TCL RayNeo X2 review: A first step towards true AR glasses, but still work to do

TCL's subsidiary brand RayNeo has released several capable smartglasses in the past couple of years, including the excellent Air 2. But the company's latest X2, which was teased over a year ago at 2023's CES, is finally ready for mass release. Well, almost ready, because RayNeo is launching it via the Indiegogo crowdfunding platform first, though company reps say it will be sold in stores later.

I've been testing a pair for the past month, and while I think some of the advertised features need fine-tuning, the overall idea of a pair of AR eyewear that can take over some of the duties we usually use our phones for does indeed work. The consumer tech industry is fully into the idea of wearable eye/headwear as the next stage of evolution for mobile computing, and while the RayNeo X2 is far from replacing my phone, it does make me check my phone less, and it's a big first step.

TCL RayNeo X2

The RayNeo X2 are AR smart glasses with that can project visual overlays in front of the wearer's face via MicroLED waveguide technology. Powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 and with SLAM capabilities, the glasses attempt to do what the Vision Pro does, albeit on a much more modest scale. 

Pros

• Multimodal AI assistant works well
• Camera produces solid quality images and videos
• Lightweight enough to be worn for long stretches

Cons

• Still a bit bulky/odd looking
• Poor battery life
• A bit pricey, and on crowdfunding

About this review: this review was written after a month of using the RayNeo X2 provided by TCL, the company did not have input in this review.

RayNeo X2 Pricing and Availability

The RayNeo X2 are launching first on Indiegogo, with an early bird pricing of $699. RayNeo reps say the final retail price may be higher after the crowdfunding campaign ends. The glasses come in one configuration, with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage.

Hardware and design

wearing the RayNeo X2 in public

The X2 are a plasticky pair of specs with a bulkier than usual frame. They're not so large that they would attract stares in public the moment you step out, and from afar they look inconspicuous enough, but those who look at the glasses closely will be able to tell they are not a normal set of glasses.

The 16MP camera, located dead center of the frame, is very visible to anyone looking at you from within five feet. The lenses also have small rectangles that can also be spotted. The two rectangles are waveguides, through which the pair of binocular MicroLED display project visuals.

The glasses weigh 119g, which isn't exactly light, but not so heavy that they're uncomfortable to wear. I have worn these to walk around town for an hour straight and felt no discomfort. It helps the fit is comfortable, with a removable nosepiece and very flexible arm hinges.

There are touch-sensitve panels on the outside of both arms, along with quad speakers located on top and bottom of each arm, around where they sit over the ear. The two mics are hidden inside the frame near the nosepad area.

The magnetic charging port of the RayNeo X2

On top of the right arm is a magnetic pogo pin port for charging the glasses. Yes, it's a proprietary charging solution, which I do not like (everyone should use USB-C).

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Software and performance

The RayNeo X2 in action

The RayNeo X2 runs its own software. The UI is straightforward — just a floating row of apps that can be scrolled through horizontally. The apps that come with the device include Camera, Maps, Translate, AI assistant and Scan, which do pretty much as the name suggests. There are additional apps that can be downloaded and installed, like some basic AR games such as Snake, but you need to download RayNeo's companion app and pair the glasses.

The RayNeo X2 do not have a native screengrab or record function, so it was difficult for me to show clearly how the displays look. The best I could do is stick a phone behind the lens. Since the waveguide screens are designed for human eyes and not a smartphone camera, the results aren't too great. The above image is a rough approximation of how the visuals looked to my eyes. I can say the actual footage looks sharper, no lens reflection like in the image, and much stronger colors. The visual overlay isn't too large — I'd say about the size of a small 6-inch phone, held from about an arm's length away. The displays get to about 1,000 nits of brightness, so I could see it even when outside under the sun. I usually do have to point the text over a darker subject (like the tree trunk below) to read more clearly.

At the most basic level, the X2 allows you to shoot hands-free photos and videos, and receive notifications, which are displayed in full on the screen. These two features are useful as they already allow me to do smartphone things without taking out the phone. The camera app works as you'd expect: the camera can snap photos and videos. Image and video quality are decent, though a bit behind what the Ray-Ban Meta can do.

