RayNeo AR glasses hands-on at CES 2025: Surprisingly light and bright

If 2024 was the year augmented reality glasses started to feel real, 2025 is already shaping up to be a really interesting year for AR, with a number of smaller companies showing off AR at CES 2025. Chinese company RayNeo brought their new X3 Pro AR frames to CES, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that it seems to have squeezed an impressive amount of tech into a relatively small pair of frames.

Like AR glasses from Meta and Snap, RayNeo use microLED projectors and waveguides to produce a full-color AR display. The field of view is just 25 degrees — notably smaller than what Snap or Meta have in their products — but it’s impressively bright. Even under the fairly bright lights of a Las Vegas casino ballroom, I had no problem seeing the menus or even reading text (the display outputs 2,500 nits, according to the company).

What stood out the most, though, was the size. At less than 3 ounces, the RayNeo X3 Pro are impressively lightweight. Like other AR glasses I’ve tried, they don’t quite look like a “normal” pair of frames, but they don’t feel that far off either. RayNeo opted to put the onboard cameras in the center of the frames rather than in the corners, which does add a bit of bulk.

Karissa Bell for Engadget

In terms of apps, there wasn’t much to demo. I tried a real-time translation app, which beamed English text in front of me as RayNeo’s Bernie Liu spoke Chinese. I can’t speak for the accuracy of the translation, but it seemed to do a pretty good job despite the fact that we were in a noisy environment.

I also briefly chatted with a built-in AI-assistant powered by chatGPT and snapped a few photos. Liu told me the company is also working with outside developers who are already creating their own apps for the upcoming device, so hopefully it will roll out with a few more capabilities.

That said, battery life will likely be an issue as it is with other AR glasses. Liu said the battery currently lasts around 30 minutes with heavy use, though the company is still working on improving various aspects of the frames.

RayNeo hasn’t announced an official price or launch date yet, but Liu told me they are hoping to put them on sale later this year for around $1500.

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