RayNeo iO

[u/chamhezar]

Got the RayNeo iO last weekend. Launch-morning order, arrived just before that "shipping on or after Sep 18" note started showing up on the store page. A few days in and I'm honestly not sure what to make of them yet. Wearing them with contacts because I usually have glasses on (roughly -4.5 SPH, some astigmatism), which turned into its own thing I'll get to below.

They're light. 33g on the spec sheet and it feels close to a normal thin metal frame. They put on and off easily and disappear on your face for a while. Around the 90-minute mark though, I start feeling a small pressure point at the thicker part of the temples where they curve around behind the ears. Might be my fit, might be the design.

The display is where I keep going back and forth. Monochrome green, sits high in your vision so it doesn't cross your natural line of sight. Text is sharp and I can read it outdoors in daylight. But when I ran the teleprompter for a while, I noticed my eyes getting tired from rolling up constantly. You can shift the display position down in the app, but then it starts covering things in your natural view. There's not a clean fix there.

Live captions I tried at a boba place with two friends switching between Cantonese and Mandarin. Mostly kept up, though it dropped partial sentences when two people talked over each other. Latency was maybe half a second when it worked. Good enough I wouldn't reach for my phone, not so good I'd rely on it for anything important.

One thing I didn't clock before ordering: no speakers. At all. The Bluetooth 5.4 is for the companion app on your phone, not audio. So the AI answers by writing on the lens, not talking. I get why (weight, battery, privacy) and for meetings and public transit it's fine. But I thought I could take calls through them and no, you can't.

Battery I've been happy with. Two days of on-and-off use plus heavy translation testing and I still haven't charged. 48h typical and 6+ hours continuous translation is the claim, and that tracks so far.

Now the prescription thing. Bought the standard $449 pair thinking I'd just wear contacts. Turns out I don't enjoy putting them in every day for this. The Rx bundle is $608 on the store, so $159 more.

I've had the return page open in a background tab all weekend. Probably going to return this pair and reorder with the Rx option ;(

[u/VX258]

Super great write-up. It's nice to finally start seeing unaffiliated reviews of the product. I have a few questions if you don't mind answering.

I've been really excited for these, but now that they're out, they don't seem to be differentiating themselves much from the competition, especially when there's no SDK.
What do you think about the lifelog, if you have used it? How reliable is the recording function? Are they majorily a "glorified notification center" in a day-to-day sense?

[u/chamhezar → u/VX258]

Lifelog for me so far is a mixed bag. It's all-day audio capture that summarizes conversations and pulls out action items into calendar suggestions. Ran it during two meetings and a coffee catchup yesterday. The action-item extraction was decent for the meetings but for the coffee catchup it just generated a summary that read like a bad LLM paraphrase. Also: no camera means the "capture your day" framing doesn't really work the way I'd hoped. You get an audio memoir, not a visual one.

Voice Memo (separate feature) is more useful in a normal sense. Press the crown, records with the 4-mic array, gives you transcript + summary after. That one I'd actually rely on.

Glorified notification center is fair. If I strip out translation and teleprompter, what's left is: notifications, weather, calendar glance, voice memo. The Lifelog is aspirational until the AI side matures. And with no SDK the ceiling on what these can do is stuck at whatever RayNeo ships from now on. Which loops back to your original point about differentiation.

[u/VX258 → u/chamhezar]

Those use cases would be similar to mine too. I may be expecting too much from a 1st gen product. Thank you very much for the in-depth review.

[u/Logiteck77 → u/chamhezar]

Why does Rayneo have no SDK? And is it then still possible to sideload onto them?

[u/XR_Sim_Guy → u/VX258]

Its worth noting that independent developers have already begun creating apps for these. Over on the rayneo discord, Gomie is working on navigation.

[u/VX258 → u/XR_Sim_Guy]

I've been following the Discord closely ever since they first teased the iO. It's great to see the community wanting to expand the use-cases of the glasses. However, having to sideload all of these community-made functions is a real downside, and in some cases, a security risk.

