A solid entry-level AR experience

We’re spoiled for choice when it comes to face-worn gadgets that beam content straight into our eyes, from super-premium headsets like the Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR, to smart glasses with embedded displays like the Meta Ray-Ban Display, to more moderately priced options from companies like XREAL and VITURE. RayNeo’s Air 4 Pro AR glasses ($299 at Amazon) fall toward the latter end of that spectrum.

These glasses aren’t smart, per se; they don’t run apps or provide direct access to any AI assistants. But they can play video and audio from just about any device with USB-C, providing a private viewing experience that’s easy to toss in a bag for travel. I’ve got some issues with the Air 4 Pro, but at $299, I think these wearable displays could be a good pick for the right buyer.

The RayNeo Air 4 Pro is a pair of glasses with a general shape similar to the classic Ray-Ban Wayfarer (no relation). Inside the glasses is a pair of prisms that reflect two tiny micro-OLED displays, creating a 120Hz, 1080p display in the center of your field of view. For audio, there are Bang & Olufsen-branded speakers in the arms of the glasses, positioned near your ears.

From a distance, without a cable attached, the RayNeo Air 4 Pro look more or less like regular sunglasses. You can see through them even when the display is active, but an included clip-on shade blocks light from entering the glasses’ lenses, giving video displayed through the Air 4 Pro proper deep black levels and enabling use in bright environments.

You can wire up most any gadget that outputs video over USB-C to play video and audio through the Air 4 Pro, which have a USB-C port at the end of their right leg. They’re completely plug-and-play, with no setup required on the glasses themselves, and only as much as any other monitor on the source device. They work with most modern phones, tablets, and laptops, as well as some popular gaming handhelds. I’ve used the RayNeo Air 4 Pro plenty with MacBook Pro and Pixel 9 Pro; the glasses generally work well with both, though some features aren’t Pixel-compatible.

RayNeo advertises the Air 4 Pro as compatible with the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, but I wasn’t able to test that functionality; connecting those consoles to these glasses requires an $89 accessory that’s sold separately. This isn’t obvious from the glasses’ listing on RayNeo’s storefront, and I suspect some Switch owners will be irritated about that. The Steam Deck, meanwhile, is compatible with the glasses without any additional hardware: just plug the glasses into the handheld’s USB-C port.

In addition to the $299 base model, RayNeo made two Batman-themed limited editions, which are what I’ve been testing: a Justice Edition that comes with a lens shade that looks like Batman’s cowl, and a Chaos Edition with a shade meant to look like the Joker.

Functionality is the same across all versions, but they both have Batman’s insignia stamped on the right leg, near the temple. Both those editions cost $20 more than the standard-issue model, but are unfortunately currently listed as sold out on RayNeo’s website.

I’ve enjoyed using the RayNeo Air 4 Pro quite a bit. As someone who typically wears prescription glasses, I find the Air 4 Pro to be almost as comfortable as my standards. At 76g (2.7oz), they’re noticeably bulkier than regular glasses, but still light enough to wear for hours at a time. On the day I used them most, I wore the Air 4 Pro for about six hours, taking them off every hour or two when I had to step away from my desk. They never started feeling heavy, and though I was prepared for some eye strain, I didn’t experience any.

Setup is another high point. Plug the glasses in, complete whatever setup flow your source device goes through when connecting a new external display, pop the glasses on, and you’re set. There’s a rocker to control brightness on the right arm and one for the built-in speakers’ volume on the left, along with a menu button to adjust some other basic settings.

There’s no battery inside the Air 4 Pro; they’re powered by whatever you plug them into. That helps them stay lightweight and means one less gadget to charge, but using the glasses with my Pixel 9 Pro hammered its battery, draining 20% of its charge in under an hour. If you want to use the glasses with your phone for a long-haul flight, RayNeo sells a $35 adapter that lets you use the Air 4 Pro while also charging the device supplying the media.

Image quality is generally good, with solid contrast (when using the included shade), vibrant colors, and plenty of sharpness for me at 1080p. Support for 120Hz refresh rates when displaying SDR video is a nice bonus, too, especially if you’re playing compatible games.

The glasses boast support for HDR10, an inclusion RayNeo says is a first in glasses of this kind, as well as a setting for SDR video that’s meant to give it an HDR-like look. HDR10 was one of a handful of features that don’t seem to work with my Pixel 9 Pro — even with HDR content loaded up on my phone, the glasses flash a message saying it’s not detected, reverting to RayNeo’s SDR-to-HDR conversion filter.

