TCL launched the crowdfunding marketing campaign for RayNeo X2 standalone true AR glasses, priced at $700.
Except an unannounced competitor ships first, RayNeo X2 will likely be each the primary standalone AR glasses, which means they do not require a separate compute gadget, and the primary AR glasses with microLED shows.
RayNeo claims that X2 will likely be able to the form of out-of-home use instances folks have been envisioning for AR glasses for years now, together with out of doors navigation and realtime speech translation anchored to the particular person talking.
The glasses are managed by contact controls on the temples, voice instructions, or a RayNeo Ring that acts as a 3DoF rotational laser pointer.
RayNeo X2 has Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1 chipset onboard, the identical utilized in Meta Quest 2 and Pico 4. The seemingly purpose it is not utilizing the Gen 2 chipset is that its growth began years in the past, earlier than the brand new technology chipset was obtainable. TCL truly confirmed off RayNeo X2 as an idea at CES 2023, however is simply now able to launch a crowdfunding marketing campaign for it.
Essentially the most shocking spec of RayNeo X2 is its microLED shows. MicroLED is a really new show expertise, not a advertising and marketing identify for a variant of LCD akin to “Mini LED” or “QLED”. MicroLED is self-emissive like OLED, which means pixels output mild in addition to coloration and don’t want a backlight, however is extra energy environment friendly and might attain a lot greater brightness. Whereas most main electronics firms are actively researching microLED, that is the primary time we have seen it introduced as coming to a product apart from a $150,000 TV.
RayNeo X2 use instances. Notice that in actuality, the sphere of view is considerably narrower and makes this idea solely unrealistic.
First-generation new show expertise is commonly very restricted, although, and that is the case right here too. The microLED shows in RayNeo X2 have been introduced as having a decision of simply 640×480 every, in comparison with the 1920×1080 typical of OLED microdisplays in current tethered AR glasses like Xreal Air 2 Extremely.
Their benefit in RayNeo X2 is considerably greater brightness, as much as 1500 nits in comparison with the five hundred nits you get from Xreal, and certain a lot larger energy effectivity. These properties make RayNeo X2’s shows much more appropriate for out of doors use, and allow the glasses to be powered solely by an onboard battery.
RayNeo is claiming as much as 3 hours of steady use, and claims there will likely be a low energy “show off” mode for screenless use instances like capturing pictures and movies, already changing into in style with the Meta Ray-Ban glasses. RayNeo X2 features a coloration digicam able to taking 16 megapixel pictures or 1080p 30FPS movies, and has 128GB of storage to retailer them in addition to its apps.
Nonetheless, as with all present merchandise leveraging clear AR optics, the achilles heel of RayNeo X2 is its area of view, simply 25 levels diagonal. That is worse than even the Xreal glasses, which we already think about too slender for many true AR use instances. Meaning you will seemingly usually solely see partial segments of RayNeo X2’s digital interfaces, and lose observe of which interfaces are even current.
RayNeo X2 is being funded by an Indiegogo marketing campaign, nevertheless it’s unclear why. RayNeo is a Chinese language startup described as “incubated” by {hardware} large TCL, and its merchandise are TCL branded, however we could not decide the precise relationship between the businesses.
The Indiegogo web page claims the primary models will ship in April for $700.
TCL additionally introduced RayNeo X2 Mild, standalone non-AR good glasses utilizing the same design and the identical microLED shows, however with the lower-end Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 chipset and no positional monitoring. RayNeo X2 Mild will apparently launch in Q3 2024, with extra particulars deliberate to be revealed over the following few months.
This text was first revealed in January when the crowdfunding marketing campaign was introduced, and has been up to date to replicate the marketing campaign launching.
