Inside REAL 3D: How XREAL Built It and How the X1 Chip Paves the Way
When XREAL rolled out REAL 3D, the response from reviewers, consumers and the broader community was immediate. Users began rediscovering their favorite movie and tv show scenes, and experiencing retro games in a new way – now rendered with depth and immersion that wasn’t possible on lightweight AR glasses before. According to XREAL Founder and CEO Chi Xu, that reaction is exactly what the team hoped for.
“Seeing people re-experience content they love in a new way is why we build these products,” Xu shared. “REAL 3D is just a glimpse at what the X1 chip was designed to unlock.”
The Technology Behind REAL 3D
At the heart of REAL 3D is the XREAL X1 spatial computing chip, purpose-built for wearable AR. Unlike conventional solutions that rely heavily on host devices or GPU-intensive processing, X1 includes a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) designed to run AI workloads efficiently on the glasses themselves.
This NPU enables real-time depth estimation and 2D-to-3D conversion directly on-device, without excessive power draw or performance penalties. To make this possible, XREAL’s engineering team rebuilt the rendering pipeline from the ground up, enabling REAL 3D to run continuously, smoothly, and natively on the glasses.
“This isn’t something we bolted on,” Xu explained. “It’s new technology that only works because X1 was designed specifically for spatial computing.”
Just the Beginning
REAL 3D’s current release marks version 1.0, and the team is clear that it’s only the start. Based on community feedback, XREAL is already testing 60Hz support, with optimizations underway to improve smoothness and visual consistency across content types.
REAL 3D is being treated as a living feature, one that will continue to evolve based on real-world usage. Xu also pointed to a broader industry reality: features like REAL 3D and stable, drift-free 3DoF tracking are difficult to achieve without specialized hardware.
Many competing devices rely on off-the-shelf components that lack NPUs or sufficient compute headroom for real-time AI processing. Without that foundation, software updates alone can’t deliver similar results.
Equally important is calibration. Every XREAL device undergoes deep, sensor-level calibration before leaving the factory. This is a process that significantly reduces drift and instability over time. It’s an invisible but critical layer of engineering that can’t be retrofitted later.
“These are the kinds of investments that don’t show up on a spec sheet,” Xu noted, “but they’re a key reason experiences with XREAL devices always feel solid.”
REAL 3D is one example of a broader philosophy at XREAL: features that feel simple on the surface often require deep, purpose-built technology underneath. And with X1, the company believes it’s only scratching the surface of what’s possible.
