Most companies making smart glasses are chasing Meta and its lineup of Ray-Ban and first-party smart glasses—but some are trying for a different path. RayNeo looks to be diverging from the camera-clad AI glasses pack with its newly announced RayNeo iO Smart Glasses.
Unlike Meta’s current lineup of smart glasses, there is no camera. Instead, the iO look closer to pairs made by Even Realities and Xgimi, the latter of which recently released its MemoMind One. Like both of the aforementioned pairs, the iO have a monochrome display with a max brightness of 1,300 nits. That brightness is a bit higher than the Even G2 (1,200 nits), but dimmer than the MemoMind One (2,000 nits). While the iO do have microphones that enable the use of a voice assistant and features like transcription, there are no speakers, similar to the Even G2.
The iO doesn’t officially have a price, but they should soon since they’re set to launch on Sept. 4.
The feature set looks similar to those of competitors, too, with captions, transcription, voice memos, notifications, and something called “Ambient AI Life Log,” which RayNeo says “operates silently in an ultra-low-power processing tier to build long-term contextual memory of your habits and workflows for more tailored daily summaries and assistance.” This sounds similar to Xgimi’s “Moments” feature, which constantly records audio for daily summaries, but I’m not entirely sure if they’re the same. I’ve reached out to RayNeo and will update this post with any further information. There’s at least an LED indicator that lights up when you’re recording audio.
One interesting addition to the iO is a “Smart Crown Dial,” which is a physical dial that you can both click and rotate to control the UI inside the glasses. I like the addition of physical controls. Even Realities uses a smart ring as an input method, as well as touch controls on the right arm, but the MemoMind One relies on head gestures and triggering features via a companion app. None of those input methods are ideal, in my experience, so maybe the inclusion of a physical button is just what the smart glasses doctor ordered. Similar to the MemoMind One and the Even G2, the iO are fairly lightweight, clocking in at 33g, though it’s unclear whether that’s with or without lenses.
Clearly, the idea of camera-less smart glasses is catching on, and RayNeo is another company hopping on that bandwagon. For context, RayNeo *does *sell camera glasses—the RayNeo X3 Pro, which are AR glasses, have one in the bridge—so its choice not to include them here is not totally philosophical. Still, the company clearly wants to give people options, since not all of us are comfortable walking around with discreet cameras on our faces.