RayNeo Air 2S Display Glasses Review: A Step Back From the Competition

Screen glasses connect via USB-C to provide a much larger and more portable display when you’re on the go. They’re great for playing games, watching movies, or connecting to a laptop and getting work done when carrying a monitor isn’t ideal, like on a plane. I’ve reviewed a lot of screen glasses and the RayNeo Air 2Ss have one of the brightest, largest displays I’ve ever seen. That’s the problem; the screen is too big for me.

The glasses cost $400, $50 cheaper than the Xreal Air 2 Pros and $60 less than the Viture Pros.

Check this out: RayNeo Air 2S Display Glasses Review

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As someone who travels a lot and is constantly looking for ways to play games or watch movies in the best possible way, I like to carry a pair of display glasses with me. They allow me to play my Steam Deck or Nintendo Switch on a much larger screen. I can watch movies on my phone with more immersion. The image is also sharp enough for easy-to-read text, so I can use them with my MacBook when I need to get some work done. I love that I can plug the glasses in and put my device to the side and lean back with my display floating above me.

The RayNeo Air 2S glasses have two 1080p micro-OLED displays, one for each eye. All of the computing happens in the large bezel at the top. The image is fired down towards an angled lens and then forward for you to see. This means the display doesn’t fill the entire frame, only what’s in that portion. RayNeo claims the glasses are an equivalent size of 201 inches when viewed from a distance of 19.7 feet (5.1m by 6m).

Design is important

This screen size is the largest I’ve ever experienced with a pair of display glasses, and it actually stretches too far for my eyes. The edges are blurry and out of focus, and the corners even curve inward and get cut off. This makes a lot of games, which typically have UI along the edges or in the corners of your screen, very difficult to read, or worse, cut off altogether. The hinges move so freely that I can tilt the glasses back and forth and see different parts of the screen go in and out of focus, and the corners and edges warp and straighten.

Unfortunately, there is no position that will keep every part of the image sharp and completely uncropped, so I often find myself wanting to shrink the screen to keep everything perfectly visible. RayNeo offers an accessory that helps with this problem, but I’ll get into that below.

The glasses can go up to 5,000 nits of brightness, which is the brightest I’ve seen to date. And like the Xreal Air 2 Pros and Viture Pro glasses I recently reviewed, they also support a 120Hz refresh rate. Along the right arm, you’ll find two buttons for adjusting brightness, while the left arm has two volume buttons and one for the menu. Within the menus, you can adjust how loud the speakers are, the refresh rate, and the color temperature of the display.

These speakers are located on both arms. Unique to the Air 2S is that there are two speakers on each side, one on top and one below. Other glasses I’ve reviewed only have one that points downward. This gives the Air 2S the highest maximum volume of any display glasses I’ve tested.

In terms of comfort, these fall somewhere in the middle of the models I’ve used. What’s nice about the RayNeo is that, like the Xreal, they have three degrees of freedom, so you can tilt the lens for better viewing angles (versus the Viture, which can only stay rigid). The backs of the temples do have some give, but they’re not nearly as flexible as the Xreal’s. For my head shape, the angle and where that curvature starts is more in line with the Xreal design — the RayNeo makes my ears stick out a little bit.

The Air 2Ss come with two nose pad options, one or two fewer than I’ve come to expect from other eyewear makers. That limits the placement options on your nose. Unfortunately for me, while I can tilt the glasses a bit, I still wish the screen were positioned lower. The Viture glasses offer this blank nose pad option, which I ended up using more often, but it also wasn’t very comfortable. Removing the nose pads on the RayNeo glasses aligns my eyes better, but almost hurts my nose.

Unlike the Xreal Air 2 Pros or Viture’s other glasses, there’s no way to adjust how opaque the screen is. Both the Xreal and Viture glasses have a button to adjust their electrochromic film, which seamlessly changes how opaque the lenses can be, and it’s a great feature that I feel is missing here.

The area outside the screen is quite opaque and dark, which means that these glasses look more like sunglasses than regular glasses. You can change the brightness of them, but even if you turn that level down, you can’t see much better through them. This means that the glasses are great for outdoor use, as they block out a lot of light, but you also can’t see your surroundings as easily. So even when I’m wearing them and looking down, away from the screens, it’s still a bit difficult to see through them, as everything is so dark.

This isn’t a total dealbreaker, as I use all of these glasses primarily on their highest coverage. I usually try to block out everything around me so I can focus on my game or movie, and I can always just take them off if I need to look at something else. Also, one annoying issue is that the RayNeo glasses reset to 50% brightness every time you take them off, so I have to change the level every time I put them on.

Essential accessories

The $100 Pocket TV is the most useful accessory RayNeo offers, and the one that helps with the screen size issue. Powered by Google TV, it gives you access to a wide variety of entertainment apps, including Disney+, Prime Video, and YouTube. This accessory gives you access to more settings for the glasses, such as zooming in and out of the screen size. Unfortunately, you can only change the scaling from 80% to 100%, so it doesn’t scale low enough to be perfect, but it does improve visual clarity in my peripheral vision. It’s disappointing that this feature isn’t built into the glasses themselves.

The Pocket TV supports MicroSD cards if you want to load your own media onto the device instead of streaming it. It has its own battery, so you can plug in your phone or other device to charge it, just like a battery pack, which I find super handy if you’re traveling with a pair of these glasses.

The Air 2S only connects to USB-C devices, but RayNeo sells two other accessories to expand your options. The JoyDock offers display passthrough from the Nintendo Switch without the need for the optional dock. I like the Switch docks because they power the system, allowing for extended gaming sessions between charges, and they can even double as a USB battery pack for other devices, which is perfect for when I’m traveling.

You can only connect one pair of glasses to the JoyDock, compared to two for Viture’s dock. Disappointingly, the JoyDock only works for the Switch: Viture and Xreal’s docks also support HDMI devices, like an Xbox or PlayStation.

For that, you’ll need to purchase the $70 Goovis HCS 2.0 HDMI to Type-C adapter . Plug the included HDMI cable into the console, then the adapter, followed by the glasses. From there, you’ll need to power the device using the included cable. This last step is a little disappointing since both Xreal and Viture have similar devices that don’t require an additional power cord.

The RayNeo Air 2S looks great and is completely usable, but that large screen might not be comfortable enough for many people. I spent more time adjusting the focal length than actually enjoying my games and that’s a deal breaker for me. I would have preferred a smaller screen where I could always see everything clearly. It’s also disappointing how the JoyDock and Goovis attachments also lack a feature or two that I’ve come to expect from the competition. So while you do save a bit of money going with the RayNeo, I can’t recommend it over what I’ve tested so far.