Why should your next pair of glasses be glasses? This sentence may be the best explanation for the upcoming AI glasses competition.
On November 12, at the Baidu World 2024 site, Xiaodu AI glasses, known as "the world's first native AI glasses equipped with Chinese large models", were unveiled, demonstrating first-view shooting, intelligent object recognition, voice interaction and other functions. It is expected to be launched next year Listed in the first half of the year. Another giant is striving to jump into the AI glasses battlefield.
As a type of smart glasses, AI glasses mainly realize human-computer interaction through AI voice. In addition to completing the basic headphone functions, they can also realize intelligent recognition, photography and voice interaction. Generally speaking, in certain specific scenarios, hands are freed, and the connection between people and mobile phones becomes more invisible and convenient. You no longer need to take out your phone all the time to complete daily operations such as searching, recording, translating, and shooting. With the development of large models this year and the attractive performance of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses’ huge shipments, the “AI+ glasses” track has quickly become popular.
In September 2023, Meta, which has turned its attention from the metaverse to the field of AI, cooperated with Ray-Ban, a subsidiary of European eyewear giant Essilorluxottica, to launch new Ray-Ban Meta glasses, and added AI functions to them 7 months later. Users can use voice commands You can wake up the smart assistant to perform conversation operations. It supports English conversation and is limited to users in the United States and Canada. After the product came out, it became a big hit, especially after it was equipped with AI functions, sales grew rapidly. According to The Verge, as of May 2024, Ray-Ban Meta sales exceeded 1 million units, and annual shipments are expected to exceed 2 million units.
The industry has always regarded "2 million unit shipments" as the life and death line for AI hardware, indicating that the product has successfully passed market testing. EssilorLuxottica also revealed during the 2024 Q3 quarterly earnings conference call that Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are the best-selling product in 60% of Ray-Ban stores in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It can be predicted that as its AI functions are gradually opened in other countries, sales will continue to expand.
This sales volume is a huge surprise for both Meta and Ray-Ban. After all, as early as 2021, the two parties collaborated to launch the first generation of smart glasses Ray-Ban Stories, which was similar in weight and shape to the new model and had the same starting price. However, it ended with dismal data. The hot sales of the new model after adding AI functions are still attracting more people to flock to the new battlefield of AI hardware - AI glasses.
According to The Verge, Google also wants to take a share of the pie and is already actively contacting EssilorLuxottica, hoping to cooperate in the production of smart glasses equipped with Gemini AI models. In September, Bloomberg technology reporter Mark Gurman revealed that after seeing the great success of Meta, "Apple may also try to join this competition." It is promoting a plan code-named Atlas internally and has begun market research on smart glasses.
Fierce competition in the domestic market is about to begin, with Internet companies, mobile phone and AR glasses manufacturers entering the market one after another. Zhang Haochen, co-founder of Thunderbird Innovation, an AR glasses manufacturer, revealed: “There are probably dozens of teams in China now starting to make AI glasses, and at least 10 teams have officially started, including new entrepreneurs. It also includes big companies like Xiaomi and ByteDance.”
AI glasses products that are currently on the market, such as Huawei Smart Glasses 2 released by Huawei in June, and Jiehuan AI audio glasses released by Honeycomb Technology in August, are mainly based on audio functions. Based on AI, human-computer interaction can be carried out. For interaction, translation and broadcast reminders, camera functions are generally not developed. It is reported that Thunderbird Innovation will release the first camera AI glasses in cooperation with Doctor Glasses by the end of the year. In addition, Xiaomi and Baidu, which have clearly announced that they will launch new AI glasses in the first half of 2025, have also added camera modules to their product designs. It can be seen that the shooting function will be a new competitive point for subsequent AI glasses.
Note | Recently released and planned AI glasses products, the material comes from the Internet / compiled by Phoenix Technology
2. Ray-Ban Meta’s homework is difficult to copy
How to survive in the already slightly crowded AI glasses market, the most important thing is to learn from Meta’s experience, achieve a balance between performance, weight and price, and possibly have a highlight in a certain sector. But it's not that easy.
An industry insider told Ifeng.com that there is nothing particularly novel in the current industry solutions. “If it doesn’t have a display, it’s basically a standard Meta-Ray-Ban-like product, similar to Qualcomm’s AR1 solution. If it has a display, There may be many restrictions, only single green display is supported.”
