BMW just put AR in a car, and it finally makes perfect sense

If you had asked me to wear AR glasses on top of my regular glasses for a short drive in a fancy BMW EV, I would have said, “No thanks.” But now I’m glad I agreed, because I can almost believe that augmented reality makes sense, not only for passengers but also as a tool for drivers.

Here in a parking lot at CES 2024, where automotive technology is everywhere, I climbed into an all-electric BMW iX M60 and put on a pair of Xreal Air 2 augmented reality glasses. I had to wear them over my regular glasses because there wasn’t time to put in the right prescription lenses. Luckily, the AR effect still looked pretty good.

As soon as I put the frames on I noticed a small round platform sitting on the dash. For this experience, BMW placed me in the passenger seat while a BMW representative drove (without AR glasses) and explained the technology to me. For this demo, we drove off the property, away from the convention center, and onto the streets of Las Vegas.

What I saw through the glasses often surprised and delighted me. It’s the subtlety that makes it work. There’s nothing popping up to obstruct your view. Instead, the mostly translucent objects appear on the dashboard or on the road in front of you. To be clear, AR elements can appear anywhere you look: out the windshield, out the passenger window. I sometimes forgot that everyone else couldn’t see what the Xreal Air 2 AR glasses were showing me.

Throughout our journey I saw green arrows leading me to my destination; they made a left or right turn to warn me of an upcoming turn (comically, the driver not wearing the glasses managed to miss one of our turns). The idea here is that this guidance could replace your standard GPS navigation system. Granted, the system is connected to a phone connected to the car. Still, I didn’t have to look at another screen to see where I was going.