Fancy a portable, virtual, 120-inch screen to play games or watch movies anywhere you go? That’s the pitch for the Viture One XR glasses. They plug directly into your smartphone, laptop, or Nintendo Switch to act like any USB-C monitor. There’s also an optional neckband computer running Android for cloud gaming, remote play from your console, or movie streaming from Netflix.
The Viture One XR glasses first made headlines by raising over $3 million on Kickstarter, surpassing the original Oculus Rift. A year on, the mixed-reality glasses are shipping to backers. I snagged a Viture One Ultimate Pack to test, including the neckband, mobile dock, and a few other extras. While these are the best XR glasses I have used so far, it’s a low bar, and there’s still plenty of room for improvement.
A Long Way
Viture One XR glasses.
Photograph: VitureYou may be wondering what XR actually means. It's an umbrella term covering VR (virtual reality), AR (augmented reality), and MR (mixed reality). Virtual reality has fallen short of mass adoption, but it has carved out a healthy niche. Recently, it has been overshadowed by mixed or augmented reality. With Apple’s Vision Pro on the horizon, there’s renewed hype for a category that has already seen limited success with efforts like Google Glass and Microsoft Hololens.
