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

Xiaomi debuted 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 has positioned 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 could 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 officially launched the frames on Thursday evening at an event titled “Human x Car x Home”, during which it unveiled the price of the glasses in addition to other products, including its latest foldable smartphone and its first SUV.

Xiaomi’s AI glasses, with a 1,999 yuan (US$278.54) starting price, feature a 12 megapixel ultra-wide camera and Qualcomm’s AR1 chip. The battery lasts 8.6 hours on a single charge – twice that of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses – and takes 45 minutes to fully recharge, the company said at the launch event on Thursday night.

Xiaomi unveiled its first AI glasses at an event on Thursday. Photo: Handout

Powered by the company’s XiaoAI AI assistant, users of the Xiaomi frame can use voice commands to ask the glasses to take photos, record clips, recognise objects, or translate text while reading a book. It can also be used to scan mobile payment QR codes for making payments.

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.

South China Morning Post