Video recordings show solid dynamic range and surprisingly good stabilization considering how much our head tends to bop around when moving.

With the Snapdragon XR2 and multimodal LLM AI built into the software, the X2 can do complicated tasks such as live interpretation of a language, and also recognize scenes and objects. To that end, RayNeo built an AI assistant named "Grace" which is based on the ChatGPT model. She can answer more complicated queries and even identify a scene I'm looking at. For example, I can ask "Grace" to tell me what I'm looking at, and she can give a detailed description of the scene, usually with impressive details. In the below samples (first one provided by RayNeo, second one captured by myself), the X2 was able to identity the white iPhone in the first photo, and that I have a video editing software opened on a laptop in the second. The scene recognition process takes about 10-15 seconds, and in addition to showing me written text, Grace will also read the words to me.

This is very impressive, but there's not much practical use for this? I can see the scene myself, why do I need AI to describe it for me? This feature right now is more a flex of LLM (large-language model) AI than anything. But it's a sign of what the glasses can do. RayNeo says the glasses will be able to scan and identify objects (like the make and model of a car, for example), in the near future. But that feature isn't available yet.

Live interpretation and turn-by-turn navigation works, but the processing is a bit slow. The person speaking a foreign language to me would need to wait at least 10-20 seconds before I can get the translated text, and navigating is fine only for walking and cycling, as the delay makes it hard to use in a faster moving vehicle.

Getting navigation instructions overlaid onto the real world. 

But they do work, that's the thing. I went into this thinking the features RayNeo promised are too futuristic, that there's no way I can actually get an Iron Man-like heads-up display to identify a scene and understand context. But the X2 can do it, just a bit slow.

The X2 can also take phone calls (if it's paired to your phone) and act as a Bluetooth speakers. It does a decent job at both, but nothing amazing. The speakers are solid if unspectacular. You will still want to use dedicated wireless earbuds for music.

Battery life, unfortunately, is mediocre. If I'm actively using the AI to scan scenes and recording videos, the glasses can go from 100 to zero in just 70-80 minutes. But if you're just using the glasses to keep tabs on notifications and snap the occasional photo, then you can have them on your face for a whole workday without issues.

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Should you get the RayNeo X2?

You should get the RayNeo X2 if:

• You are intrigued by AR glasses and have money to spend
• You want a pair of smart glasses that lets you use your phone less

You should not get the RayNeo X2 if:

• You are expecting these glasses to replace your phone
• You are expecting the visuals to be anywhere close to the Vision Pro or even Meta Quest
• You want something you can buy right away

The RayNeo X2 are an intriguing first attempt at doing real AR. For the past few years, I've tested "AR glasses" from the likes of XReal, Rokid, and RayNeo, too, which are nothing more than glorified wearable monitors (they're extremely useful in my opinion, but let's not call them AR glasses). The X2 are actual AR glasses. While the tech is obviously not really ready for prime time mass adoption (battery life will need to get better, and the wait time for live interpretation or navigation needs to be cut down), this is a product on the cutting-edge. Many consumer tech companies I've spoken to believe AI-powered eyewear/headwear is the next step in mobile computing — that eventually, we won't need a phone as much as we can get things done with wearables. That future is still years away, but RayNeo is taking the first step. I can't recommend this product to the masses — $699 is a high price to pay for a niche cutting-edge first-gen product on a crowdfunding campaign — but I am very excited for the future.

TCL RayNeo X2

The RayNeo X2 are AR smart glasses with that can project visual overlays in front of the wearer's face via MicroLED waveguide technology. Powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 and with SLAM capabilities, the glasses attempt to do what the Vision Pro does, albeit on a much more modest scale. 

Pros

• Multimodal AI assistant works well
• Camera produces solid quality images and videos
• Lightweight enough to be worn for long stretches

Cons

• Still a bit bulky/odd looking
• Poor battery life
• A bit pricey, and on crowdfunding