Nreal Launches $600 ‘Light’ AR Glasses in United States via Verizon

Nov 30, 2021

Nreal, the Chinese startup behind the Nreal Light AR glasses which made a splash back at CES 2019, has now expanded to the United States, making the smartphone-tethered device available through select Verizon stores starting today.

Nreal Light is a pair of AR glasses that are physically connected to a smartphone via USB Type-C to drive its graphics and provide power, making it lighter than standalone AR headsets like HoloLens 2 since it’s offloaded the need for an internal battery, chipset, and cooling to the phone itself.

Relative to enterprise-focused AR headsets like Magic Leap 2 and HoloLens 2, it’s also less expensive due to the inclusion of cheaper and less complicated optics, called ‘birdbath’ optics, which project light from a microdisplay to the eye via what’s essentially a curved see-through mirror (among other things).

As for apps, the AR glasses play bespoke content in pre-defined playspaces, all of which you can download from Google Play, such as Table Trenches, a 1v1 tabletop strategy game.

It also boasts a screen mirroring function for your phone so you can use every app on it, as well as the ability to use multiple browser windows so you can watch a video and surf the web in different floating monitors. The tethered smartphone acts primarily as a laser pointer selector, something Oculus Go and Google Daydream users will be very familiar with in terms of UI interaction.

That’s the value proposition at least, as Nreal Light goes on sale in the US today for $599. Rollout in that country comes first to select brick-and-mortar Verizon stores. According to Tom’s Hardware, online sales via Verizon will kick off on December 2nd and those physical stores will act as places to demo Nreal Light before consumers buy it.