both the Xreal One and One Pro) to adjust the vertical height of the IPD using on-device buttons. Further settings can also be manipulated in software, like screen size/distance, brightness, and temperature. Speaking of brightness, the Xreal One tops out at 600 nits, while the Xreal One Pro ups that figure to 700 nits.

Specifications

Xreal also put the glasses through a thorough redesign, using magnesium alloy for the front shell (which houses the optics and displays). The front frame of the glasses is removable, allowing you to change the design to match your fashion tastes. Xreal says that the Xreal One weighs 84 grams, while the Xreal One Pro is slightly heavier at 87 grams. For reference, the Xreal Air 2 weighs 72 grams.

The One Series continues to feature open-air speakers, but Bose has tuned them to amplify the listening experience. One welcome addition missing on recent Xreal headsets is a front-facing 12MP camera that can capture up to 1080p video at 60 fps. The camera allows you to capture first-person pictures and videos while staying "in the moment" in a way you can't if you have a smartphone in front of your face to capture the same footage. Audio for video footage is captured using four microphones.

The new Xreal One and One Pro are currently available for preorder, priced at $499 and $599, respectively. The former will ship later in December, while Xreal says that the latter will arrive in early 2025.

First Impressions

While I can’t post my full review just yet, I can give you a brief hands-on with an Xreal One review unit I received. While the firmware running on the glasses isn’t finalized for production (an OTA software update is incoming), I was impressed with the setup tutorial that Xreal provides. When you first plug the glasses into a device using the included USB-C cable, a tutorial runs you through the basic buttons/controls how certain features work, and gives you an overview of the menu system.

The increased field of view and viewable area is immediately noticeable compared to the Xreal Air 2, and a brief test of the speakers proved positive. The glasses are noticeably heavier than the Xreal Air 2, but the added heft wasn’t objectionable after a 15-minute test drive with YouTube and Disney Plus (yay for Deadpool and Wolverine).

Stay tuned for our full review of the Xreal One in the coming weeks.

An India-based tech enthusiast who bought a pair of AirPods Pro 2 for their hard-of-hearing grandma to use as hearing aids discovered the feature is geoblocked in India due to regulatory restrictions. So, instead of throwing in the towel and calling it a day, Rithwik Jayasimha (@thel3l) and the Lagrange Point tech enthusiast guild built a Faraday cage and a microwave jammer to spoof the location and unlock the hearing aid feature on the earbuds.

According to the group, hearing aids in India cost between approximately $600 and $9,500 (INR 50,000 and INR 800,000), putting them out of the range of most users. On the other hand, AirPods Pro 2 is just half the price of the cheapest hearing aids at around $300 (INR 24,900), making it an excellent substitute for those with hearing problems. To use earbuds as hearing aids, you need to be in a country where Apple doesn’t geoblock the feature, run iOS or iPadOS 18.1 or newer, have the AirPods Pro 2, and ensure that it uses the 7B19 firmware or newer.

Although Jayasimha had all the hardware and software needed to set up the AirPods Pro 2 as hearing aids, they were located in an unsupported location—India—so they decided to spoof the location and fool Apple into thinking that the AirPods Pro were located in the U.S. This is easier said than done because even though they’ve spoofed the IP location and locale of the iPad used to set up the earbuds, the device still knew it was located in India.

After several rounds of testing and trial-and-error, a fellow enthusiast mentioned the iPad used the SSIDs and MAC addresses that the routers around them broadcast to determine their location. So, even if the iPad didn’t have cellular and had its GPS turned off, it could still accurately place the region it’s in. The group then decided to put the iPad and an ESP32 board, which cycles through a hundred Wi-Fi SSIDs that are located in Menlo Park, California, in a makeshift Faraday cage (a cardboard box lined with aluminum foil outside) and then place it on top of a microwave going full blast to overpower and jam any 2.4G Wi-Fi signals in its immediate vicinity.

They then ran a script on a MacBook that instructed the iPad to reboot and turn on its Wi-Fi antenna five minutes after that. The first few attempts failed, though, requiring the group to adjust their Faraday cage, microwave jammer, and a few restarts. But, finally, after approximately three hours of fiddling around, the Mac Console reported that the iPad is showing itself as located in the U.S. With that result, the group pulled the iPad out of the makeshift cage, connected the AirPods to the device, and the Hearing Aid setup process popped up on the screen. Success!

With proof of concept done, the group repeated the process a couple more times and built a more permanent Faraday cage. Now that they have the process down pat, they offered a hearing aid unlocking camp at Lagrange Point to allow anyone in the Bengaluru area to benefit from the feature. That way, it will allow more people to afford hearing aids without having to spend more than $500. If you’re nowhere near Lagrange Point’s office, you can recreate their detailed process and unlock the feature on your own without needing to travel there (or to a country that has the feature turned on).

With new advancements in computing technology making wearable electronics increasingly tiny while packing in plenty of features, problem of providing power remains. Some devices have managed to recharge using solar energy, but batteries remain an integral component. But researchers at the Future Interfaces Group found a remarkable way to address this obstacle, using a Power-over-Skin approach that taps a user's intra-body RF energy. It requires no contact apart from the user's skin, potentially eliminating the need for batteries.

The research paper, published by Andy Kong, Daehwa Kim, and Chris Harrison from Carnegie Mellon University, notes that the human body is particularly efficient at generating 40 MHz RF energy. Tapping into that through a 'worn receiver' provides power without using any invasive means. The researchers invested most of their efforts into optimizing these receivers to ensure usable size, weight, form factor and power efficiency. The receiver could potentially be placed anywhere, and since it's capacitive, it could even work through clothing — theoretically creating the potential to be integrated into a smartphone.

The researchers demonstrated the technology with devices including a Bluetooth ring with a joystick, a stick-and-forget medical patch that logs the user's health data, a sun-exposure patch with a screen, and various other devices. Other future possibilities include VR/ AR headsets and new types of wearable devices. Since the body consistently generates energy, people could wear multiple devices simultaneously without the need to remove and charge.

Virtually any on-body device could power itself, removing the need for a battery, shedding that weight and decreasing the volume of the device. That would also eliminate the need to remove and recharge devices, unlike typical battery-operated wearables. This could encourage the wearable industry to create a new generation of battery-less devices that are lighter and slimmer devices. It would also reduce the dependence on rare earth minerals needed to manufacture batteries.

Assuming there are no negative side effects, this has the potential to be a revolutionary. It could power up anything from a relatively simple watch to a host of other wearables including fitness trackers and medical devices. The only requirement would be that the device in question could run off a relatively small amount of power — you're not going to have a full-fat GPU and CPU running off your body's IF radiation.

The research paper compares the core idea to mechanical watches that had self-winding mechanism and used arm movements to coil the mainspring. Those were largely replaced by more accurate and cheaper quartz movement that uses batteries, but now we're potentially looking at a more sophisticated way of harnessing energy from the user's body.

That said, the on-body location and transmission distance are crucial. The team investigated four transmitter locations- sole of the right foot, abdomen, left wrist and face which would be potentially useful for AR/ VR headsets. Each transmitter had six receiver locations- right ankle, back of the neck, sternum, left & right bicep and left index finger- typically where wearable devices are commonly used. The highest recorded power was from the test device with the shortest distance between the transmitter and receiver at the average of 1.53 mW and the lowest recorded power was 5.3 μW. Through clothing transmission, though possible, reduced efficiency.

