Rayneo Air 2s

Written by John Yan on 9/15/2024 for MOB   PC   PS5   SWI   XSX  

RayNeo has been producing AR glasses for a bit and if you don’t know the name RayNeo, then you might know their parent company TCL. TCL’s a huge maker in home televisions and RayNeo is a company they help start that specializes in AR hardware and software.

While I’ve never experienced a pair of RayNeo AR glasses, I’ve kept tabs on them for a bit and I jumped at a chance to check out their new RayNeo Air 2s glasses that were just released. RayNeo was kind enough to send along a pair for review purposes so let’s dive in to see how these fare with the other few I’ve got on hand.

The physical design of the Air 2s mimics sunglasses, more so than say the XREAL or VITURE offerings. Whereas I consider those two to have a more normal eyeglass design with a rim around the lenses, the Air 2s’ design reminds me of some sunglasses from Oakley with a single one piece plastic front. It’s a style that I’m not as fond of, but a few of my colleagues did like it. It’s not something I’m going to dock any points on my review for as I think the style isn’t something out of the ordinary and it’s similar to the Air 2.

The temples have a vertical adjustment in three different angles, like the XREAL glasses. They help fine tune where the project image is in relation to your eyes and it’s something that I wish more AR glasses use. Good to see it here.

Another nice thing about the temples is that they are on hinges. That means if your head is a little bit wider, the temples will flex out a little to accommodate this and it won’t harm the glasses. As one who has worn glasses for a long, long time, I’ve always picked out glasses with spring hinges and they’ll help keep your Air 2s from bending out of shape should you fit in that category.

On both temples are two rocker buttons that control the brightness and the volume. When you adjust these settings, you’ll see a display in your view to show you what the current settings are. What’s nice is there’s a large range of brightness you can set to, more than other AR glasses I’ve reviewed in the past.

Wearing the Rayneo Air 2s, I found the glasses to be very comfortable. They are pretty light at around 78g, which is comparable to other AR glasses. The reason I do reach for these types of devices over say a VR headset when watching movies is because they are so light and easy to put on and take off.

 

To help with comfort, the temple tips are flexible to help with sitting on your ears easier. My other AR glasses have rigid temple tips, so it’s good to see a more flexible solution with the Air 2s. On the right end is the USB-C connector and it takes a standard USB-C cable, unlike some of their competitors. That means should your included cable fail, you can order a replacement from many other places besides RayNeo and I think that’s a good design decision. Also, this solid connection makes it so it doesn’t fall out if you’re doing something like laying on the side of your head in bed using the glasses. I’m not a fan of proprietary connectors and here, RayNeo sticking to an industry standard is nice to see.

Rayneo includes two different nose pieces for you to try out. A neat thing I found was the nose piece has three different horizontal positions it can sit. As you slide one in, you can feel and hear a loud click on each position you can set the nose piece. That means you can adjust the horizontal distance of the lenses from your face, something I haven’t experienced in other AR glasses I’ve tested. If you have it sitting in one of the outer positions, there’s a good chance that you can accidentally bump the nose piece further in, but it’s not hard to adjust back out if need be.

The display uses two Sony micro-OLED screens with a resolution of 1920x1080 each that have been in a few recent AR glasses. FOV is at 46 degrees, the same as the VITURE Pro Xr. Rayneo says it simulates a 201” screen from 6 meters away. Compared to the VITURE Pro glasses that I have, it does look to be a bigger virtual display. These micro-OLED displays also are used by a few manufacturers to deliver a crisp image edge to edge, corner to corner. There’s a caveat to that though as certain face shapes will prevent you from seeing a clear picture on all sides. I have a few friends using mine where I’d see a clear image all around while some had a slight blurriness in a corner or two. Again, it’s going to be dependent on the shape of your face and the distance of your eyes from each other. That said, if your IPD fits in line with what the AR glasses are made for, you should get a pretty clear picture with the Sony displays.

