Photo Viewer for Smart Glasses — View Photos in AR and Virtual Screens

Photos on Smart Glasses — Three Different Experiences

How you view photos on smart glasses depends entirely on the type of glasses you have. Each category provides a fundamentally different viewing experience:

Display Glasses (XREAL, VITURE, Rokid Max)

Experience: Photos appear on a virtual screen floating in front of you — like having a 120-200 inch photo frame in your field of view. The real world is dimmed behind the virtual screen.

How it works:

1. Connect glasses to your phone (USB-C) or compute unit
2. Open AnExplorer on the connected device
3. Navigate to photos (local, NAS, cloud)
4. Tap image → displays full-screen on the virtual display
5. Navigate left/right for gallery browsing

Best for: Private photo viewing, reviewing photos on a large virtual display, showing photos to yourself while others see the real world.

AR Glasses (Inmo Air 2, Even Realities G1)

Experience: Photos overlay on the real world as transparent panels. You see the photo AND the world around you simultaneously.

How it works:

1. AnExplorer is sideloaded on the glasses (standalone Android)
2. Navigate to photos on glasses' local storage
3. Tap to view — image displays as an AR overlay
4. Useful for reference photos while working (blueprints, instructions, recipes)

Best for: Reference images while doing something else (hands-free photo viewing), quick image checks without pulling out phone.

Audio Glasses (Meta Ray-Ban, Echo Frames)

No image viewing possible — these glasses have speakers but no display. Photo management happens entirely on the paired phone. AnExplorer on the phone manages the camera photos that Ray-Ban captures.

Photo Workflows by Glasses Type

Display glasses: Virtual photo gallery

Create a private slideshow experience:

1. Load photos onto phone or USB drive (plug into compute unit)
2. Connect display glasses to host device
3. Open AnExplorer → navigate to photo folder
4. Tap first image → browse through gallery
5. Like having a personal photo exhibition on a massive virtual screen

Use cases:

• Reviewing vacation photos on an "ultra-wide" virtual display
• Photo editing preview — see details at giant virtual size
• Private photo viewing (only you see the virtual screen)
• Comparing photos side-by-side (on some glasses with multi-window)

Display glasses: NAS photo streaming

Browse your entire photo archive from NAS:

1. Connect to NAS via SMB in AnExplorer (on host device)
2. Navigate to photo library
3. Browse folders — photos stream from NAS and display on virtual screen
4. No limit — access thousands of photos without local storage

AR glasses: Reference images

Use photos as overlays while doing tasks:

1. Take a photo of instructions/recipe/reference material
2. Transfer to AR glasses
3. Open in AnExplorer → the image overlays in your field of view
4. Work hands-free with the reference visible

Use cases:

• Assembly instructions visible while building
• Recipe displayed while cooking
• Reference diagram while repairing equipment
• Navigation screenshot while walking

Audio glasses (Ray-Ban): Photo management on phone

Meta Ray-Ban captures photos with its built-in camera:

1. Photos sync to your phone via Meta View app
2. Open AnExplorer on phone → find Ray-Ban photos (typically in /DCIM/Ray-Ban/ or Meta View folder)
3. Organize into albums, back up to NAS/cloud, delete rejects
4. No viewing on the glasses themselves (audio-only)

Image Format Support

All standard formats work across all Android-based glasses:

Storage and Performance

Display glasses (viewing from phone/compute unit)

• No storage on glasses — photos are on the host device
• Performance = host device performance (phone or compute unit)
• NAS streaming: limited by WiFi speed between host and NAS

AR glasses (standalone)

• Limited onboard storage (32-128 GB typically)
• Keep photo library reasonable (a few hundred photos for reference use)
• For larger libraries: access from NAS via SMB (if glasses support WiFi)

Comparison: Glasses vs VR Headset for Photos

Related Guides

• Photo Viewer Feature — full photo viewer capabilities
• Photo Viewer for VR — immersive VR photo viewing
• File Manager for AR Glasses — glasses overview