Regardless, of the proof-of-concept with over a dozen experiments, this research shows great potential in battery-free Power-Over-Skin technology. This power was enough to run microprocessors and sensors, display output and perform wireless communications when worn in different locations. Seeing this transition to a final product would take time like any innovation.

The questions are- if and when!

Startup GamerTech has unveiled its Magma Glove, a self-heating, fingertip-less compression glove design aimed squarely at eSports professionals and other competitive gamers, as noticed by Notebookcheck. The design was made in collaboration with eSports team Oxygen eSports, a well-established eSports organization whose players primarily specialize in FPS titles like Valorant, Call of Duty, and more. But could a pair of gloves really make such a big difference?

While eSports is a much larger industry today than it was in the golden era of CS:S, the old tenets of comfort and consistency being the top priority for competitive players remain true today. FPS Coach and former top Counter-Strike player Ron Rambo Kim once released a seminal 27-minute video teaching mouse aim. And one of his most important points relates to having always-consistent forearm placement between sessions. The smallest differences can and do matter when playing high-dexterity competitive games, even outside of the FPS genre.

A study cited by Notebookcheck points toward the best in-game performance occurring at an average temperature between 10 to 20 degrees Celsius, or 50 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit. This is a temperature most would consider average room temperature, though of course climate and use of air conditioning can change the exact feel.

In any case, it's important to not play in an overly cold room if it can be avoided, since hand agility does decrease as your body gets colder. This can be particularly problematic if you already have poor circulation to your extremities, or simply live in a cold climate and don't want to kick on a heater for every scrimmage or tournament match.

So, the Magma Glove solution to all of this is providing a fingerless compression glove with dedicated, timed heating elements to help keep gamers' hands flexible, warm, and even dry through the use of moisture wicking. This should be particularly useful for competitive gamers who actually travel to events regularly (whether that be local fighting game events or major LANs for FPS titles), since you can't always guarantee an ideal climate where you're competing.

That said, in my experience traveling to venues filled with sweaty gamers for competition's sake — even in the midst of actual snowstorms — it's more likely traveling competitors will play in too-hot rooms than too-cold ones. These still seem nice, but that's worth noting. Fortunately, there are three customizable heat settings and (presumably) the ability to turn off the heating entirely, at which point the Magma Glove still remains a reasonably-slick compression glove design.

I’ve reviewed several of Xreal’s augmented reality glasses over the past year, the most recent being the Air 2. However, the company is back again with a more feature-packed entry: the Air 2 Ultra. While the Air and Air 2 focused primarily on allowing you to enjoy content on a simulated 100+ inch virtual screen while still seeing your environment around you, the Air 2 Ultra adds six degrees of freedom (6DoF) tracking. 

Xreal first introduced 6DoF tracking with the Nreal Light, but the Air 2 Ultra puts more powerful hardware into a sleeker and more stylish titanium frame. Despite the lightweight frame, the Air 2 Ultra is a bit heavier at 80 grams compared to 72 grams for the Air 2. The Air 2 Ultra includes two new environmental sensors (cameras) embedded in the glasses-style frame (which Xreal claims are the smallest in the industry), allowing real-time tracking of the user’s position within a 3D space and even enabled hand tracking. This should allow for a more immersive AR experience that offers a mix of virtual content interspersed with real-world environments, which is possible with the Meta Quest 3.

The rest of the hardware is similar to what we’ve seen with the Air 2, which means you get a Full HD OLED display per eye, offering a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz and maximum brightness of 500 nits. However, you now get a 52-degree field-of-view, up from 46 degrees with the Air 2. When viewing content (such as games or movies) on the glasses, it’s like looking at a 154-inch screen at a distance of 13 feet. Trust me, it’s a trippy experience when you first try it. 

Other features include speakers integrated into the frames with directional audio to allow you to listen to music/movies/games without blasting those in your vicinity with unwanted noise. The glasses connect to your smartphone, tablet, or PC with a USB-C cable. That means that the Air 2 Ultra is natively supported by most Android devices and Apple’s most recent iPhone 15 family. Older iPhones can be used with the Air 2 Ultra by purchasing a separate adapter.

The company points out the $499 Quest 3 and Apple’s $3,499 Vision Pro as direct competitors. Both of those devices offer more powerful hardware and higher-resolution displays. They also provide a passthrough digital view of the outside world instead of a direct view of the outside world, as the Air 2 Ultra offers. Another big difference is that the Air 2 Ultra looks more like a regular pair of sunglasses, albeit a bit bulkier. The Vision Pro and Quest 3 quickly draw attention for their unorthodox designs.

Xreal is targeting developers and general consumers with the Air 2 Ultra, and the glasses will be available in March for $699. However, the company will offer a $100 discount for owners of the Nreal Light who preorder the AR glasses.

Making retro gaming portable is nothing new, but maker and developer Jason Rogers aims to make retro gaming wearable with his Retro Gaming Watch project. His work has culminated over the years into a Kickstarter campaign. The funding goal was set at $35,000, but the project has already received over $50,000 worth of pledges with 23 days to go.

The system will be driven by a Renesas/Dialog DA14706 SoC (system on chip) powered by an Arm Cortex M33 processor, which can operate up to 160 MHz. It includes 1.5MB of internal RAM and 8MB of external QSPI RAM. It uses a 2D GPU alongside an FPGA, making it more than capable of emulating DOS games.

In addition to retro gaming, the Retro Gaming Watch can also integrate with smartphone apps. The watch will have Bluetooth support, which enables wireless communication with external devices like smartphones or tablets. Rogers explains an example case in which you can use the watch to receive and send messages.

The central processor is a Dialog DA14706 with plenty of other valuable tools to take advantage of. The Retro Gaming Watch also uses an Efinix T20 FPGA, light sensor, accelerometer, magnetometer, audio amplifier, and more. It sports a 1.5-inch LCD screen with a 320 x 320px resolution and a refresh rate of 60Hz. There are four buttons for user input, as well as a D-pad.

According to Rogers, proof-of-concept applications are complete to demonstrate the watch’s capabilities. This includes things like game demos and emulation examples. To get a closer look at this project, check out the official campaign on Kickstarter. It’s also worth noting that supporting any crowdfunding-based project is more like an investment and does not guarantee receiving a product. Check out our best Raspberry Pi projects list for more fabulous creations from the maker community.

Ten years ago on Kickstarter, Gabriel Anzziani unveiled plans to produce an oscilloscope watch. The project caught on in popularity before fading into the ether for about a decade. After nearly forgetting about the project, early backers were surprised this month to receive a package containing the oscilloscope watch.

The project page received an update on July 30th of this year from Anzziani confirming that backers are now officially starting to receive their watches. According to the post, Anzziani is sending out between 10 and 20 rewards per week. The goal is to have all early rewards shipped by the end of 2023.

The oscilloscope watch has two modes. As the name suggests, it functions as both a watch and an oscilloscope. The watch mode has several useful features including formatting options for 24 vs 12 hour layouts and even an alarm. Of course, it also has an oscilloscope mode that works when the probes are inserted.

