XR means VR, AR, and generally all spatial computing and 3D technologies. I spend most of my time studying and writing about this tech, and personally test new products all the time. For your consideration, here are fifteen XR gift suggestions, priced from $10 – $1,000. I’ve personally used all the devices and software below.
Leia Lume Pad 2. $999. This is the priciest of my recommendations, but a 3D tablet that does not require glasses is a real breakthrough in personal computing. I use it all the time. Stable diffusion is integrated. You can watch 3D movies, turn 2D YouTube videos into 3D videos that you watch without glasses. Leia’s Lume Pad 2 is in a class of its own.
Video Display Smart Glasses. $349 – $600. This is a whole new category of Assisted Reality, which traditionally means is putting a monitor in or around your field of view, like the original Google Glass. The new display glasses put a big screen right in front of you. It’s the only thing you see, and the screen is big, like 45% of your field of view. They’re all great for media consumption, playing games, or screen expansion for mobile productivity. Instead of looking down at a screen in your hands, you can now sit up and look ahead.
RayNeo Air 2 AR, The Ultimate Mobile Media Display Glasses. $349. A smartphone viewing accessory that delivers a 201″ hi-def screen on the go. We love these glasses, but compatibility is an issue. If you have an iPhone 14 or any with a lightning port, you’re going to need the $99 MiraScreen to go with it.
Xreal Air 2 Smart Glasses Simulate 330-Inch Screen. $339. The biggest, brightest screen this new category of mobile phone accessories delivers. I recommend buying it with the $119 Xreal Beam, a needed iPhone adaptor which allows you to place the screens of varying sizes around the room.
Rokid Max AR Glasses, Big Screen on the Go. $399. One of the best is also the most expensive, but we love the $199 Rokid Station, a great Android device for streaming, and viewing downloaded videos without wi-fi. The light weight Station controller makes media consumption on the Rokid Max feel more like the experience of watching TV on your living room sofa.
Solos AirGo3, Wearable ChatGPT. $299. Smartglasses just got a lot smarter. This is yet another take on audio smart glasses.
Robux. For Roblox. $10 and up. So popular you can buy these at the grocery store. If you’ve got a kid under 16, this makes a great stocking stuffer.
Meta Quest 2. $249. With Quest 3 on the market Meta’s cut the price for what CNet calls the best VR headset on the market: the Quest 2, now two years old, which is still great, and you can find them on eBay for under $100. The new Meta Quest 3 starts at $499. It has upgraded graphics, a slimmer form factor and, most importantly, upgraded outward-facing color cameras for mixed-reality, at a price point far below the upcoming $3,495 Apple Vision Pro. But there’s not much in the way of mixed reality to do yet. Games were made for the Quest 2 so the graphics are the same. While Quest 2 is boxier, it is lighter, gets less hot than the Quest 3, and you can buy a good used one for $50 on eBay.
Gift Cards for Meta Quest games. No doubt your VR enthusiast has their eye on one of the 275 games in the Quest store.
The World’s Best Golf Simulator. $43 – $500. It’s the winter, and golf simulators are expensive. They also take up a lot of space, and are difficult to set up. Not anymore. Using a Meta Quest 2 VR Headset with the $29 Golf+ app and the weighted $43 Hello Real’s Grip-to-Putt attachment you will have a better experience than the one you would have at your country club or in your rich friend’s garage. As illustrated in the video above, you can also use the Hello Real Grip-to-Putt with the $15 Walkabout Mini-Golf VR app. A Quest 2 from eBay, the games and the grip could be bundled together to make a terrific gift for under $200. That would be creative.
Real Racer. $150. When we first started thinking about commercial VR in the early 90s, we thought telepresence would be the way to go, looking through stereo cameras and controlling a radio-controlled vehicle wearing a headset. It was impractical and prohibitive. Not anymore. Download the Real Racer app, put your smartphone in the headset, and race around the office, your living room, or outside in the yard.
Zapbox. $80. This product has come a long way from its humble beginnings as the cardboard of AR, what Zappar billed as “Magic Leap for super cheap” when I first encountered them at Augmented World Expo in 2017. This year they’ve re-launched Zapbox. It’s now made of plastic, you don’t need to assemble it yourself, and it’s incredibly light. With my iPhone 15 snapped snugly into place, I was able to test out stereography using the same software and camera the Apple Vision Pro will use.
Charlie Fink is the author of the AR-enabled books “Metaverse,” (2017) and “Convergence” (2019). In the early 90s, Fink was EVP & COO of VR pioneer Virtual World Entertainment. He teaches at Chapman University in Orange, CA.
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