Nintendo and XR gaming is a combination that we don’t hear about quite often. Could it have something to do with the failure of the Virtual Boy? A redemption story now, with its games now playable through Nintendo Switch Online, Virtual Boy titles still require an accessory to be played how they were intended. Outside of that, Nintendo hasn’t really toyed with XR beyond their cardboard solutions for Nintendo Labo. However, that doesn’t mean that other companies aren’t looking for ways to get Nintendo’s games in your face. Literally.

At Gamescom, I got to go hands-on with the Sentinel XR Gaming Glasses, as I spoke with ELO’s CEO, Adam Hepburn. ELO specializes in mobile gaming accessories. They are ambitious with the Sentinel as they will support a lot of devices including PC, Android, iOS, the Steam Deck, and last but not least, the Nintendo Switch 2.

The idea of the glasses is quite straightforward: gaming glasses to play video games more comfortably on the go for an affordable price. It is something that specifically interests me, as I work for a major airline company. I often have to fly for work and tend to bring my Switch 2 often. Placing it in front of me and looking down starts out well enough, but after a while my posture turns me into Quasimodo. My neck begins to hurt, I become unfocused and it’s happened to me twice that I missed the cabin crew bringing out drinks. At that point changing over to holding the device in my hand is even less enticing for my arms in the cramped space available. Look, I know it is a first-world problem, but it is a reason why I’ve begun preferring XR-experiences. If only there were good games on there to play, which leads me back to the Nintendo Switch and the cycle continues.

The Sentinel is designed with the intention to fix this problem. These glasses pass the image on screen through to the insides of the Sentinel with a wired connection. In theory that sounds pretty great. Well sadly, at Gamescom I was only handed a prototype and it feels quite far from being finished. ELO makes a lot of promises about the final product, which is currently slated for release this October. I’d call that ambitious given the prototype I tried, but I’d love to be surprised. Potential Switch 2 users don’t have to fret, given that the CEO told me that Switch 2 support should arrive at the beginning of 2027.

So what content was there? I was given some movie trailers to watch through the Sentinel at the booth. The lenses themselves sport a 1080p display per eye with a 120Hz refresh rate and use micro-OLED panels for a 53° Field of View. The display looked quite nice and bright when daylight scenes were displayed. Darker scenes, however, came in a lot more low-res.

The biggest issue with this prototype is that the feel of the glasses just isn’t right yet. The prototype weighs around 105 grams, which is 25 grams more than the promised end product. More pressing was that the glasses didn’t fit my face just right. I had to put the glasses' temples a lot higher than I’m used to with other XR devices to make them work. The stands didn’t rest on my ears, either, but adjustable nose pads should fix that in a later iteration of the device. For folks with glasses, like myself, there is a built-in diopter adjustment, which has a range of 0 to –5D.

You’d think with a device aiming to release next month that the prototype would be more than a proof of concept, but a lot of features were still missing here. Like, a lot of stuff. Just to name a few: there was no speaker system, there was no gyroscope sensor and no electrochromic lenses to darken your surroundings. These are pretty much standard for any current or last-gen wearable XR device, leaving me quite baffled during the demo. While these are all supposedly coming in with the final product, in all honesty I do not really know what to make of it.

By far one of the more interesting details is that, according to Adam Hepburn of ELO, the Sentinel shouldn’t come in at a retail price over €550 (about $640 USD). But given we are going through a full-on hardware crisis and the prototype is still missing key features, I remain skeptical of that suggested price.

While I can see the potential for a device like the Sentinel, especially for those who like to game on their own private screen, from what I’ve tried at Gamescom this just isn’t it yet. Time will tell how the ELO Sentinel XR Glasses will compete in this particular market. But until we can test these promises against the final product, I shall remain cramped during my flights.