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From Google Glass to Vision Pro, human beings have made progress in exploring smart glasses, but they have not been successful. It was not until the emergence of Ray-Ban Meta that the industry regained confidence in smart glasses. , starting last year, with the in-depth application of AI large models, smart glasses have a new story to tell.

In the second half of this year, Baidu and domestic smart glasses manufacturer Rokid will release smart glasses equipped with AI capabilities. In addition to Baidu and Rokid, Xiaomi and Apple are also rumored to enter the research and development of smart glasses. With this At the same time, major technology companies such as OPPO, vivo, Huawei, Tencent, and ByteDance are all evaluating AI glasses projects.

Whether to continue on the road to AR or to open up a new AI route, today’s smart glasses have reached a crossroads.

01, Hundred Mirrors War

In 2012, it was called by Google Google Glass was released online for the "Moon Landing Plan". In Google's plan, the ultimate mission of Google Glass is to "replace mobile phones" and become a "smartphone" that people can wear on their eyes every day.

Compared with mobile phone screens, Google Glass uses prism projection technology to display emails, text messages, navigation and other information;

Compared with the audio-visual entertainment functions of mobile phones, Google Glass can use built-in The 5-megapixel camera completes first-person shooting and plays back the video through prism projection;

Compared with the Internet function of mobile phones, Google Glass supports voice search interaction, and users can ask about some knowledge such as weather and stock prices. question.

The reality is cruel. Google Glass has not achieved the expected sales. As for "replacing mobile phones", it has not even touched it. In 2015, Google suspended sales of Google Glass.

The industry conducted attribution analysis on the failure of Google Glass, including marketing strategy, lack of implementation scenarios, market acceptance and other issues. Among them, the American technology media Verge clearly pointed out that many functions provided by Google Glass (such as voice photography, navigation) are also available on smartphones, but the mobile phone experience is better and more convenient.

The road of "replacing mobile phones" is not feasible, so we must start from the original function of glasses-to provide a differentiated visual experience. Therefore, smart glasses manufacturers are obsessed with display technology, and AR/VR glasses have become the next generation. Mainstream in the Google Glass era.

In order to achieve better display effects, the design of AR/VR glasses is very different from ordinary glasses. They usually adopt extremely exaggerated and sci-fi shapes.The weight of the glasses has become a problem that the industry has never solved. Coupled with the poor application and content ecology, AR/VR glasses have not made much waves on the consumer side so far.

Vision Pro, which Apple convened more than 2,000 designers and engineers for 8 years and spent billions of dollars to develop, is a typical example.

In terms of product strength alone, Vision Pro has indeed achieved the ultimate in smart glasses. Two Micro OLED display screens can achieve a display effect close to 8K for both eyes, and the pixel density reaches an astonishing 3400 PPI, far exceeding Our PPI resolution limit within the viewing distance of smart glasses.

Before the release of Vision Pro, Apple fans were excited with anticipation. However, after the product was released, the market voted with its feet and it was discontinued less than a year after its release, making it Apple’s “short-lived” product.

After AR/VR glasses, the industry ushered in the AI ​​glasses boom activated by Ray-Ban Meta.

This smart glasses, co-created by Meta and Ray-Ban, was launched in September last year. More than 1 million units have been sold in more than a year. Annual sales in 2024 are expected to exceed 2 million units. Guojin A research report released by Securities predicts that when Ray-Ban Meta's sales network is deployed globally, its annual sales potential may jump to more than 6 million units.

Ray-Ban Meta has obviously given the industry a great demonstration and stimulation. Among Chinese manufacturers, Baidu’s “Xiaodu AI Glasses” launched this year and Rokid’s “Rokid Glasses” cooperation with the fashion glasses brand BOLON are quite popular. Attention.

Baidu’s entry into the AI ​​​​glasses comes from Wenxin’s large model, which is known as “the best in Chinese” and can seamlessly connect with Baidu’s application ecosystem including Baidu Maps, search, and encyclopedia.

The "Rokid glasses" launched by Rokid this time are connected to the algorithm capabilities of Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen large model to realize functions such as question answering and real-time translation.

In addition to Baidu and Rokid, many technology companies are also developing smart glasses products.

In April this year, the AR brand "Li Weike" released the AI ​​smart glasses Meta Lens Chat; in August, Xiaomi ecological chain company Honeycomb Technology launched the Jiehuan AI audio glasses; in the same month, Thunderbird Innovation and Doctor Glass has established a joint venture, and the first product is expected to be released by the end of the year...

According to public information and channel news, so far, at least 50 companies in China are promoting smart glasses projects. These include leading companies such as Xiaomi, Huawei, Baidu, and ByteDance, as well as emerging manufacturers that emerged from the last wave of smart glasses, such as Thunderbird, Shadow Eye, and Rokid. Among overseas manufacturers, giants such as Apple, Samsung, and Google are also eager to give it a try, and they have a "Battle of Hundreds of Mirrors" posture.