This also reflects the current limited situation of AI glasses. Ray-BanMeta is currently the most worthy player standing in the center of the market. However, even if it copies the performance of Ray-Ban Meta, it does not mean that everything will be fine. Taking the shooting function as an example, if it cannot cooperate with domestic social platforms and realize ecological interoperability of software applications, the competitiveness of the product will inevitably be greatly weakened. After all, one of the core selling points of Ray-Ban Meta is that it can be portablely connected to live video broadcasts and video calls on Instagram, Message and other platforms, and can also easily publish the photos taken to Meta’s own platform.
In addition, photographing mold designs will also be a big challenge. To this day, there are still a lot of doubts surrounding the "first-person shooting" function claimed by Ray-Ban Meta. After evaluation by foreign technology digital media Laptop Mag, it feels more like the perspective of a person standing behind you and peeking over your shoulder. .
In the competition between price and weight, the space is even more cramped. The average selling price of Ray-Ban's own products is around US$150 to US$200. The starting price of Ray-Ban Meta is US$299, which is only US$50 to US$100 higher than the regular model. It also has intelligent voice and shooting functions, which is in line with the user's psychology. expectations and consumption budget. At the Xiaodu AI glasses conference, a staff member revealed that the price may be just over 2,000 yuan. It can be speculated that the subsequent AI glasses will most likely hover around this price line. Rokid recently launched a new generation of AI+AR glasses co-branded with BOLON glasses - Rokid Glasses, priced at 2,499 yuan.
In terms of weight, according to the National Opticians Association, the weight of ordinary glasses is usually between 20 and 30 grams. The popular Ray-Ban Meta weighs 49g, and the Xiaodu AI glasses weigh 45g. Wearing them for a long time is still a big burden.
In addition, whether the success of Ray-Ban Meta is the success of glasses or the success of AI, which is more important, still needs a clear measurement. As a cultural symbol that leads the fashion trend, Ray-Ban glasses have moved from Hollywood to the world. They have unique advantages in attracting audiences, and their long-term mature sales channels have also greatly boosted the sales of Ray-Ban Meta. For companies competing to bet on AI glasses, whether and how to choose a partner in the glasses industry will also be an important part of the competition.
A practitioner in the AI hardware industry expressed his concerns about the current influx of the entire industry into the AI glasses track, “This is most likely still a game for big companies, especially big companies with stronger brands and channels. It’s possible to build an advantage.”
3. What is the future of AI glasses?
Crossing the river by touching the meta, can AI glasses have a long-term future after their short-term popularity? Or is it just a temporary transitional product in the transition to AR glasses?
Before Ray-Ban Meta became a phenomenon-level hit, the smart glasses products in the public mind were more about real-world display-enhanced AR glasses. Vision accounts for more than 80% of the human senses for receiving information. The brain is much more efficient at understanding text or picture information than sound. These factors determine that AR glasses are more suitable to become terminal products of smart devices. AI glasses without visual enhancement are very difficult to use. It is difficult to completely liberate mobile phones and computers in many scenes.
However, there is great resistance to AR glasses entering the market. The road to "AI + audio" seems to be faster. The style of ordinary glasses and the concept of "glasses headphones" are also easier to impress users. However, no one can guarantee how soon this road will be completely replaced by “AR+AI”. After all, on the other side, a large number of lightweight AR glasses products are still being launched. OPPO and Xingji Meizu have successively released AR glasses powered by smart AI this year. At Meta Connect 2024, Zuckerberg put down the popular Ray-Ban Meta, and instead focused on Orion, the first AR glasses developed at a cost of billions of dollars.
However, before imagining the future, what needs to be resolved urgently at the forefront of AI glasses are accusations about the risk of privacy leakage.
Not long ago, two Harvard students wore Ray-Ban Meta and conducted an experiment. With the cooperation of its live broadcast function, it was supplemented by "reverse facial recognition", "crawler tools", "large language model" and "database". "Technology can easily obtain a large amount of information about strangers you pass by, including names, addresses, phone numbers, and even family information, and the whole process only takes a few seconds. Ray-Ban Meta has a natural advantage in obtaining other people's facial information covertly. The appearance is almost the same as ordinary sunglasses. The LED indicator light that turns on automatically when shooting and the inconspicuous shutter sound are better than nothing.
If you want to capture people's hearts in this AI glasses competition, you not only need to consider how to better free up the hand holding the phone, but more importantly, you need to provide more privacy protection and security in the hardware.