Rayneo’s implementation does have some minor issues with my facial structure. With the VITURE Pro XR glasses that utilize the Sony micro-OLED displays, I was able to get a clear image all around. I had no issues being able to read any corner area and they were a much improved experience over the Xreal Airs that I had. With Rayneo, there was always a portion of the top or bottom that wouldn’t be in focus or slightly cut off. Everytime I’d move the glasses to make one side be clear or shown, the other part would become blurry or blocked out. I tried adjusting the temple angles, using the other nose piece, positioning the display at a different distance from my face, nothing made the entire image clear. Which is frustrating because I really did like the brightness and size of the image on the Rayneo Air 2s. I think out of all the AR glasses I’ve tried so far, the Rayneo’s image is one of the best and close to the best. When viewing a movie or TV show where the image doesn’t take up space on the top and bottom, it’s great. However, when using it with say a laptop and the entire micro-OLED display is being used, seeing a slightly cropped image or edge blurriness can be pretty distracting.

With the micro-OLED display, you’ll get the deep black and vibrant colors that are possible with OLED technology. Rayneo also offers three different color modes in standard, vibrant, and soft. The standard picture looks really good with solid colors and not too saturated. Vibrant as the name suggests, makes colors pop more but at the expense of being maybe a little too artificial looking at times. Soft gives you a more yellowish tint to the image and might be used when you’re using them at night to present a less harsh picture that could be slightly easier to read at that time. I mostly stayed in standard picture mode and when using the glasses in 3D mode, that’s the only color option that’s available.

As with most AR glasses these days, the displays are capable of 60Hz and 120Hz. With the Air 2s, you can manually switch between the two using the rocker button to navigate to the refresh rate adjustment and using the action button to change it. The screen will blank out for a quick second or two and you’ll see on your display what refresh rate the glasses are running at. I tested this with my Steam Deck and I was able to choose a resolution with a 120Hz refresh rate when I enabled that speed. So if you’re a gamer and want that high refresh rate, the Rayneo Air 2s does deliver that functionality.

Brightness is set at 5000 nits, which is the brightest of all the ones I’ve tested so far. And as I mentioned earlier, Rayneo has done a good job at providing a nice range of brightness levels for you to set it at. From the lowest setting, there are ten different brightness levels giving you pretty good granular control over how dim or bright the image can be. At the absolute brightest, the picture is really stunning at times. There’s no HDR support, but man, the image can really pop depending on what you’re watching. When used outdoors, the brightness does help to ensure the picture shows up even on sunny days, but at those times you won’t be able to completely block out the view around you.

If you want to completely block out the world around you and be fully immersed in the glasses, you’re going to have to use them in a dimly lit environment. It doesn’t have to be completely dark, but you’ll want to make sure there’s not too many bright lights around. That’s because unlike other AR glasses, the Air 2s doesn’t come with light blocking shades nor does it contain the electrochromic lenses that others have where it can electronically darken to block out light. It also doesn’t look like Rayneo sells black out shades for the Air 2s, which is a disappointment. Now, I could take some measurements and 3D print one out of TPU to use with the Air 2s, but it would have been nice for Rayneo to offer that as an option. Perhaps in the future they will, but for now you’re stuck with making sure you’re not in a really bright environment to have a clear and unobstructed view of the image from other light sources.

For those who need prescription lenses, Rayneo does come with a template for you to give to an eyeglass manufacturer that you can have fitted with your prescription. It snaps onto the nose piece like the Xreal does and sits in front of the bird bath displays. Now, I’m more of a fan of VITURE’s implementation where it uses magnets because if you do something like share these glasses with someone, taking them off is pretty quick whereas with the Rayneo Air 2s, you have to take out the nose piece, remove the clip on, and then put the nose piece back in. The Air 2s also doesn’t have any diopter adjustments so the only way to get a clear picture if you’re a little near-sighted is to get prescription inserts.

The Rayneo Air 2s does support 3D SBS mode if you are wanting to use them to watch these types of media. To get into 3D mode, you press the two rocker buttons at the same time. This will flip the displays to SBS mode quickly and easily. I tested this using my Samsung Galaxy Fold 5 with VLC installed. Pulling up The Martian in 3D, I was able to change the mode on the Air 2s and then use the aspect ratio adjustment button on the program to change it until the entire picture was in 3D and in the correct aspect ratio. Watching 3D movies was a lot of fun using the Air 2s and with the very bright display and Sony micro-OLED screens, the experience was really solid.

