Xiaomi enters ‘smart glasses war’ with first AI-powered eyewear

Xiaomi is set to debut its first artificial intelligence (AI)-powered smart glasses on Thursday, marking the Chinese smartphone and electric vehicle (EV) maker’s entry into a rapidly expanding but crowded domestic market.

The Beijing-based company is positioning its new eyewear as a “next-generation personal smart gadget”, according to an image posted on its official Weibo account on Wednesday. Co-founder and CEO Lei Jun said the glasses can capture first-person video and respond to voice queries – features that have become common in modern smart glasses such as those from Meta Platforms and Ray-Ban.

Xiaomi is set to officially launch the frames on Thursday evening at an event titled “Human x Car x Home”, during which it will unveil the price of the glasses in addition to other products, including its latest foldable smartphone and its first SUV.

In one of two videos Xiaomi released teasing the smart glasses, the camera-equipped frames could “see and recognise” objects around the user and answer questions using generative AI. Examples in the video showed the wearer asking the glasses to identify a plant, estimate the calories of a meal and explain what capybaras eat.

Despite the lack of pricing or specifications ahead of Xiaomi’s event, the AI glasses have been highly anticipated by consumers. Local media reports last year revealed that the company planned to launch the frames this year.

WellsennXR, a consultancy specialising in augmented reality and extended reality, expected the glasses to adopt US tech giant Qualcomm’s AR1 chip, the same chip used by the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.

Meta’s smart glasses are currently the most popular of their kind, accounting for more than 60 per cent of the global AI glasses market last year, according to market consultancy Counterpoint.

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