The watch is powered by an 8-bit Xmega microcontroller with an internal PDI. It can be programmed to use custom mods using C. It has 8 buttons that can be programmed, as well, that surround the watch face on the outer edge. According to Anzziani, one goal of the project was to enable users to create their own apps for the watch.

The screen is a 1.28-inch, low-power E Ink display. Anzziani explains the expected battery life varies depending on whether or not the oscilloscope is in use. Without using the oscilloscope the battery can last around 30 days on a single charge. Using the oscilloscope cuts that down to about 12 hours.

If you want to get a closer look at this project, you can find details about it over at Kickstarter.  Rewards are no longer available but you can still read more about how the project goes together. If this project seems up your alley, you might also want to check out this project that uses a Raspberry Pi Pico to power an oscilloscope with a smartphone UI.

Zotac this week introduced its long-awaited next-generation VR Go wearable PC that greatly increases the performance of the company's family of systems aimed at virtual reality gamers. While the new machines designed for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality applications (VR) are inherently more powerful than their predecessors and even use professional-grade Nvidia graphics processors, they do not exactly pack the latest best CPUs for gaming and best GPUs.

Zotac's VR Go 4.0 wearable PCs are based on Intel's 11th Generation Core i7-11800H 'Tiger Lake' notebook processor with eight cores as well as Nvidia's RTX A2000 8GB (GA106, 2,560 CUDA cores, 20 RT cores) or RTX A4500 16GB (GA104, 5,888 CUDA cores, 46 RT cores) Laptop graphics processing units. The Zbox-VR7N2000 and Zbox-VR7N4500 machines come equipped with 16 GB of DDR4 memory (expandable to 32 GB) and a 512 GB M.2 SSD. For those needing extra storage, there is a 2.5-inch bay for an SSD or an HDD, as well as a 3-in-1 CD card reader. 

As far as connectivity is concerned, VR Go 4.0 systems feature Intel's AX1650 Wi-Fi 6 + Bluetooth 5.2 adapter, one GbE port, one USB 3.1 Type-C connector, two display outputs (one DisplayPort, one HDMI), six USB 3.1 and USB 3.0 Type-A ports, and 3.5-mm audio input/output connectors. 

Zotac's VR Go 4.0 wearable machines offer up to 50 minutes of battery life when working with AR/VR workloads on one charge, and their design allows on-the-go battery replacement (batteries are sold separately, charger is bundled) for longer AR/VR sessions.

While Zotac formally positions its VR Go systems for virtual reality gamers, these wearable PCs are particularly popular among developers of AR, VR, mixed reality applications, and games and those who use AR, VR, and MR software professionally. This is perhaps why the company opted to install professional-grade Nvidia RTX graphics processors instead of regular GeForce RTX GPUs. Meanwhile, these PCs hardly offer unbeatable performance with CPUs and GPUs from 2020 – 2021. 

Zotac has not announced the pricing of its new VR Go 4.0 wearable PCs, though you can expect them to sell at a premium.

Xreal announced its name change (from Nreal) and a new product, the Beam, in late May. The Beam gives users more freedom when using the Xreal Air augmented glasses on-the-go, and greatly simplifies the mess of cables and adapters that previously complicated my experience.

Thanks to the announcement of the Apple Vision Pro headset, augmented and mixed reality glasses are getting a second look from customers these days. But whereas that device has more ambitious goals for how consumers will interact with computers and media content, Xreal is focused on making the augmented reality experience already present with its Air glasses more convenient and accessible. And whereas the Vision Pro costs $3,499, the Xreal Air + Beam bundle will set you back “only” $488.

Since I’ve already reviewed the Air glasses, I’ll focus this review primarily on the Beam and what it brings to the table. 

Specifications for the Xreal Beam

Design of the Xreal Beam

You would be forgiven if you thought that the Beam looks like a reimagined early Apple iPod. From its rounded rectangular shape to its circular navigation wheel with the center action button. The navigation wheel allows you to move up, down, left and right through the Beam's user interface. You then use the center button to select a menu choice.

A blue rocker switch on the right side of the device handles volume up/down while pressing and holding the switch activates mute. The black circular button below the navigation wheel serves as a back button for the Beam’s user interface, while the circular red button on the left side switches between display modes. One final button resides at the top of the Beam; this is the power button.

The sheer number of buttons and controls on the tiny device seemed overpowering to me at first. Still, I quickly became acclimated and found myself navigating through the menus by feel with the Beam in my pocket.

An LED bar sits above the navigation wheel. It pulses white from left to right while charging, increasing the bar length as the Beam approaches 100 percent. When battery levels are low, you'll see a small red bar.

You'll find two USB-C ports on the bottom of the Beam. The left USB-C port is for charging the Beam, while the right USB-C port connects directly to the Air glasses. Xreal says that the Beam can last up to 3.5 hours per charge, while a 30-minute charge via USB-C (27-watt support) will replenish 50 percent of the 4870 mAh battery. Thankfully, the Beam can be used while charging.

The Beam measures 4.16 x 2.59 x 18.2 inches and weighs 5.4 ounces. It easily fits in the front pocket of my shorts.

Setting up the Xreal Beam

Unfortunately, getting started with the Beam was an exercise in frustration. The first thing I did was take the Beam out of the box and plug in a USB-C cable to charge it. After about 15 minutes, I returned to the device and turned it on. I plugged in the Air glasses and was greeted with an Xreal animation screen and allowed to choose my preferred language. Next, I was asked to join a Wi-Fi network (the Beam supports Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0). Once the Beam connected to the internet, this is where the troubles began.

First, the Beam asked me to install a v0.3.5 update, which came in at 787.17MB. With my Wi-Fi 6E router (about 3 feet away) and a 500 Mbps internet connection, the download should have taken around 20 seconds. However, the Beam puttered around at approximately 0.5 Mbps. Adding insult to injury, after 25 minutes, the download reached 75 percent completion and unexpectedly restarted the process. The slow download started again until it reached around 80 percent, and it restarted again. This happened multiple times until it finally completed the download after two hours of frustration.

The Beam then took another few minutes to install the update and restart. Once it restarted, it downloaded an update for the Air glasses, which took about 5 minutes from start to finish.

Taking two hours to download and install a less-than-800MB update with a fast internet connection is unacceptable. I talked to Xreal about this experience and was told that my experience was unfortunate and that their engineers would ensure that they would fix things server-side so that incidents like this don’t happen again.

Using the Xreal Beam

Once I got past the cantankerous setup process, using the Beam with the Air glasses was straightforward on multiple computing platforms (AirPlay and Miracast are supported). I first tried the Beam with an iPhone 14 Pro, and the connection process was far more streamlined. When I initially reviewed the Air glasses, I not only needed to use a $59 Air Adapter, but also a $49 Apple Lightning to Digital AV Adapter. This made for a heavy and bulky setup when using the Air glasses.

With the Beam, I only needed to plug in the USB-C cable from the Air glasses. The Beam slipped into my pocket, out of sight and out of mind. Once the Beam is wirelessly connected, there are three options for how images project onto the Air glasses.

