Asus unveils 240 Hz Micro-OLED gaming glasses capable of a virtual 171-inch screen, but the resolution feels like a whiff
In the first few days of the year, Asus has come in with a pair of gaming glasses that may be a contender for worst-named tech product at CES 2026.
As reported by Wccftech, the Asus ROG Xreal R1 AR is a set of glasses with a 240 Hz Micro-OLED screen which projects a virtual 171-inch monitor that effectively sits 4 meters away. Asus reports the glasses can cover 95% of the "human focus area" with its 57-degree field of view.
The one spec that gives me pause here is the FHD resolution (aka 1080p). With a screen being so close to your eyes and intended to give such a huge screen digital experience, this feels very low given how large the virtual screen will be.
Still, the display is impressive, with the Xreal R1 AR being the first 240 Hz gaming glasses. A Micro-OLED screen should look mighty impressive, but font fringing is a worry on OLED panels, especially at lower resolutions. These are designed as gaming glasses, so that should be less of a worry, but it's certainly something I'd consider if I wanted to use them in a productivity capacity too.
The glasses can plug into a control dock, which comes with DisplayPort and HDMI ports, for swapping between multiple devices. It's also compatible with mobile phones and Asus' gaming handhelds via a USB Type-C input.
The control dock can be left at home when not needed, which means you could technically bring the glasses and do some big-screen gaming on a train if you had the confidence. At 91 grams, the glasses don't seem super bulky, even if the idea of gaming glasses seems a tad cumbersome in the first place.
Asus does appear to have put thought into the onboarding process. Not only can it connect to the Asus ROG Ally or ROG Ally X without any setup, but the glasses also have 3D depth of field technology, which enables Anchor Mode. This allows you to pin a display to a fixed point, which you can look away from, without any worries.
This announcement comes just weeks after headsets using Meta's Horizon OS were put on ice. As someone who has spent a decent bit of time in VR, I get the appeal of projecting a huge virtual gaming screen right in front of me, but gaming glasses, especially at such a low resolution, feel like a big sell.
Ultimately, whether or not Asus' new glasses will be worth it depends heavily on the price point, and we don't have that just yet. The Xreal R1 AR glasses are reportedly launching in the first half of 2026, but that's about all we know. Still, it's not a bad way to kick off CES 2026.