When you think of your ideal home entertainment setup most people will immediately imagine either a TV or a projector at its center, but I wanted to find out if a pair of XR glasses could fill the space instead?
I know, I know. When I pitched this idea to our Managing Editor of Entertainment, Matt Bolton, he looked at me like I’d just declared the sky was green. However, as I explained the competition, it didn’t seem so absurd.
XR glasses from the likes of Xreal, Rokid, Viture, and others are basically wearable TVs. They’re connected via a cable to your phone, computer, console, or other compatible device of choice and provide a giant AR screen (often equivalent to a screen well over 100 inches) that floats virtually in front of you.
Convinced this might make for an interesting comparison, Matt and our TV Hardware writer James Davidson helped me out with a 55-inch Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED.
The four-star TV costs $819.99 / £849.99 (about AU$1,230) but is often on sale for less – making it a solid mid-range option for people looking to upgrade their home setup without breaking the bank.
I pitted it against the $649 / £579 (about AU$1,180) Xreal One Pro – my pick for the best XR smart glasses as they’re especially great for entertainment.
If I’m honest, I didn’t expect the glasses to hold their own, but actually there are scenarios where they might be the best option for you.
XR glasses step up to the plate
The immediate perk of XR glasses is their portability.
Whenever I travel I make sure I have a pair of XR specs in my bag – especially if I have a train journey or a shorter flight where seats won’t have an entertainment system built into them.
I can predownload a series or a handful of movies and enjoy them as if I’m in my own personal movie theatre 30,000ft in the air – if you copy me just remember to also pack a pair of noise cancelling headphones, as while the glasses do have speakers, they can struggle against the roar of a plane engine.
My other favorite place to use my XR specs is while lying down in bed, as I can lazily project my screen above me for the ultimate relaxation setup.
In any environment the giant screen size is another massive plus. The vision filling screen makes everything feel that bit more cinematic without needing to have a giant projector screen or TV take up a copious amount of space in my home.
What’s more, while there are many occasions you’ll want to pair your glasses with headphones – to either improve their audio quality or to remove audio leakage – the spatial sound many models provide (such as the Xreal One Pro glasses) is superb at immersing you in your content of choice, based on my experience.
A home entertainment setup with surround sound can be a fair bit pricier to achieve.
Lastly, I appreciate the privacy they afford me.
Wherever I am I can enjoy my own private entertainment bubble and not have to worry about disturbing anyone – be that my fellow travelers or my neighbors. This is also handy for working remotely as I don’t have to worry as much about people seeing any sensitive documents like unannounced tech releases I’ve been prebriefed on ahead of a public launch.
TVs look for a home run
TVs might not be easy to move around, but they do have plenty of perks.
The most immediate is that you can share an experience being watched on a TV with everyone else in the room, whereas watching a movie on your XR glasses is a solo activity.
Privacy is an advantage of the glasses (as I highlighted above) but you can’t currently kick back on the couch with friends / family / flatmates and collectively enjoy a flick playing on your specs – for that, you’ll need a TV.
You’ll also find TVs boast a higher picture quality.
No consumer XR glasses (at the time of writing) like the ones I’m using offer 4K resolution – they’re stuck at full-HD or 1080p. Whereas in the TV world you can find 4K TVs on Amazon under $200 / £200 with minimal effort, and the Amazon Mini-LED I’m using for this comparison is also 4K.
I’d also argue that while TVs are more of a hassle to set up, once you have everything hooked up they provide a much smoother experience than using glasses. You can connect all of your devices to their multitude of ports ahead of time and use your controller to simply swap between them as required.
With glasses you’ll need to manually move your cable between devices, and there’s added friction for some tech like your games consoles, which require an HDMI-to-USB-C adapter in order to display on your specs.
You could argue devices like your phone would need a reverse adapter to show on your TV – whereas most handsets easily show up on XR glasses – but as so many smart screens offer some kind of screen mirroring, I’d argue that these home entertainment stalwarts offer a closer to frictionless experience in terms of device compatibility.
What’s more, smart TVs like the Amazon screen currently in my home don’t even need any external hardware to play content. Just download the streaming service of your choice on the Fire TV OS, log in, and press play. XR glasses don’t work unless you have something to plug them into.
A (surprisngly) close game
If you come away thinking a TV is best in general for your needs, then you’d match my takeaway.
I have a decently sized two-bed apartment with a big living room that doesn’t feel dominated by the 55-inch screen currently occupying the prime spot in my home entertainment setup.
While I love my Xreal glasses for travelling, if I had to give up the specs or the Amazon Mini-LED TV I wouldn’t think twice about my decision to boot the glasses.
But through my testing I can see plenty of scenarios where a TV might not be the best.
For example: if you live in a flat share or a smaller apartment where personal space is in short supply, filling it with a big TV isn’t practical.
XR glasses allow you to have your giant screen no matter how large your space is, and you can easily set it up with your laptop when you want to work, your console when you want to game, and then your phone when you’re ready to kick back in bed.
As I mentioned above you can also take the specs with you to make your travels much more entertaining.
The spaces are also ideal if you prefer privacy, as while sharing your screen is an advantage of TVs in social spaces, if you have thin walls and don’t want to disturb your neighbors, XR glasses with a pair of headphones will let you enjoy a home cinema experience without making any enemies.
When attached to a computer you can also use them for multitasking with multiple windows at once, which can also be handy if you want a multi-monitor setup but lack the budget or space to achieve this.
So even if XR glasses don’t win out for me, it’s a much closer race than I believed it would be, and based on what you most need from your tech glasses could be a much better investment than a TV.