Smooth Follow allows the projection to follow your head movements, keeping everything in front of your face whether you’re running, lying down, or bending down to tie your shoes. Body Anchor places the projection at a fixed point of your choosing (three degrees of freedom). However, as you move your head up/down or right/left, the projection will move out of your field of view, just as a physical monitor would as you move your head around. Sideview places the projection in a resizable “window” in the top corner of your field of view. This gives you a fuller view of the world in front of you while still giving access to projected images at a glance.

To wirelessly connect with an Apple device, like the iPhone 14 Pro, I needed to swipe down from the top right of the screen and tap on the screen mirroring button. From there, I selected the Xreal Beam from the list of available devices. Then, the iPhone's screen was presented in front of my eyes on the Air glasses, in portrait orientation. However, opening up a YouTube video or a video I streamed from my Plex Server would automatically place the video in landscape orientation.

It was a similar process with a 14-inch MacBook Pro. I clicked screen mirroring from the Menu bar and selected the Xreal Beam from the list of available display devices. Then my entire macOS desktop was shown on the glasses.

I next tried the Beam with a NUC 8 Windows 11 desktop, which again, couldn't have been any simpler. I navigated to System → Display → Connect to Wireless Display and selected Xreal Beam from the list. I was then given the option to extend my workspace to the Air glasses or duplicate my desktop; I chose to duplicate the workspace for simplicity’s sake.

For fun, I tried Cyberpunk 2077 on an HP Victus 16 with the Air glasses and Beam. After connecting the Beam as a wireless display in Windows 11, I loaded Cyberpunk 2077 and began playing. Overall, the image quality looked good but was slightly washed out in darker game areas. I placed the light-blocking shades over the lenses to combat this, significantly increasing contrast and color vibrance. The audio from the game is also played through the speakers on the Air.

However, I did run into some issues. When the action started picking up or I made quick movements, the picture would stutter, and the audio would cut out. Sometimes it would take a few seconds to “catch up.” This is an obvious deal breaker in a fast-paced game like Cyberpunk 2077. If you instead play games that move more leisurely, these performance hangs likely won’t be an issue.

I also used the extended desktop feature of the Air glasses and the beta version of the Xreal Nebula app (without the Beam accessory, as this feature isn’t supported yet when going wireless). I had success in both Windows 11 and macOS with the Nebula app, although it was much more stable with the latter. As you can see in the clip below, I used the Nebula app in Windows 11 to invoke the Augmented Reality Desktop. This allowed me to string together three desktops by panning my head around using the Air glasses. While the YouTube video clip played fine on my Intel NUC 8, it stuttered a bit on the Air glasses using the Augmented Reality Desktop.

One thing I noticed when using the Beam is that it can get very hot. The second revelation was that I soon realized that the Beam has an internal fan, which exhausts through a vent behind the power button. I didn’t notice the inclusion of the fan until I turned off my TV and heard a fan noise that I didn’t recognize from my MacBook Pro or NUC 8. Instead, the Beam was blowing out a surprising amount of hot air for such a small device.

Bottom Line

The Air + Beam combo is a boon for iPhone users, as you no longer must deal with the clunky adapters and wires that were previously required. Now, you can plug the glasses into the Beam and enjoy wireless streaming.

Wireless streaming from a Mac, Windows, Android or iOS/iPadOS device is simple. Sitting back on the couch watching YouTube wirelessly with my iPhone 14 Pro, Air glasses, and Beam was a hoot.

The Xreal Beam is now available at $119, which is a hefty price to pay for wireless connectivity, especially considering that the Xreal Air glasses already cost $379. However, Xreal offers an Air + Beam bundle for $488, representing a tiny $10 savings.

The big question, though, is, should you buy it? If you aim to play fast-paced games on your Windows PC with the Air glasses, then the answer is no. The stuttering, lag and audio cutouts confirm this isn’t a gaming device. However, the Beam opens some pretty intriguing possibilities if you want to watch movies and TV shows or play slower-paced games wirelessly. The Xreal Beam is an excellent little accessory for those that already own a pair of Air glasses. And even if you don’t already have Air glasses, the Beam might add just enough functionality to make you want the glasses.

Have you ever wished your smartwatch was more of a computer and less of a fashion item? Have you ever felt the need to type on keys that are surely too small for normal human fingers to use? The dream of the 1980s was a computer the size of a watch, and in the 21st century we are gifted with this and more. Chinese company Lilygo, whose products we’ve featured before, harks back to the 1980s aesthetic with this tiny Bluetooth keyboard, as spotted by CNX Software.

It's cute, but the amount of actual use you can get out of it is questionable. And sadly, you'll require a specific smartwatch, so there's no turning your Apple Watch into a productivity machine this time. The Watch-Keyboard-C3, as it's snappily known, connects to an ESP-32 C3 microcontroller and a LilyGo T-watch. The watch is included with the keyboard bundle if you don't have one. There's also an optional audio module with a mic and speaker.

The mini keyboard connects over Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 4 for all your wireless networking needs, and a USB-C port for power and data. There's also a three-axis accelerometer on board, really designed for counting steps but with the right code it could be used as a gesture control input system. The tiny computer can be programmed via Arduino tools; there's no desktop OS on this one. In addition, there's some sample code on GitHub in two repositories, but not much else regarding documentation or tools. 

The ESP32-C3 was announced in November 2020 and it is part of the larger ESP32 range of boards which started way back in 2016. The ESP32 microcontrollers have become popular thanks to its low cost, plentiful supply and ease of use. The many models of ESP32 come in various configurations. Some offering single or dual-core CPUs with speeds reaching 240 MHz and up to 512KB of SRAM. With faster CPU speeds and more RAM than a Raspberry Pi Pico W, ESP32's are a good choice for the established maker.

The Keyboard-C3 is available right now from AliExpress for just shy of $50, and you can probably get it for less with an AliExpress promo code, if you want the whole package and don't already have a compatible smartwatch.

Fujitsu today announced it cracked Tbps+ speeds on fiber networking communication, unlocking the ability to transfer the equivalent to six 25GB Blu-ray discs in a single second. 

The company announced its most recent photonics technology (which is expected to have market availability by early 2023) unlocks up to 1.2 Tbps per wavelength, while enabling four times longer signal reach before the signal begins to decohere. With the roll-out of 5G tech and the development of even faster communication protocols, there'll be a greater and greater need to efficiently and rapidly shuffle data around — something photonics is particularly keen at.

Fujitsu claims breakthroughs across the board; not only are the signal reach and bandwidth per wavelength figures unheard of, but the company also managed to cut power consumption down to an industry-leading 120mW per transmission capacity (Gbps). 

The approach is an integrated one, and isn't limited to materials breakthroughs. Fujitsu designed its new optical networking solution in parallel with the world's first liquid-cooling solution for optical networking. A state-of-the-art digital signal processing LSI (DSP) is also deployed in the self-contained solution, which even pairs a low-level machine learning capability that aims to optimize power consumption and traffic. 

This last point is crucial as, according to Fujitsu, an optical networking system is rarely optimized to its implementation environment, and can't easily adapt to changing circumstances (such as signal or equipment degradation). The company says implementation of its machine learning system makes it possible to automatically capture and analyze the status of optical network components such as optical fibers and optical transmission systems with a high degree of accuracy, allowing for on-the-fly adjustments according to operating conditions.

