The TCL RayNeo Air 2 XR is the latest pair of smart glasses to hit the market. Offering a 201-inch virtual screen, all housed in a pair of sunglasses, you can take a cinema experience on the go. They work surprisingly well, especially for Netflix and the Steam Deck. Retailing for $379, they’re on the affordable end and a good entry point to the personal cinema/big-screen gaming experience.
Specifications
RayNeo Air 2 - Design and Features Overview
The RayNeo Air 2 is one of a growing number of personal display smart glasses designed to bring a big screen viewing experience right into the lenses of your glasses. These work by embedding high resolution displays within a pair of sunglasses and packing in all of the processing technology inside the frame. We first brought you this tech with our review of the Viture XR smart glasses and the RayNeo Air 2 come right alongside it and is, in fact, one of its key competitors.
The glasses pack a pair of impressive displays to craft their viewing experience. Inside each eye is a bright micro OLED display. These displays have great dynamic range and get exceptionally bright at 600 nits — though it’s important to note that this pales in comparison to the 1,800 nits offered by the Viture XR glasses. Still, blacks get pitch and there’s headroom aplenty for highlights, so the viewing experience is still very good.
The displays also run at 1080p, which is standard for glasses currently, and can hit speeds of 120Hz. This is great for gaming, especially if you’re using a Windows handheld or the Steam Deck. Though few games will actually hit this high frame rate, the increase in responsiveness is noticeable and welcome.
The glasses have some limited controls built into the arms. There’s a volume rocker on the left and a brightness rocker on the right. At the end of the right arm, there’s a USB port to connect to your source device. All you have to do is plug it in with a compatible computer or smartphone and it should instantly begin receiving video. More on that later.
The glasses are quite comfortable, though bulky to wear due to the screens and processing components. At only 76 grams, they don’t weigh you down and there is a plush nose pad that can be adjusted in or out. Each side of the glasses can also be angled at three levels using small hinges on either side. It’s a bit nerve wracking to make these adjustments since they’re positioned close to wear most normal sunglasses typically break. On the other hand, replacing that weak point with a sturdy vertical hinge can only increase their durability.
These adjustments are more important than they first seem. There’s no way to adjust the screen inside the glasses themselves. It’s positioned where it’s positioned and that’s dictated entirely by the physical placement of the lenses. It’s also not as simple as setting both sides to the same tilt and calling it a day. For me, I needed my right side one notch lower than the left to remove some blurriness I was experiencing. Once I discovered this, it was much better. I can’t wait for the day when these glasses approach VR-levels of screen control, however, because I was dying for a way to grab and pull the screen like on my Quest 3.
The options here are also fewer than the Viture, though that’s to be expected with its lower price ($339 as of this writing, a full $100 less than the Viture XR Glasses and $40-60 cheaper than any of the competition for Xreal or Rokid). There’s only one nose pad, while Viture offers several of different heights, and there’s no ability to darken the lenses either. The actual viewing experience was better, at least for me, but that may not be the case for all users.
Still, it’s a good entry point to this type of product and was good enough for me to go out and buy some prescription lenses to use with it — not something I typically do with review products. It’s one I anticipate using for the foreseeable future, which I didn’t expect going in.
RayNeo Air 2 - Not So AR
One of the bones I have to pick with the RayNeo Air 2 has to do with dubbing these an “AR” product. RayNeo isn’t alone with this — they pretty much all use some variation of AR or XR in their marketing. That’s a stretch.
Devices like the Quest 3 capture the essence of AR. The virtual world coming in contact with our own real world. Interplay between the real and virtual. That’s really not what any of these glasses are.
Instead, they’re wearable displays. That’s cool on its own merits without tacking “AR” on top of it. What it does is project a large screen on top of the world, as see through the lenses behind the screens. It’s not translating your environment or interacting with it at all. It’s just allowing you to see a large, bright, clear version of whatever display you currently have connected to it. It’s a wearable monitor.
So, don’t go in expecting this to offer AR experiences like the Meta Quest. Though the app offers some neat features like 360 degree panoramas, some basic games, and a web browser, its value really lies in its ability to be a giant pocketable screen you can take with you anywhere.
RayNeo Air 2 - Viewing and Gaming Experience
The RayNeo Air 2 offers a very solid use experience, straight out of the box. Expect some trial and error getting it positioned, however. Between the hinged arms and the nose piece, it took me a good 30 minutes of attempting and adjusting before I had it positioned where the screens were consistently clear.
RayNeo boasts about the quality of its display and I can see why. The Sony micro OLEDs look great. They are significantly more detailed than the display on my Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra; I expected the image to degrade when blown up but it was quite the opposite. I could immediately make out more detail in my binge of Bodies on Netflix (a great show, by the way).
I was also worried the picture might be hazy or semi-transparent. It’s not. It’s genuinely like a floating, OLED monitor.
Setup is ridiculously simple, assuming you have a compatible device. Plugging it into my phone, it immediately began receiving the signal. By default, it just mirrored my phone screen but it can also support Dex, if you’re a fellow Galaxy user. This same quality is true for any device that supports video output through USB Type-C, so many video cards and the iPhone 15+ should work fine. It’s a little jarring to have it be vertical but once video starts, turning your device into portrait mode fills out the virtual display nicely.
Not all smartphones and tablets natively support this, however, so Rayneo also sells the glasses in a combo package with a hybrid adapter and 4,500mAh power bank. This works for smartphones but did not work for front-panel USB-C on either the desktop or laptop I tried it on.
It’s also important to note that even though RayNeo promotes using these glasses for gaming, they do not natively connect to either PS5, Xbox, or the Nintendo Switch. For the two former consoles, you’ll need to pick up an HDMI to USB Type-C adapter, at which point they transmit perfectly. For the Switch, the company sells its own JoyDock accessory (and in a combo). It did connect with my Ayaneo handhelds and Steam Deck just fine, however.
On top of using it as a second big screen monitor and for video, this is the biggest selling point. Being able to take your games from a tiny handheld screen onto a massive 201-inch monitor is fantastic. With there being no loss and actually improvement in image quality thanks to the larger screen, it’s a pretty great add-on for mobile gaming and movie watching.
It’s not perfect, though. Like Viture and most handhelds, the image becomes a bit softer around the edges. It’s better, though, with no smearing or heavy blur. It just highlights the importance of making sure these are positioned perfectly.
I was also very pleased to find that I didn’t experience any double-vision issues like I encountered with the Viture. I do have a heavy prescription and better vision in one eye than the other. Given the similarities between these devices, I was very concerned that I would have a difficult time with them. I had no reason to worry. Even with my vision issues, I can experience a great visual experience here — so much so that I ordered a set of prescription lenses to use with them and that attach by magnet!
Finally, the sound quality is also quite good on these. There’s a good amount of bass, so they don’t sound thin and they get loud enough that I never felt the need to turn them up all the way and risk distortion. They keep a relatively close circle of sound due to their design but if you’re sharing a small room with someone, they’ll still be able to hear what you’re listening to. It’s to be expected but something to be aware of nonetheless.
Final Thoughts
The RayNeo Air 2 genuinely surprised me. They’re not the brightest glasses and aren’t quite as natively compatible as I wish they were — an adapter for HDMI connections would be a welcome addition for gaming in particular. But their clarity and ease of use are very good. If you’re considering a portable display like this, be it for travel, gaming, or productivity, this is one of the more cost-effective ways to bring one home and have a great experience.
The product described in this article was provided by the manufacturer for evaluation purposes. Some articles may contain affiliate links and purchases made through this will result in a small commission for the site. Commissions are not directed to the author or related to compensation in any way.