Watching HDR10 video from my MacBook, meanwhile, the difference in highlight brightness was easy to see when swapping between HDR and SDR settings. RayNeo’s SDR-to-HDR trick boosts highlights and contrast for an HDR-ish look, regardless of whether the device you’re hooked up to actually supports HDR output on the Air 4 Pro. It makes for a brighter and more dramatic image, but when I wasn’t viewing real HDR content, I typically chose to stick the the SDR setting’s more accurate look.

Support for 3D content is a fun novelty, though that, too, is a no-go on my Pixel. Using the RayNeo XR app that you can grab from RayNeo’s website (not the RayNeo AR app that’s available on the Play Store), the glasses can add a depth effect to local 2D video files on your phone, creating a faux-3D effect. I was able to install the app and boot it up on my Pixel 9 Pro, but as noted on RayNeo’s website, Pixel phones don’t technically support RayNeo XR: running on a Pixel, content from the app just doesn’t show up on the glasses’ display.

The Air 4 Pro can also play back native stereoscopic 3D videos, which you can find plenty of on YouTube. It works great when they’re connected to my MacBook — but with the glasses wired to my Pixel 9 Pro, the display simply goes black when I activate the glasses’ 3D mode. I’m not too bothered to miss out on HDR and 3D when the glasses are paired with my phone, but these compatibility gaps might matter more to other Pixel owners.

RayNeo says the Air 4 Pro projects “a massive 201-inch virtual display,” which sounds much more impressive than it is. The stationary display area projected inside the glasses fills about as much of my field of view as the 32-inch monitor on my desk does when I’m reclined in my chair. That’s a lot of real estate if you’re crammed into an airline seat, but it’s not exactly the portable movie theater experience RayNeo implies — for big-screen viewing, the living room TV would still be my go-to.

Audio quality is decent. Sound out of the Air 4 Pro is more than good enough for me to enjoy listening to podcasts or watching short videos, but the glasses don’t get very loud, and there’s not enough low-end oomph. If you’re watching a movie or gaming for longer sessions on these things, you’ll have a better experience if you pop in a decent pair of earbuds.

Nearsighted users will need corrective lenses to see the Air 4 Pro’s projected image clearly, the same as with any other XR or VR headset. It is technically possible to wear RayNeo’s smart glasses over top of regular glasses, but I wouldn’t recommend buying the Air 4 Pro with that use case in mind. After trying the Air 4 Pro over of my slimmest pair for a couple of hours, I got tired of trying to keep everything lined up just so and swapped to contacts.

If you also wear prescription glasses full-time, you’ll want to spring for a pair of prescription inserts, which you’ll have to source from a third party. A quick Google search turns up sellers offering inserts for as little as $50, but it’d be nice to be able to get a set bundled with the Air 4 Pro directly from RayNeo.

My biggest issues with the Air 4 Pro come down to fit. Because there’s no way to adjust the size or position of the image being projected, my experience is that at least one edge of the viewing area is always a bit fuzzy, leading me to shift the glasses around slightly every once in as I use them. It’s not the biggest deal for watching most video, but it’s been grating when I’ve used the Air 4 Pro for work: UI elements like MacOS’s dock and menu bar can appear smeary, or worse, just out of view.

The glasses come with a fixed interpupillary distance (IPD), meaning only users whose IPD falls within a certain range will be able to comfortably use the Air 4 Pro. You’re able to move the glasses closer to or farther from your eyes using an adjustable nose pad, and each arm can be positioned to one of three different heights, so there’s some leeway — but the lack of customization when it comes to image position might be a deal-breaker for some.

The RayNeo Air 4 Pro will appeal to a different audience than a lot of other smart glasses and headsets. These glasses don’t offer immersive virtual reality experiences the way something like the Galaxy XR does, and they don’t respond in any way to the world around you — they don’t have cameras to see or microphones to listen (a benefit, in my book). These are AR glasses that are very much focused on being an extension of your devices: a wearable display you can take with you anywhere. However, unlike some rival devices with head tracking capabilities, the image projected inside the glasses is even fixed in the center of your field of view, with no screen anchoring available.

But the Air 4 Pro’s relative simplicity means they can undercut a lot of similar products. At $299, they’re $100 less expensive than VITURE’s entry-tier Luma XR Glasses ($399 at Amazon), which have a higher-resolution display, wider field if view, and auto-dimming chromatic lenses (though they’re typically on sale closer to $359).

RayNeo’s glasses also cost $150 less than the XREAL 1S ($448.99 at Amazon), which comes with higher resolution, wider FOV, dimming lenses, and the option to anchor your virtual display in physical space. Fit might be an issue for some, but if all you’re after is a super-portable media display and you can live without higher-end features, there’s a lot to like in the RayNeo Air 4 Pro.