RayNeo

RayNeo
Information
Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Augmented reality, Consumer electronics, Smart glasses
Founded	2017 (spun off from TCL as an independent company in 2021)
Founder	Howie Li
Headquarters	Shenzhen, China
Notable Personnel	Howie Li (Founder and CEO)
Products	AR and display glasses (RayNeo X2, RayNeo X2 Lite, RayNeo X3 Pro, RayNeo Air series)
Parent	TCL Electronics
Website	https://www.rayneo.com

RayNeo is a Chinese consumer Augmented reality company that develops smart glasses and wearable display glasses. It was incubated by TCL Electronics and became an independent company in 2021, and it operates as TCL's augmented reality brand. The company is headquartered in Shenzhen and its founder and chief executive is Howie Li.

RayNeo makes two main lines of product: lightweight "display" glasses sold under the Air name, which use Micro-OLED panels in a birdbath optical design to mirror video from a phone, console, or computer onto a large virtual screen, and full-color Augmented reality glasses such as the RayNeo X2 and RayNeo X3 Pro that use MicroLED projectors with optical waveguides and run their own software. According to shipment figures from Counterpoint Research, RayNeo was the largest brand in the global AR glasses market in the third quarter of 2025, with a share that Counterpoint put at about 24.5 percent.

History

RayNeo traces its origin to a project founded inside TCL in 2017. It was incubated by TCL Electronics and spun off as a separate company in 2021, after which it concentrated on consumer augmented reality hardware and software. The company's registered name is given in Chinese corporate records as Shenzhen RayNeo Network Technology, and it operates as TCL's AR brand under the "TCL RayNeo" name.

At CES 2023 in January, TCL presented RayNeo's product line publicly, including the wearable display glasses then sold under the NXTWEAR name and a prototype of the RayNeo X2 augmented reality glasses. In May 2023 RayNeo announced a collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies, built around Qualcomm's Snapdragon XR processors and the Snapdragon Spaces developer platform, to add spatial awareness, object tracking, and gesture recognition to its glasses. In June 2024 RayNeo joined a partnership with the hand-tracking company Ultraleap and the event-camera maker Prophesee to develop hand tracking and event-based vision sensing for future AR glasses.

In January 2026 RayNeo raised a funding round of more than one billion yuan, about 143 million US dollars. The round was co-led by China Mobile and CITIC Goldstone Investment and included an investment fund tied to China Unicom; the deal was reported as the first time Chinese telecom operators had invested in the smart-glasses sector. The funding coincided with the company's appearance at CES 2026.

Technology

RayNeo's products fall into two families that use different optics for different purposes.

The Air line is a set of "display only" glasses. Each lens carries a Sony-made Micro-OLED microdisplay, and a birdbath optical assembly reflects that image into the wearer's eye so that it appears as a large floating screen. The RayNeo Air 2, for example, uses two 1080p Micro-OLED panels running at 120 Hz with 600 nits of brightness, a 46 degree field of view, and a virtual image that the company likens to a 201 inch screen. These glasses do not run their own applications: they connect to a phone, computer, or game console over USB-C and mirror that device's video, and the Air 2 weighs about 76 grams.

The X line is true augmented reality eyewear. Instead of a birdbath, it uses full-color MicroLED light engines paired with optical waveguides: thin transparent lenses that pipe the projected image across the glass and release it in front of the eye, so digital content overlays the real world rather than blocking it. The RayNeo X2 was marketed as the world's first pair of binocular full-color MicroLED waveguide AR glasses. The X glasses are self-contained: they run on a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, carry their own camera and microphones, and provide an AI assistant, live translation, and turn-by-turn navigation without a tethered host device. The original X2 runs RayNeo's own custom interface rather than standard Android, while the later X2 Lite and X3 Pro move to an Android-based platform on Qualcomm's Snapdragon AR1 chip. The trade-off is a smaller and lower-resolution image than the Air glasses: MicroLED waveguide displays in this class are very bright (RayNeo quotes up to 1,500 nits to the eye on the X2) but cover a narrow field of view, around 25 to 30 degrees, at modest pixel counts.

Products

RayNeo's catalog spans the tethered Air display glasses and the standalone X augmented reality glasses, in addition to the earlier TCL-branded NXTWEAR display glasses.

Product	Released	Optics / display	Notes
TCL NXTWEAR S / NXTWEAR Air	2022-2023	Micro-OLED birdbath	Early TCL display glasses, later folded under the RayNeo brand; tethered 1080p virtual screen
RayNeo Air 2	Late 2023	Sony Micro-OLED birdbath, 1080p per eye, 120 Hz, 600 nits, 46 degree FOV	Display-only glasses tethered over USB-C; about 76 g; launched at 379 US dollars
RayNeo X2	February 2024 (Indiegogo)	Binocular full-color MicroLED + optical waveguide, up to 1,500 nits	Standalone AR glasses; Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2, 6 GB RAM, 128 GB storage, 16 MP camera, about 119 g; early-bird price 649 US dollars, RRP 899 US dollars
RayNeo X2 Lite	Demonstrated at CES 2024	Binocular full-color MicroLED + waveguide, 640x480, 1,500 nits, ~30 degree FOV	Lighter standalone AR glasses (~60 g); Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1, 6 GB RAM, 128 GB storage, 12 MP camera
RayNeo Air 2s	2024	Micro-OLED birdbath, 201 inch virtual display, quad speakers	Updated tethered display glasses positioned as a low-cost entry model
RayNeo X3 Pro	2026 (CES 2026)	Dual-eye full-color MicroLED waveguide, 1,200 nits	Standalone AR glasses on Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1; shown at CES 2026 as the first consumer AR glasses concept with a built-in eSIM and 4G connectivity ("Project eSIM")

Market position

RayNeo is one of the most prominent makers of consumer AR and display glasses, and it competes with brands such as Xreal and Rokid in the display-glasses category and with full AR eyewear from larger companies. Counterpoint Research reported that RayNeo ranked first in the global AR glasses market by shipments for two consecutive quarters through the third quarter of 2025, with a share of roughly 24 percent, and the company said its overseas sales had grown several times year over year and that its glasses were sold in more than 25 countries. Caixin reported that RayNeo had taken the majority of domestic Chinese sales before Xiaomi entered the market in mid-2025, and, citing International Data Corporation figures, put the global smart-glasses market at nearly 4.3 million units shipped in the third quarter of 2025.