All the innovations have led to a system that isn't limited to breaking records in the amount of data it can transmit. Fujitsu's networking solution also occupies a third of the space of a conventional air-cooled optical networking solution and has a greater operational capacity due to the improved cooling system. 

According to the company, all these improvements have led to a severely cut-down CO2 footprint for their networking solution (the company quotes a 70% reduction across manufacturing, logistics, and operation), which is definitely more than a simple checkmark on the "environmental sustainability" book.

Lenovo's moving to put a display on your face. As companies like Meta, Apple and others are reportedly looking into smart glasses, the Lenovo Glasses T1 are meant to give you a large, private viewing experience for phones and laptops by acting as a second display. Whether consumers will want to play mobile games, stream movies or extend their PC’s desktops onto glasses is an open question.

The Glasses T1 look like sunglasses. They're a bit bulkier, of course and you can't miss the USB Type-C cable attached to them. Lenovo will include swappable nose clips, and the temple arms are adjustable. There's also a frame to attach prescription lenses, though you'll have to find an optician to cut lenses in the right shape.

Lenovo says that the Glasses T1 will work with USB-C devices running Windows, Android, and macOS, as well as iOS devices, though iPhones and iPads with Lightning connectors will need Lenovo's HDMI to Glasses Adapter accessory and Apple's Lightning Digital AV Adapter. On a spec sheet, Lenovo specifically claims that compatible devices include the Moto Edge S, iPhone 12 and 13, Samsung Galaxy S 21, and Lenovo ThinkPad, ThinkBook, Yoga and Legion PCs have been tested to work. Note that the USB-C port must be one that outputs video.

The Glasses have Micro OLED display tech showing at a resolution of 1920 x 1080 per eye. There are also built-in speakers.

Android phones will work differently depending on the companies that manufacture them. Motorola Smartphones will use the Ready For desktop experience, while Samsung's phones will show up with Dex.

I got to try an early build of the Glasses T1, which left me with mixed feelings. WIth the glasses attached to a Motorola phone, I could play some games or play movies on lenses that appeared bigger, but without much demo material on the device, it was hard to get a feel for it.

On a Windows laptop, it made slightly more sense. Windows detects the Glasses T1 as a second monitor, and you can use a button on the Glasses to "lock" the screen in one location so you can turn your head away from it. In theory, I could see someone using these if they were working on a train or a coffee shop on some sort of classified document; no one else could see what they're working on. But on that early unit, it was tough to see the top edges of the screen, and some text was really small. I think it would require a lot of fine tuning with resolution and scaling to make this work.

Unlike Lenovo's ThinkReality glasses for enterprise users, there's no computing taking place on the glasses. (The ThinkReality A3 could make multiple augmented reality monitors appear at once on Windows devices.) That also means that there is no hand tracking or other flourishes. Everything is controlled by the device you plug the glasses into, which means that you can’t walk too far away from the keyboard or put the phone down (not that the wire would let you).

The Lenovo Glasses T1 will launch in late 2022 in China (under the moniker Lenovo Yoga Glasses) and will follow in "other select markets" in 2023. No pricing has been announced, and a press release says it won't come until the wearable goes on sale. One Lenovo rep ballparked that this consumer wearable display could go for as much as $600, but that it's yet to be finalized.  

As you settle back on the 5:40 pm train waiting to get home, there's a single thought on your mind: beating Elden Ring's Malenia, Blade of Miquella boss. You've been keeping her move set in the back of your mind all day — details stewing amongst work emails and calls as you recall the telltale signs of her attacks and contemplate the timing needed for a perfect dodge. 

There's just one issue: By the time you get home, you'll only have about thirty minutes left to try and vorpal Malenia out of existence before life and responsibilities put you back in your place. "There must be a better way to use my hour-and-a-half commute", you think. But you don't want to force yourself to game on a 7-inch Steam Deck — you want the all-encompassing experience of a 120-inch TV, where you can shut out the world and actually focus on "floating like a butterfly" against Malenia's onslaught. 

Did that narrative elicit a glimpse of hope in your eyes? You're not alone — 4,280 people pledged over $2.6 million on Kickstarter for the Viture One XR goggles, blowing the company's modest $20,000 starting goal out of the water in a matter of hours. To put this into perspective, the original Kickstarter for the Oculus Rift raised $2,437,429.

The Viture One promises to put a 120-inch, 1080p, 60 Hz display front and center. That's not much compared to the current best VR headsets out there, especially when you take into account the comparably-limited 43º field of view (FOV) allowed by the Viture One glasses, while the 1,800 nit capability will certainly come in handy in less obscure environments. But this isn't a VR headset, so don't let the limited FOV lock you up.

Part of the interest in the Viture One stems from the goggles themselves. The glasses weigh just 77 grams and feature an embedded directional speaker (for privacy), a control pad, color-changing film that dims or brightens (5% to 80% transparency) content based on viewing conditions, and prescription lens options. The glasses can be connected to any USB-C device that has video output and power delivery — this includes the Steam Deck, many Android phones, and compatible laptops and desktops. There's even an optional dock that lets you connect to HDMI-bound devices, such as game consoles, and ensures sustained power delivery.

The most interesting aspect of the Viture One may not be the glasses but the optional neckband, which adds wireless connectivity. The neckband weighs 170 grams and has a 3200MAh battery, and features 5G and Wi-Fi connectivity, 2GB of RAM, and 128GB of ROM, which allows for a full-fledged app ecosystem for content consumption.

The Viture One aims to be the "Steam Neck" of gaming through its support for cloud gaming apps (such as Microsoft's xCloud, Nvidia's GeForce Now, and also lesser-known cloud gaming options from Parsec, Shadow, and Boosteroid). For those who aren't interested in cloud gaming, the neckband also lets you install streaming apps (and your own games gallery) through Steam Link, Sony's PSPlay, Rainway, and AMD Link.

The Viture One also supports popular streaming apps such as Netflix, Disney+, AppleTV+, and — wait for it — 3D movies via Vudu and Plex integration. 

Viture expects to start shipping the Viture One in October or November of this year, so backers shouldn't have to wait too long. The Viture One XR glasses alone cost $429 (early bird)/$479 on Kickstarter and will retail for $549. If you want accessories, the glasses-and-dock combo costs $529 (early bird)/$579, as does the glasses-and-neckband combo — both combos will retail for $678. The glasses with both accessories costs $629 (early bird)/$679 and will retail for $807. The most popular packages seem to be the glasses-and-neckband combo and the "ultimate" glasses and both accessories combo; both have just four early bird slots left at the time of this writing. 

Always remember: Backing a Kickstarter project isn't the same as buying a product. It's an investment, and there are many ways Kickstarter projects can fail to deliver as promised (or even fail to deliver at all). But with over $2.6 million in funding, we hope the Viture One will deliver. 

Razer has quietly pulled mentions of "N95 grade" protection from the web page for its Zephyr face mask following online criticism.