On the middle of the glasses is a proximity sensor so the Air 2s will only turn on their displays if they are on your face. As soon as you take them off, the displays shut down. I found the Air 2s proximity sensor to work way better than the Xreal Airs that I have. Currently, I have a piece of tape on the Xreal Airs because of how annoying it is with the displays constantly turning on and off. With the Rayneo Air 2s, the proximity sensor worked flawlessly during my testing and I never once experienced the displays turning off when they shouldn’t.

Besides the display, Rayneo is really proud of the speaker setup on the Air 2s. There are four speakers on the Air 2s, one on top and one on the bottom of each temple. I have to say the sounds from the Rayneo Air 2s are really great for this class of product. I think they do sound the best out of all the ones I’ve tested. Highs are good and bass isn’t too deep, but audible and works well with games. And yes, they can be super loud with the four speakers. Where I had to almost cup my hands around the speakers on some of the other AR glasses I’ve used, the speakers on the Air 2s drive a fair amount of sound and you shouldn’t have trouble hearing them at all.

There are 13 volume levels for you to choose from so here’s another great part of the Air 2s. It allows for very good granular controls of the volume giving a wide range of options on how loud or soft they can get.

If you don’t want to bother others, there is what’s called Whisper mode. With that one, the audio gets cut down and more directed to your ears. If you’re out in public or maybe don’t want to bother anyone near you at home, enabling Whisper mode will let you still hear what’s being played at an acceptable level. It won’t replace having a set of IEMs or headphones for complete privacy, but it will make it harder for someone else to eavesdrop into what you are watching and listening to.

I tested the Rayneo Air 2s on my Steam Deck and my PC playing various games from Black Myth Wukong to God of War and Vampire Survivors to name a few. I choose Vampire Survivors a lot because there’s text and icons in the corners and edges. It’s this game where I really notice the blocking and blurriness of a side of the display depending on how the Air 2s sits. But games like God of War and Black Myth Wukong really shine on the rest of the display. When not focusing on the edge, the picture quality is superb. Seeing the details in the foliage as you wander around in Black Myth Wukong was really awesome and the bright colors in certain realms of God of War shine bright with the Rayneo Air 2s. And with the deep blacks that OLEDs can produce, you’ll get some very immersive gaming in titles like Elite Dangerous where you spend a lot of time out in the blackness of space. Having it run at 120Hz meant that the game was smooth and I didn’t see any ghosting. My PC is powerful enough to drive games at 120Hz with pretty much every option turned on and you can really see the high picture quality when playing a game on a high end computer with the Rayneo Air 2s.

Included with the glasses is a very nice hard shell carrying case. The Air 2s sits nicely in the case with the lenses facing up while there’s a flap that gives you some storage space protecting the glasses from anything put in there. On the lid is a pocket that lets you store more things as well. That’s where I put the USB-C cable and microfiber cloth. It zips up nice and sturdy and also has a small loop so you can carry it that way or attach it to something through it.

While it might not have some of the bells and whistles of other AR glasses, the price for the Rayneo Air 2s does make it attractive. At $400, this isn’t the least expensive of the AR glasses out there, but it’s in the ball park or much cheaper than other AR glasses using the Sony displays that are known for good clarity and picture quality.

Rayneo also has some bundles such as what looks like a nice Google TV device that fits in your pocket and powers the glasses called Pocket TV. We didn’t receive one from Rayneo to test, but having used setups like a portable battery bank and a Google TV dongle, the one designed by Rayneo looks like it’s very compact with some easy to access buttons and a large battery. Rayneo also produces a battery bank that you can attach to the back of a Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck that will charge your device and power the glasses at the same time.

Overall, I thought the Rayneo Air 2s was a good entry in the AR glasses realm. The picture quality is among the best I’ve tested and the sound is top notch. I think that the simulated screen might be a little too large for the FOV that’s present in the Air 2s causing blurriness in some parts of the edge or edges being cropped from view. I do like the level of adjustability on the temples and the standard USB-C connection so you don’t have to worry about proprietary connectors. If you want something that does well at media consumption or want an extra large virtual screen for your portable gaming device, the Rayneo Air 2s fits the bill as long as the entire image can be viewed clearly with your face shape.