The ROG XREAL R1 glasses are the world's first 240Hz AR glasses, designed specifically for gamers. The AR glasses market is flooded with options from Viture, XREAL, RayNeo, and more. Some have incredibly bright displays, and some have HDR displays, but none offer a higher refresh rate than ROG and XREAL's R1 AR gaming glasses, which offer a blazing-fast 240Hz refresh rate. So what else do the ROG XREAL R1 AR gaming glasses offer? And, are they worth the extra outlay compared to the other options? Let's take a look.
ROG XREAL R1 glasses design and features
Diving into the specs, the headline features are the Micro‑OLED, FHD lenses, which also deliver a 240Hz Refresh Rate with 0.01ms Response Time, which no other AR glasses can match. They're also HDR-compatible, rated HDR10. You get a 57° Expanded Field of View, with the screen being, by default, a 171‑inch virtual screen at 4 meters, but this can be configured to different sizes and distances. It's got Native 3 Degrees of Freedom (3DoF). This is a spatial tracking technology that allows the glasses to track your head movements, including the pitch, yaw, and roll, directly on the device's own internal hardware. This allows it to support Anchor Mode and Follow Mode.
The lenses themselves are Electrochromic; they can adjust their transparency with the click of a button, which is super cool. And the darkest setting is genuinely dark. It supports instant 3D, which turns standard 2D content into an immersive 3D effect, as well as Bose audio. They're pretty plug-and-play through USB-C, so you can connect to phones, laptops, etc, but it also has deeper integration with the ROG Ally, which allows the device to directly control the glasses, which is pretty cool if you already have that device. Unlike other AR glasses, though, you also get a ROG Control Dock included, which features HDMI and DisplayPort, enabling compatibility with PCs and gaming consoles.
Look, let's be honest, AR glasses aren't yet particularly low-key, and although they're probably the best-looking AR glasses I've used, you'd still look a bit silly wearing them out and about! They've got a cool, futuristic, cyberpunk-y look about them, which I dig. Other cool design bits include RGB lighting on the side and, of course, the ROG and XREAL logos. Design score: 4.5/5.
ROG XREAL R1 glasses performance
The glasses are really easy to get working. Just plug in the USB-C cable into one end, and then the other into a supported device, and you're up and running. When they're connected, they're nice and bright at 700 nits, not the brightest on the market by any means, but bright enough for gaming, which is what these glasses are designed for. Weighing only 91 grams, they're pretty comfortable to wear, even for long periods, and you can, of course, change the nose pads if needed for a better fit, which are included in the box.
Changing the settings is also pretty simple. To access the menu, you press either the volume up or down buttons. Opening the menu, you have options for lens brightness, lens transparency, sound, and then the screen size and distance options. There's quite a lot of flexibility here; you can choose distances between 1 and 10 meters, with screen sizes from 33 to a whopping 267 inches. You can also access the more advanced menu, where you can adjust picture settings in greater detail, including 3D and RGB settings and more. It's quite deep, and there are tons of options available through its software.
On the Instant 3D feature, I thought that this would just be a gimmick, to be honest, but it handles content really well, particularly YouTube content, and it's a great experience watching F1 highlights, for example, and it handles the 2D to 3D conversion really nicely. But the main selling point of these glasses is their gaming performance, and there are both good and bad points for gamers looking to buy them. Something to note is that these glasses are set to a 120Hz refresh rate as default, with the headline 240Hz number only being available when connected to the dock.
When connected to the dock, it's pretty obvious, but if you're looking for AR glasses specifically for high refresh gaming, nothing comes close to these. The response time and high refresh rate combine to create a really strong, smooth gaming experience, but this performance comes at a cost: quite a bit of screen tearing and a blurrier image. According to Asus themselves, to achieve the 240Hz refresh rate on the micro-OLED panel, the image is first downscaled from the original resolution to 1920x540, then upscaled back to 1920x1080. So, with this 240Hz refresh rate, you do sacrifice significant sharpness.
Also, when you use the glasses connected to the dock, you can no longer use any of the buttons on the glasses; you have to use the switches on the dock, which is a bit jarring, but they're simple enough to use. The anchor and follow modes work very well indeed, and it tracks your movement with real accuracy. Plugging it into a PC or Mac works nicely too, even for day-to-day work tasks, although I'd still prefer a monitor, to be honest. Overall, it's in a league of its own for gaming performance, but it's not without its trade-offs. Performance score: 4/5.
ROG XREAL R1 glasses value for money
Value for money is another area in which the ROG XREAL R1 glasses take a bit of a hit. They cost £749 / $849. Compared to other products in the same product category, that's very much on the high side. Take the Viture Beast AR glasses, for example; they come in at $549, and they have almost double the brightness at 1250 nits and have a 120Hz refresh rate. Even when you take a look at something like the RayNeo Air 4 Pro, at just £289, which also has 120Hz and also has 1200 nits. Ok, you do get the included dock, and the electrochromic lens, etc., but you're looking at a really expensive set of AR glasses here, compared to the competition. Value score: 2/5.
ROG XREAL R1 glasses overall thoughts
Overall, I really enjoyed my time with the ROG XREAL R1 glasses. They're comfortable, look good, have a blazing fast refresh rate, and the included dock is really useful for simplifying the connection between the glasses and consoles/PCs. If you're looking to game on your new AR glasses and nothing else, nothing comes close to these in gaming performance. But as an overall package, there are some cheaper options out there that are brighter, higher-resolution, and, yes, they may only be 120Hz, but if that's all you need, it might not be worth paying a premium for the ROG XREAL R1 glasses. But, for gaming, it's the AR king. Overall score: 3.5/5.