As recently as January 5, per the Wayback Machine, Razer's website read that mask used "N95 grade filters with two-way protection." That language is no longer on the site. The current page now reads that "Razer Zephyr is not a certified N95 mask, medical device, respirator, surgical mask or personal protective equipment (PPE) and is not meant to be used on medical or clinical settings."

The change in language comes following disapproval on social media. Over the weekend, YouTuber Naomi Wu led the charge with a series of tweets on the topic. PCMag had previously drawn attention to the labeling, as well. Razer had suggested it was using N95-grade filters while also claiming that the mask was not personal protective equipment, or PPE, suggesting it didn't meet the standard of protection it promised.

"Razer would like to clarify that while the filters used in the Razer Zephyr Wearable Air Purifier have been tested for 95% Particulate Filtration Efficiency (PFE) and 99% Bacterial Filtration Efficiency (BFE), per the statements on the website and documentation for the product, the wearable by itself is not a medical device nor certified as an N95 mask," the company said in a statement to Tom's Hardware. "To avoid any confusion, we are in the process of removing all references to “N95 Grade Filter” from our marketing material. We will also directly reach out shortly to existing customers to clarify. Customers with any further questions about the Razer Zephyr Wearable Air Purifier should contact our Customer Service at https://support.razer.com/."

On social media, Razer highlighted a page called "The Science Behind Razer Zephyr," which lists a series of standards that the company claims to have met and the results for its testing. Here, too, the page now carries the fine print that the filters, which are disposable and sold separately from the mask after the initial pack is used up, are neither N95 nor PPE.

In our review of the Razer Zephyr, I complained about problems with fit, including the seal on my face, as well as discomfort, which made me less likely to want to wear the mask. But the lack of protection is another blow to the mask.

That may not affect Razer, however. The company has been releasing the Zephyr in limited-edition "drops," which have been going out of stock immediately and becoming valuable showpieces on Instagram and other social media sites.

At CES 2022, Razer announced its Zephyr Pro mask, which adds voice amplification through a microphone and speaker. It will start at $149.99, which is $50 more than the original Zephyr. Razer's site for that mask also used N95 language, but now reads that Razer has "adopted standards" from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which is run under the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC spokesperson Jade Fulce told Tom's Hardware that "NIOSH has not been in contact with Razer."

As the Omicron variant of Covid-19 rages through the United States and the rest of the world, experts have called for people to wear medical masks or N95 or KN95 masks for better protection and to prevent spreading illness. It is now clear that Razer's Zephyr does not meet that kind of standard.

Updated January 11 at 9:13 a.m. ET with comment from Razer and confirmation from the CDC that NIOSH did not reach out about the Zephyr.

Updated January 11, at 9:42 a.m. ET Additionally, Naomi Wu states she contacted NIOSH, and claims NIOSH contacted the FDA. We regret the error. 

We first got our hands on the Nreal Light augmented reality (AR) glasses in early January 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing. So it’s been nearly two years and the Chinese firm is now ready to bring the AR glasses to the United States. 

Nreal says that around 20 games that support its AR headset are available to download from the Google Play store for the device for those willing to give it a try. However, if gaming is not your forte, then partaking in a movie via the virtual 220-inch display (at a six-foot distance) is sure to get your attention.

The Nreal Light will be available to purchase exclusively at Verizon retail stores starting on November 30th. This is probably the best purchase option for those new to AR devices, as you can trial the Nreal Light in-store to see if this is an experience that suits your gaming or productivity workflows.

We should mention that availability is limited to just 20 Verizon retail stores across the U.S., with New York City accounting for seven of those locations. However, the AR glasses will also be available from Verizon’s online store starting on December 2nd. 

"Nreal Light's availability in the U.S. has been highlighy anticipated," said Nreal CEO and founder Chi Xu. "We couldn't be more excited to be announcing the sales of Nreal Light at Verizon retail stores as this marks a momentous milestone not only for Nreal, but also the AR industry as a whole." 

The Nreal Light is priced at $599 and is supported by the following Android smartphones:

• Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G
• Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G
• Samsung Galaxy S21 5G
• Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 5G
• Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G UW
• Samsung Galaxy S20 5G UW
• Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G
• OnePlus 8 5G UW

Nreal says that its AR glasses will also work with iPhones, although the company didn’t provide further guidance on that support. 

Stay tuned for our full review of the Nreal Light AR glasses, which is coming shortly.

Editor's Note: January 10, 11:29 a.m. ET: Razer has removed all mention of N95 protection from its website. The company still claims that the mask and its filters meet a number or standards under "guidance from regulatory agencies." However, all mentions of N95 protection should be disregarded, which is a major change you should consider when deciding which mask to wear.

I'm wearing a mask with RGB lighting on my face.

Two years ago, the first part of that sentence would have seemed crazy enough. Wearing a face mask? On the subway? In the grocery store? Me? Everyone?

But nearly two years into a global pandemic, I'm used to that. When Razer announced "Project Hazel" at CES 2021, the idea of a gaming-grade face mask went viral. Like most of Razer's concepts, many thought it would never officially arrive. But it's here. And I'm wearing it. I have N95-level protection around my nose and mouth, and also RGB lighting. Fans are blowing filtered air towards my face. 

Only time will tell whether the pandemic and its lessons are here to stay. And, for better or worse, the same can be said for the most extreme elements of gamer culture permeating our lives. But glowing and whirring aggressively at the intersection of both these phenomena, while also being sold at highly inflated prices by scalpers just like graphics cards or consoles, the Razer Zephyr face mask feels like the product of our human moment if ever there was one. 

Razer Zephyr Design and Comfort  

The Razer Zephyr’s design lands halfway between Marvel’s Star-Lord and the kind of gas mask worn by DC’s Golden-Age Sandman. Add in a sprinkle of Razer’s Chroma lighting, just like any of the company’s peripherals, and you have a gamer-focused face mask.

Face masks are inherently defensive tools, keeping you from spreading viruses and disease to others, as well as hopefully giving you a bit of protection from those around you who may be contagious. But the Zephyr is straight up aggressive, with clean lines that turn into sharp edges, making a huge Joker-esque smile with two nozzles jutting out of it (where the fans are housed). 

In the center, there's a clear section that lets others see your mouth. This is a welcome feature, as most masks, by necessity, hide your face entirely. With the Zephyr, you can see someone speaking — a benefit for anyone who has difficulty hearing and needs to read lips — and get a better sense of their emotions. There's an anti-fog coating applied to the clear section, which the small print says should last about three months. Razer includes a 30-milliliter bottle of anti-fog spray to replace it with, which should be effective for two years from the manufacturer date on the bottle. We received our unit in mid-October, and our bottle was dated September 2021.

The nozzles, frankly, look ridiculous. It's bad enough we're in a pandemic, so I'm not sure we needed to go apocalypse chic with the masks. Each one has an RGB strip around it that can be customized via a mobile app. In addition, there’s more lighting in the mask, which can light up your mouth, making your facial expressions more clear in the dark — or just make them green, purple, red, or any other color.

The mask is secured to your head via two straps. Both go over your head when you put it on. The one on the bottom rests at the nape of your neck and can be tightened by pulling the top strap up. The one on the top rests on the back of your head, slightly above your ear line, and can be tightened with a pull string. It took me a while to find the optimal fit, but that part was largely comfortable, even after hours of wear. That's surprising, because I have a big head! But I also found that the strings could move around throughout the day, requiring readjustment. 