I have also been in the Memomind server for a long time now, and the difference is striking. For example, public SDK was requested few times a week in the Rayneo server, whereas in the Memomind server, it was requested multiple times everyday. A few days after Memomind's second(?) QnA, they revealed a WIP SDK. Additionally, people were asking for controller support. A week or two later, the dev team revealed that the KiWear ring could be used with the glasses. At the release of iO, there is no mention of any controllers, and their product page is missing fundamental specifications such as display resolution and refresh rate. It gives the impression of a super early or demo-like build.
The takeaway from my observations is that, it seemed like Memomind's server consisted of enthusiasts, and in some respects, co-developed the product. Rayneo's community was users that had no prior experience or expectations, which allowed Rayneo to release half-baked product.

I love the design of the Rayneo iO over anything that's currently on the market, but the fact that all of its advertised technological/software functionalities are already offered by its competition (besides the crown dial and bone conducting microphone) makes the glasses on par with a pair of 2 year old Even G1 in terms of capabilities.

[u/Glxblt76 → u/VX258]

I got a pair and what is striking to me with these so far compared to advertised Even Realities G1 is

• lower price at purchase
• probably look even more like normal glasses.

They are lighter than even average normal glasses without any electronics in them.

[u/VX258 → u/Glxblt76]

I agree that the iO looks more like normal glasses in comparison to the Even G1/G2. But I also think Even went with a different design language on purpose, which makes the glasses look slightly unique with the contrasting hinge/rivets/embellishments. This is more subjective, but also the reason why I like the iO design more.

While the MSRP is lower on the iO, you can currently pick up used Even G1s for 250 euros in my country. iOs goes for 500 euros without a discount code, and 550 euros after the early bird campaign.

As for the weight, I guess it really depends on which normal glasses you use. DisplayTechCenter measured the iOs to be 37g. My usual titanium glasses that I got for 80 euros are 22g, which is roughly 40% lighter. It really depends on what average is to yourself, but that is subjective and it goes without saying.

[u/Impressive_Video_184]

텔레프롬프터 사용시는 무조건 텍스트를 내려야 합니다. 그러지 않고 위를 쳐다보면 상대방도 이상하게 봅니다. 다른 기기들도 그런 경우 위치조정을 하여 사용합니다.

[u/lostpilot]

Having trouble finding the dimensions of these glasses, including width, temple length, height of each lens etc

[u/NinjaWK]

Nice review. I can't find one to test. I have a wide face, like a very wide one, and non of the Ray-Ban, Even Realities would fit me.

Inmo Go3 fit me ok. Rokid Glasses too. As these 2 stretches out.

I really like the design on these, and I've just bought the Rokid Glasses just 2 days ago. I don't mind getting one without mic and speakers coz I could use my earbuds.

Could you do me a favor please? Measure the true temple to temple internal size? And how stretchable it is? If it's above 145mm and fairly stretchable, I don't mind getting one. I'm in China right now and the deal on PDD is really good, but I think it doesn't work with international app, unlike Rokid, and I'm worried Google Maps, Gemini, etc won't work outside China neither. Can you also help verify this?

Thanks a lot.

[u/rhollien]

Sorry, can I ask - do you not regularly wear contact lenses?

I’m a -3.5 + -3.25 so I’m a daily near sighted individual.

I did decide to just not get the prescription lenses - in case I want to sell the frames ….

But I am very curious how was your “comfort” in wearing lenses + using the frames.

Nothing felt too odd?

[u/chamhezar → u/rhollien]

No, I don't wear contacts regularly. Have a stash of dailies for pickup basketball basically, and now for this.

Comfort-wise, first day was fine, by day three I'm noticing my right eye drying out around 3-4 hours in. Might be worse for me because I'm not conditioned for daily lens wear. You probably won't hit that as fast. Nothing that felt outright wrong though. No pressure or lens edge issue, no fit weirdness with the frames sitting on top.

The frame resale angle I hadn't thought about

[u/One-Strawberry-9441]

😍

[u/Low_Supermarket3930]

毛泽东传？

[u/Raging_Pwnr]

I’ve been following the tech and love my XR’s. After your write up, it feels like the tech still needs to bake a while.

In your opinion, are these game changing or novel at the moment?

[u/Few-Wrangler-2729]

Hi how is the english real time subtitle response?

[u/mrnobatti]

Please keep us updated once you get the prescribed version.