Xiaomi-backed Superhexa is the latest to join the fray with US$100 AI-equipped frames that undercut the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. — SCMP
Artificial intelligence (AI)-powered eyewear has become the latest smart gadget trend for Chinese tech firms rushing to profit from consumer excitement around combining generative AI with wearables following Ray-Ban’s release of the Meta smart glasses.
One of the latest companies to enter the market is Xiaomi-backed start-up Superhexa, which this month launched its AI audio glasses Jiehuan.
Compared with overseas offerings, the Jiehuan frames are competitively priced at 699 yuan (RM428 or US$98). Functionally, though, they are similar to competing products by offering quick access to large language models (LLMs) – the technology underpinning intelligent chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT – through the use of built-in speakers and microphones.
“It took millions of years for humans to evolve and develop two hands; it’s a waste to have one hand holding a smartphone,” Superhexa founder and CEO Xia Yongfeng recently quipped to local news outlet tmtpost.com.
The rapid development of generative AI over the past couple of years has given smart glasses a massive intelligence upgrade, helping to boost interest in the wearables by allowing users to instantly query LLMs about their surroundings or have conversations translated in real time.
Ray-Ban and Meta Platforms have been the biggest beneficiaries of this trend since adding AI capabilities to their US$300 (RM1,310) camera-equipped smart glasses last year. The new versions have sold more in a few months than the previous versions sold in two years, Francesco Milleri, CEO of Italian-French eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica, which owns Ray-Ban, told Reuters in July.
Sinolink Securities expects shipments to reach two million units by the end of the year. In comparison, total shipments of augmented reality glasses last year reached 480,000 units, according to the securities firm.
Chinese competitors are now looking to offer functionality similar to the Ray-Ban frames, but at a much lower cost.
For the Jiehuan glasses, this means 11 hours of music playback and up to half a month of standby time in frames that weigh just 30 grams, according to the company. Other features include voice-guided navigation, AI chat and audio translation.
One customer who tried the glasses and posted about the experience on the social media platform Xiaohongshu said Superhexa offers stylish choices for the frames, which have good audio quality but struggle with voice recognition in noisy environments.
Between April and May, start-ups including Hangzhou-based Liweike and Shenzhen-based Sharge, along with tech giants like Huawei Technologies, have in close succession launched their own AI glasses. Yet some analysts caution that there may be limited room for growth in this space.
Ivan Lam, senior analyst at market consultancy Counterpoint, said current AI glasses are just like typical spectacles or sunglasses that are outfitted with speakers, cameras and AI.
Early adopters may be drawn in by the novelty, but people who do not need glasses may not appreciate wearing them all the time, especially when the electronic components in smart glasses can add to the weight, according to Lam. Manufacturers will need to “further trim the weight, improve the wearing experience and battery life” to keep growing, he said.
Some smart glasses companies are already prioritising style and weight. Hong Kong-based Solos aims to compete directly with Ray-Ban and Meta this fall with a new pair of its AirGo smart glasses that will include a camera. That pair will weigh 30 grams, undercutting the Ray-Ban frames, and come in at a similar cost. The current AirGo 3 frames without a camera start at US$250 (RM1,092).
Even Realities, a year-old Shenzhen-based start-up, has also made style a priority with its new G1 glasses that started shipping internationally on Thursday. Those glasses, which have LED microdisplays on the lenses but no speakers, start at US$600 (RM2,621).
Brilliant Labs, which was founded in Hong Kong but later moved to Singapore, this year launched its Frame smart glasses for US$350 (RM1,528). Co-founder and CEO Bobak Tavangar said the company hopes its open-source approach will drive adoption in a variety of scenarios, including enterprise.
“The big opportunity that we see is to make the glasses open source,” Tavangar said, “and allow developers who are working on AI to build all kinds of creative (apps).”
Developers have already built an app for Frame that helps people with autism decipher the emotions of others, and another for doctors and nurses that uses AI to offer a second opinion on a diagnosis, according to Tavangar.
With price tags much higher than Superhexa’s, though, these companies are primarily targeting markets outside China, where access to international AI models is also tightly controlled. – South China Morning Post