But the silicone face guard was another story. This part is critical, as it's the component that makes a seal around your face, protecting you from the virus and others from getting anything you may be carrying. But Razer's one size fits all mentality means that this piece has to fit you for both comfort and effectiveness. Unfortunately for me, that wasn't the case.

I just got the faceguard over my mouth and nose. If I wore the mask on the very top of my nose, the bottom of the inside of the guard was brushing up against my bottom lip. Wearing it on the bridge of my nose was slightly better, but either way, I felt as if too much weight was on my nose. Oddly enough, I felt like perhaps the silicone wore in a bit and was slightly less painful against my face in subsequent days.

My wife, who has a significantly smaller head than I do, could fit her chin in the seal, though she too felt the pressure on her nose. (It also didn't particularly bother her having the straps in her long hair. She was less happy about the way the straps slipped and hit her ears, which I didn't have an issue with.)

I've had masks pull on my ears and the back of my head before. Here, the issue was too much pressure on my face, which made my long sessions testing the device agonizing. You bet it left a mark. There was a red half-moon mark around my face when I took this off after wearing it for just a few hours. Other masks don't do that to me. (It did, however, feel like a tight seal, similar to the KN95 masks I've tried.)

In fact, Razer's manual says to have the Zephyr cover your nose, mouth and chin. That's common guidance for mask-wearing, but there was no way I could fit my chin in this mask, so it was left hanging out. Honestly, I felt a bit naked. But even in Razer's promotional materials, many people, especially men, had their chins sticking out. 

The mask looks bulky, but it's really only a front-facing piece. From the cheeks back, it's only held on with the straps. If you speak while you wear this mask, it will move around. Even moving your head around, like nodding or shaking, could cause it to move. That also basically banished its use for anything active, like jogging, unless it was tightened very securely. The parts where this is most noticeable are the tops of the plastic frame, which flare out into a wing shape. That's where it connects to the straps, but I can't help but think a stealthier design would have prevented some of that annoyance.

The Zephyr weighs 0.52 pounds (including the straps) and is 7.1 x 4.1 x 4.1 inches (181 x 104 x 104 mm). If you're the type to take your mask off and store it in a purse or pocket while you’re outside or otherwise don’t need it, that won't happen here. It comes with a cloth carrying case, which is good if you carry a backpack regularly.

By wearing the Zephyr, you also give up a significant portion of your peripheral vision. I definitely turned my head more often to see, but the biggest issue was looking down. Need to glance at a keyboard? Tilt your head. Want to check your phone? Be prepared to lift it higher than usual. Anything you usually dart your eyes down for is now basically blocked. In fact, this is why I preferred turning off the RGB lighting or at least making it a solid color. Out of the box, it flashes all its colors in the "wave" profile. However, it ends up being annoying to have it so close to your eyes all the time! 

The first time I wore it outside, I was embarrassed. So I turned off all of the lighting and hoped no one would look at me. And that's on the streets of New York City, where there's still a decent number of people wearing masks outside at any given time (though most have taken to only wearing them inside). Eventually, I turned the external and internal lighting on in a shade of purple. It was enough to be noticed, but more stylish (and dare I say subtle?) than flashing rainbows. Over the next few days, I would stick with solid colors, if I used them at all.

That being said, I didn't get a ton of attention. One or two people seemed a little surprised on my first venture out, but for the most part, no one paid me any mind whenever I left my apartment. I was sure that on my first visit to a store, someone would say something, but no one kicked me out of the CVS — that's New York City, baby. But I sure wouldn't want to get on a plane in this. Or even go to the bank. Despite being largely ignored, I still felt conscious about this half-pound mask on my face. 

Filters and Fans 

Besides the seal from the silicon face guard, the protection comes from what Razer refers to as "N95-grade filters." One goes in each nozzle, in front of the fans, while the other goes just under your mouth. Unfortunately, we weren't able to test their effectiveness.

"N95-grade" sounds like it's doing a lot of lifting. They're not N95 - just of that level. Razer's disclaimers make it very clear these are not designed to be personal protective equipment (PPE) or be used in clinical or medical settings. In fact, Razer calls the Zephyr a "wearable air purifier" on the packaging. This feels like a cop-out, but it is what it is.

These filters are custom shapes (circles for the nozzles and a rectangle with rounded corners for the bottom) that you can buy only from Razer. The package comes with three sets, which the company recommends tossing out and replacing every three days (with a day being eight hours of use). That means you get nine days of filters in the box. Razer designed the Zephyr to only be used with its filter, which, for now, means going back to the source to buy more. Razer charges $29.99 for a 30-day pack (assuming that you wear it 8 hours per day), which eventually means you're paying Razer a $30-per-month subscription to keep using the mask you bought from them. That's on top of the face mask’s $99.99 price.

The upside of the filters is that they’re easy to change. The ends of both nozzles and the piece to exhale through your mouth are held on with magnets. They're simple to remove, slip in a new filter and replace. You can quickly complete the whole process in less than a minute. 

Despite the filters, Razer improves airflow in the mask with a pair of fans. They have two settings: low (4,200 rotations per minute) and high (6,200 rotations per minute). The benefit here is to let you breathe more comfortably. I found that it works, to a point. If you don't like breathing in a mask now, the Zephyr isn't going to change it. But especially at the high settings, I could feel more fresh air in my mask at any given time. However, I tended to keep it on low. You can adjust between the settings (as well as turning the fans off) with a button on the back of the right nozzle.

But these fans are small and noisy. On low, it's an audible droning noise that I found annoying, though, with earbuds in I could largely ignore it. Set to high, and it's even louder and high-pitched, so much so that you can hear it from across a room. If I were wearing this in an office, I'd feel bad turning the fans on because it could disturb people around me.

Outside, I didn't notice the fan noise as much; ambient noise really does wonders there. But I also found I didn't need the fans as much outside, period, as fresh air was naturally flowing around me.

You can control the fans with the push of a button on the right nozzle. It's one of the very few extra features on this mask that isn't relegated to the smartphone app. 

Battery Life

Razer's battery life estimates may be conservative. It has a number of them depending on fan speed and lighting:

I ran down the battery with lighting in a static color and with the fan on the lower speed, which is how I used the Zephyr most of the time. After six hours, it was still at 50%. From there, though, it started draining quickly. Almost forty five minutes later, I got a notification on my phone that it was time to charge the Zephyr. When I checked the app, it was at 10% capacity. In total, it ran for just over 7 hours at these settings.

The app is the only way to check how much of a charge you have left. It would be nice to at least get a green, yellow or red flash based on how much battery capacity you have by pressing a button.

On the plus side, you don't need a battery for the Zephyr to work at all. The very basic filtration aspect, like other masks, doesn't require a battery. But if you want the fans and the RGB, you'll want to plug it in every day. 

The Zephyr charges with a USB Type-C-to-A cable included in the box, but there's no wall wart. When it charges, the inner lights glow red and then turn green when the battery is full. A small gasket protects the port on the right side of the mask. Be sure to swing it as far as you can from the port because it's easy to block the cable from making a tight fit when you plug it in.

