XREAL AURA Android XR Glasses Open at $1,099

XREAL and Google opened orders for XREAL AURA on Oct. 28, the first wired XR glasses built on Android XR, at a launch price of $1,099 that runs through the end of the year. Buyers in the U.S., Canada and South Korea can order now, Japan follows on Nov. 2, and first shipments are due in mid-November, according to a Google blog post by Shahram Izadi, the company's vice president and general manager for XR.

Key takeaways

• The 12GB/256GB model costs $1,099 and the 16GB/512GB model $1,299 through year-end, down from list prices of $1,279 and $1,499.
• The glasses weigh 95 grams and offer a 70-degree field of view; a cabled "compute puck" with Qualcomm's Snapdragon Reality Elite chip carries the processing and battery.
• Gemini is built in and can see what the wearer sees, including a mirrored laptop screen.

XREAL AURA price and release date

XREAL's product page lists two configurations. The base model pairs 12GB of memory with 256GB of storage; the upper tier has 16GB and 512GB. Customers who already paid the higher list price are due refunds of $180 and $200, respectively, the page says.

That cut came fast. XREAL opened preorders on Oct. 9 to customers who had placed paid reservations, at $1,279 for the base model, TechNode reported at the time. Google says AURA is also sold through BestBuy.com in the U.S. Road to VR reported that XREAL plans wider retail in 2027, including select Google Store locations in the U.S. and Japan.

Specs: split design, 48 TOPS in the pocket

AURA uses optical see-through lenses, so the real world stays visible behind the virtual screens, and the lenses can be dimmed. Each eye gets a Sony Micro-OLED panel at 1920 x 1200 pixels, running at up to 120Hz with 1,050 nits of peak brightness, according to XREAL. An X1S coprocessor in the frame handles display and sensor work with a stated 3-millisecond motion-to-photon latency.

The heavy lifting happens in the 265-gram puck. Its Snapdragon Reality Elite platform is rated at 48 TOPS of AI processing, and it holds a 4,455mAh (34.84Wh) battery. Neither Google nor XREAL has published battery life in hours.

What Gemini does on the glasses

"Gemini on Android XR understands what you're seeing and doing," Izadi wrote, across both the real world and the wearer's screens. A wearer can plug a laptop into the puck by USB-C and mirror it without installing software, then ask Gemini to tidy windows or brainstorm on what is displayed. Google says Gemini can also help in games and find places in Google Maps.

The Play Store offers thousands of mobile and tablet games plus more than 150 apps made for XR, Google says, along with YouTube and Google TV.

Context: Android XR moves from headset to glasses

Android XR first shipped on Samsung's Galaxy XR headset, which launched in October 2025 at $1,799. AURA, first shown as Project Aura and formally announced June 16 at the AWE conference in Long Beach, California, is the platform's first glasses-style device. XREAL's June release listed the U.K. in the first launch wave, but the U.K. is not among the markets Google named on Oct. 28.

What's next

Japan orders open Nov. 2. The first shipments in mid-November will be the first test of whether buyers accept a tethered puck in exchange for a lighter frame, and whether Gemini's screen-aware help is useful enough to justify a four-figure price.

FAQ

How much does XREAL AURA cost? $1,099 for 12GB/256GB and $1,299 for 16GB/512GB through the end of 2026; list prices are $1,279 and $1,499.

Where can I buy XREAL AURA? From xreal.com in the U.S., Canada and South Korea now, in Japan from Nov. 2, and from BestBuy.com in the U.S.

Does AURA work on its own? No. The glasses connect by cable to a compute puck that holds the processor and battery.

References

• XREAL AURA: Wired XR glasses to watch, work, and play — Google (Oct. 28, 2026)
• XREAL AURA — XREAL product page
• A New Era of XR Begins: XREAL Launches XREAL AURA, Powered by Android XR, This Fall — XREAL via PR Newswire (June 16, 2026)
• Android XR's First AR Glasses 'XREAL Aura' Launch Today, Starting at $1,100 for Limited Time — Road to VR (Oct. 28, 2026)
• XREAL opens AURA preorders at $1,279 for Android XR glasses — TechNode (Oct. 9, 2026)