Written by: Danny Tapia Wow! It almost feels surreal to be writing an article about an idea of 2 technologies which I'd hoped to be coming together is actually happening. Those 2 technologies are XREAL Augmented Reality Glasses and the OpenXR open standard for VR & AR applications and devices. As stated in the OpenXR Press release OpenXR 1.1 launch now supports XREAL glasses!
Press Release for OpenXR 1.1 shows support for XREAL
Now why is this such a big deal for me? Well for what feels to me being about a million years working with XREAL glasses it has actually only been about 3 years since 2021 when I purchased my first AR glasses to begin my development journey of creating Iron Man like Experiences using affordable consumer AR glasses. Now to rewind a bit when I did begin my journey of XR development using the XREAL light, I was using Unity for my development engine. At that time development for XREAL was only available using their NRSDK(nreal software development kit) back when "XREAL" was still called "nreal" and nreal light glasses have only been available for a year since their release in 2020. I really enjoyed being an early adopter for their glasses but the problem with being a early adopter for anything comes with lack of support for a lot things, with one of those things being OpenXR support.
Danny Tapia with XREAL Light
The problem with AR and VR headset manufactures not supporting OpenXR. Back in 2021 OpenXR was widely adopted as being the open standard for cross compatible VR and AR development which is also still true till this day and XREAL formerly "nreal" not being compatible with OpenXR was devastating for the XR development community. Being new to XR development in itself was challenging especially when you have to learn a whole new SDK (software development kit) for each XR headset manufacture. For example, at my first ever hackathon when our team " EX-Ray Vision" had the idea of creating an AR multi-platform experience to identify, pinpoint, and visualize access points using a WiFi Pineapple to perform an RT scan and convert the data into a JSON file for Unity integration
Ex-Ray Vision Team @ Armed Forces Jam 2023
and have it work on both the nreal light in AR and the Quest 2 for VR. So when researching to see if someone has already done something similar so we had a good place to start we came across OpenXR the most streamline way to accomplish, which would allow us to build the app once in unity and then for the specific XR device just change the build settings to have their respective inputs and outputs. Sounds easy enough right? Given that for the hackathon we only had 48 hours to build this. The only problem being that the XREAL light at the time did not support the OpenXR standard so to create the app we would have to recreate the app completely for XREAL light separately from the one we built for Quest 2. In the end we just used the Microsoft HoloLens 2 for development since it supported OpenXR and still Won the special challenge award of $500 from the VRAR Association but ultimately felt like a missed opportunity from XREAL to bring more adoption for there headsets when using a common standard like OpenXR. However, I wasn't the only developer at the time who wanted this feature. When I searched through forum websites, I saw that other developers were also looking for this support.
XREAL community Forum
Reddit XREAL Forum
The benefits of having XREAL being compatible with OpenXR for developers! Now that with OpenXR 1.1 is now available for XREAL what does that mean for developers? Well for starters it means less time having to rebuild the same app over and over again to specifically run on XREAL and more time can be spent on developing the apps core features to run across multiple devices especially since in my opinion, XREAL offers some of the best affordable consumer AR glasses that have cameras and IR sensors with 6DOF for under $500 with the XREAL Light's AR Glasses and 3DOF with no cameras and sensor for under $300 with XREAL Air's AR Glasses. Granted If you're a developer who has no plans of building an XR experiences that works across multiple devices then the appeal for using the OpenXR standard is less and using their native NRSDK for development would be a better option.
The benefits of having XREAL being compatible with OpenXR for Consumers! Having OpenXR available for XREAL is also a pretty big deal for consumer. It brings hope for expansion in XR with many new verticals especially since they're already so many companies, games and applications that are available for OpenXR
Industry Support page from OpenXR 1.1 Presentation
Games and applications page from OpenXR 1.1 Presentation
this means that for all consumers who own XREAL glasses can expect more XR experiences in the near future.
Final Thoughts. With that all being said, Congratulations to XREAL for Finally joining the OpenXR Community! It has been a short while since I've been excited about something in the XR community especially since the launch of the Apple Vision Pro. I hope to see a wider adoption from other developers leveraging the OpenXR support with XREAL for some exciting new experiences. I am definitely excited to tinker and build something using OpenXR and XREAL. So till next time. 👋🏾
Links:
OpenXR 1.1 Press Release:https://www.khronos.org/news/press/khronos-releases-openxr-1.1-to-further-streamline-cross-platform-xr-development
OpenXR 1.1 Presentation: https://www.khronos.org/assets/uploads/developers/presentations/Khronos_OpenXR_1.1_Embargo_15April24_.pdf
VRAR Association: https://www.thevrara.com/
EX-Ray Vision @ Armed Forces 2023 Hackathon: https://tapia4service.com/ex-ray-vision-how-tapia-4-services-triumphed-in-ar-vr-at-the-2023-armed-forces-jam/
XREAL: https://www.xreal.com/
XREAL Forum "XREAL has no intention of supporting OpenXR for consumers" : https://community.xreal.com/t/xreal-has-no-intention-of-supporting-openxr-for-consumers/4416
Reddit "Please reconsider Xreal air OpenXR": https://www.reddit.com/r/Xreal/comments/15cgrmx/please_reconsider_xreal_air_openxr/