02. The trend brought by AI

After carefully studying the success factors of Ray-Ban Meta, all AI glasses manufacturers They all list photo recognition, audio recording and playback, and AI calling as the three main functions of the product. That is, smart glasses are both cameras and headphones, and they are also AI assistants that can help you translate and navigate.

AI glasses. The definition of seems to be back on Google In the Glass era, with the rise of large AI models, the industry needs other physical carriers for AI applications like mobile phones.

Looking back, there is actually no problem with the product design concept of Google Glass. It's just that the time to propose this idea is wrong, just like the "half-step ahead" theory says, "One step ahead is a pioneer, two steps ahead is a martyr"

The current technological maturity is different from Google. Glass has undergone earth-shaking changes 12 years ago when it was released.

Take the newly released Rokid Glasses as an example. Different from the previous split design, the Rokid released this time. Glasses adopts an integrated structural layout and weighs only 49g. The Rokid product team integrates core components such as the motherboard and battery into a slim frame, making the overall shape closer to the traditional glasses style, greatly improving the wearer's comfort and portability. Sex, this is an advancement in the industrial design of smart glasses.

With the support of optical waveguide technology, this AR glasses can display a clear and delicate virtual interface through transparent lenses without affecting normal vision, achieving an information overlay display effect, thus opening up a new human-computer interaction mode, this is an advancement in display technology

In terms of functionality, Rokid. By deeply integrating the algorithm capabilities of Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen large model, Glasses can easily complete various tasks such as object recognition, text translation and even math problem solving.

For example, it can quickly and accurately calculate the calorie content of food. And present it to the user in real time; or in a cross-cultural communication scenario, automatically capture the conversation content and convert it into text prompts in the other party's language in real time to facilitate communication between international travelers. This is a specific step under the advancement of AI large-scale model technology.

Another aspect, for The maturity of the supply chain has also greatly lowered the entry barrier for AI glasses.

In the eyes of industry insiders, pure AI glasses are lightweight products with relatively simple hardware components. AI glasses manufacturers only need to find one. White label glasses supplier, then purchase cameras, Acoustic module, Bluetooth module, battery and processor, and then developing an open source large-model mobile APP, an AI glasses with basic functions have basically taken shape.

In fact, such a product has been around for a long time. has appeared, even better than Ray-Ban Meta is earlier, the price of “AI smart audio glasses” on PinduoduoThe price generally does not exceed 100 yuan, and the standby time can reach an exaggerated 240 hours. This is one of the reasons why the industry can form a "Battle of Hundreds of Mirrors" competition pattern.

03. AR+AI=Future

< p> Based on the above, it is not difficult to see that the development of smart glasses has formed three technical routes so far, namely "smart glasses with AR functions", "AI glasses without display" and "audio glasses" focusing on audio experience.

At present, in addition to display capabilities, the main difference between AR glasses and AI glasses lies in the different interaction methods. AI glasses are VUI (voice interaction interface), which mainly uses voice and TTS (text-to-speech). As well as interaction with indicator light feedback, AR glasses are GUIs (image interactive interfaces) that mainly interact with TTS through display, touch, and voice.

However, no matter what type of smart glasses, they have not yet gotten rid of the "impossible triangle" of battery life, weight and computing power. Like all smart terminals, the more functions smart glasses have, the lower the energy consumption. The higher it is, if the battery capacity is expanded, it will affect the weight of the glasses.

In this regard, the pain points of AR glasses are particularly prominent. The bulky headgear style of some products has dissuaded many users who want to try new products. Although the "AI glasses without display" have reduced the weight to a certain extent, , but compared with the 20-30 grams of ordinary glasses, it is still heavy.

The weight of mainstream AI glasses currently on the market is about 45 grams. However, if you add lenses, the weight will increase by more than 10 grams depending on the lens power. Wearing them for a long time will still feel uncomfortable. Discomfort.

In addition, almost all AI glasses currently do not solve the battery life problem. Compared with mobile phones, cameras or other handheld shooting devices, Meta can continuously shoot for up to 3 hours. This is also the pain point of most current AI glasses products.

This also means that smart glasses products have not yet been completely finalized. Whether it is AR glasses or AI glasses, there are still a lot of technical problems to be solved before the industry can really explode.

For example, AR glasses have consciously integrated AI technology to make their application scenarios more extensive. Some AI glasses manufacturers are working hard to enhance their display capabilities, also to make up for their own shortcomings.

A big reason why this happens is that the industry generally believes that AR glasses are the final form of smart glasses. “Eighty percent of information is received by humans through vision. Without imaging, Interaction and AI capabilities alone cannot become a new entrance for humans to obtain information and services," a professional commented.

XREAL founder and CEO Xu Chi once said in an interview with the media, “AR is the best carrier for AI., AI is the best interaction for AR, and these are likely to be the two core technologies that will most change consumer electronics and our terminal experience in the next ten years. ”

In the future of smart glasses, AR and AI may be combined into one, but from the current point of view, both still need to face the same challenge of how to achieve scale and achieve rapid penetration. You must know , the industry’s only popular model, Ray-Ban Meta, has only sold more than 1 million units in one year. This number is the sales volume that mobile phone manufacturers can achieve in three days when they release new products.