All batteries degrade over time, and there's no easy way to open the Zephyr up and replace the battery later on.  

Razer Zephyr App

You could, if you wanted, never touch Razer's mobile app. After all, you can turn the Zephyr on and off using the button on the unit and control the fan speed.

But let's be real -- anyone buying this wants to control the RGB lighting, and you need the app for that.

The app, available on both Android and iOS, has toggles to turn the fan, internal lighting, and nozzle lighting on or off. It also shows the current battery level (in increments of 10%, until you get to 5%). There's also a prominent button to buy filters, though it just redirects you to Razer's home page as opposed to the exact page where you need to be to top up your filter supply.

Is lighting really Chroma if it's not tied to Razer Synapse? Razer claims it is, and the lighting here is fairly robust. Both internal and external lighting offer static colors, breathing effects (switching between two colors) and spectrum cycling. Only the outside lights get the "wave" effect that rapidly switches between colors, but those are obnoxious when they flash right in your peripheral vision

You can pick the lighting colors from a wheel, but there's also the option to change the RGB value numbers or type in hex codes. Colors can be saved in the app for later use, too.

The software also features customer support and feedback sections. Both let you choose between the "classic black" model I reviewed and a mysterious white option that hasn't, as of this writing, been announced.

"As of now there aren't plans to do additional color variants of Zephyr, unless there's community demand, so this is likely just a remnant of a very early idea when building the Zephyr app," a Razer spokesperson told Tom's Hardware. 

Bottom Line

The best mask for any sort of protection is the one you're going to wear. And while Razer goes to great lengths to ensure that this isn't meant explicitly for COVID-19 protection, we all know the context.

The Zephyr, while not too heavy, is bulky. That makes it difficult to take with you everywhere. And with its one size fits all approach, if you find it uncomfortable as I did, you may opt for something else. Perhaps tossing Razer's filters every few days creates less waste than an entire mask. But if that other mask is more comfortable for you, that's the one you should wear.

What Razer does offer with the Zephyr is a way to express yourself. If you love the cyberpunk Mad Max look of the Zephyr, by all means, go for it. In the same way many people get different designs on their masks, they can customize colors with Razer’s mask.

Razer has a ton of ideas to improve the mask experience. Having fresh air is nice, though we're unsure how that affects safety in the long run. The solid anti-fog system to make it easier to see mouth movements and facial expressions is a legitimately good idea.

But this mask isn't welcoming. It tries to do too much and ultimately masters none of it. It's big, it's aggressive, and it can even be loud.

If this mask helps you express yourself as a person, a gamer, a fan of Razer or even just lets you show off your favorite color, and that's worth $99 and filters to you, by all means, go for it. But the benefits that this mask brings come with an equal number of issues. 

I think I'll be turning back to my cloth masks with built-in filters and some KN95's when I need them. They don’t have fresh air actively pumped through them or customizable RGB, but they're easy to carry and comparatively comfortable to wear. Before Razer gets there with a Zephyr for most people, we’re probably going to have to wait for version 2.0.

Razer is releasing its Zephyr face mask today, following months of memes after its CES 2021 debut as Project Hazel. But Zephyr is no prototype - it's $99.99 and on sale now.

The facemask uses what Razer refers to as "N95 grade" filters, which it claims can block up to 99% of air particles up to 0.3 microns, and that the filtration occurs both when you inhale and exhale. Razer's other big claim is that these filters last three times as long as disposable masks. The filters include one for each side nozzle and one for the bottom of the unit.

The company also claims that the filters are "FDA-registered," though that doesn't mean very much. "When a facility registers its establishment and lists its devices, the resulting entry in the FDA's registration and listing database does not denote approval, clearance, or authorization of that facility or its medical devices," the FDA website reads. Additionally, Razer claims the Zephyr is "not a medical device, respirator, surgical mask, or personal protective equipment (PPE) and is not meant to be used in medical or clinical settings." This is similar to legalese I've seen on the cloth masks I wear daily. Furthermore, the company states that Zephyr "is not tested specifically against the COVID-19 virus but offers the same functionality and adequate protection due to its 99% BFE rating."

Behind each of the filters are air chambers with intake fans. You can toggle between two fan speeds: 4,200 rotations per minute (low) or 6,200-rpm (high) with a button. You can also turn the fans off, of course. The company recommends the "low" setting and sets the mask to that by default, though claims that "active users" — presumably those exercising with an oversized RGB facemask— should use the high setting.

While Project Hazel was worn on straps behind the ears, Zephyr has a pair of adjustable straps that are worn behind the head. On the front, there's a removable silicone face seal that can be cleaned. Razer claims the combination of the straps and seals will make it fit almost any head size, but we haven't had the chance to put it on our domes just yet.

The front of the mask has a transparent design so that others can see your face. This should allow others to make out your facial responses (smiles, frowns, etc.) and, for people who cannot hear or have difficulty doing so, allow for lip reading. To prevent it from fogging up, you'll need to apply an included anti-fog spray. There are also lights in the chamber for when you're wearing Zephyr at night.

That lighting, as well as the lights on the ventilation, are controlled by Razer's Chroma RGB, with up to 16.8 million colors. These don't connect to Razer Synapse on a PC, but rather an app on your smartphone.

Despite being able to see your face, another feature to help conversation has been cut from the original concept: voice amplification. Razer states that ditching the amp allowed for more comfort and breathability, as well as a larger battery.

To power the lighting and the fans, Razer has included a battery in the mask. The Zephyr charges over USB Type-C (The charging case that doubled as a sanitizing station from the Project Hazel concept didn't make the final cut.) Razer suggests the battery lasts "up to 8 hours" with a low fan speed and Chroma lighting turned off.

For $99.99, you'll get the Razer Zephyr and 3 sets of filters, which by the company's own recommendation is nine days of usage. You can buy a new filter pack directly from Razer for $29.99 for 10 sets (or 30 days of use). That effectively turns the Zephyr into a monthly subscription filter service after those first days.

For $150, you can get the Zephyr Starter Pack, which gives you 33 sets of filters for 99 days of use. This is definitely a better deal, especially if you won't be wearing the mask as a daily driver and want to stretch out your filter supply.

This isn't something you see every day: Artifact Studios has made a sneaker that has all the bells and whistles of a full-grown gaming PC equipped with an RTX 3080 Founders Edition and paired with NZXT components. If you're a fan of high-end sneakers and PC hardware, this is a dream come true!

The shoe features a black and white color scheme, awfully similar to that of NZXT's H710 computer case that comes in a black and white finish. There's a CPU block on the side of the shoe that looks like the block from an NZXT Kraken AIO. The screen on the CPU block is fully functional, just like the real thing.   

Inside the shoe, there's a fully built PC inside that you can see through a fake-looking tempered glass, with a motherboard, four memory sticks, another CPU water block with another fully functional screen, and fans on the bottom of the "case." It looks very realistic — you can even see a fake CMOS battery on the motherboard itself.

This shoe is definitely a work of art; for now, though it seems it is just a prototype. But maybe with enough hype, Artifact Studios will make a limited production run of the NZXT-themed shoe!

(If you haven't caught on already, no, this shoe is not a real gaming PC.)