Pointers at Glance
- Nreal has unveiled its Air AR glasses in the US. Now, they play nicely with iOS.
- The company’s Nreal Air glasses have been accessible in the UK since May.
- When it was released, the glasses featured Android support and could mirror the screens of laptops, but anyone in the Apple ecosystem was left out of the AR party.
Nreal is shipping a new adapter for its US launch that provides mirroring for iOS devices. Android users will still have access to the full experience through Nebula, a launcher that enables software to run natively on the glasses. In contrast, iOS users are limited to screen mirroring.
Also, a macOS version of the Nebula launcher is being launched, although only for Macs packing M-series processors, which allows multiple displays to be projected around your laptop if desired.
Yet, streaming content is the best use of AR glasses. Especially while travelling on a plane, the glasses enable the wearer to have an experience like they are sitting in front of a private large-screen TV instead of relying on whatever content is present on the small back-of-headrest systems.
Being AR glasses, the content is presented in front of the user without blocking the rest of their vision. It helps to have situational awareness of when the food cart rolls past.
Nreal expects the glasses to last for five hours when streaming continuously by the Air Casting feature. It is double the expensive Nreal Light glasses while also being 25 percent lighter.
The sacrifices from the Light to the Air are that spatial movement has been decreased to three degrees of freedom (DOF) from six degrees, and there are no front-facing or computer vision cameras.
Nreal Air is available on Amazon for $379. The iOS adapter is separately available for $59.
