According to the Star Daily on December 13 (Reporter Huang Xinyi), at the Android XR launch event, Google collaborated with domestic Consumer AR glasses manufacturer XREAL. Last week, XREAL had just released the XREAL One AR glasses equipped with its self-developed X1 spatial computing chip.

The concept of smart glasses was first proposed by Google, which launched its "augmented reality" glasses product—Google Glass—in April 2012. However, due to immature technology and lack of application scenarios, the response was poor.

In recent years, with the rise of concepts such as large models and the Metaverse, major companies like Google, Meta, and Microsoft have flocked to the smart glasses sector. OpenAI recently poached the hardware head of Meta's smart glasses to lead its Consumer hardware team.

In terms of shipment volume, XREAL is already the largest AR glasses manufacturer in the Global market. IDC data shows that in the first three quarters of this year, XREAL's global market share of AR glasses reached 47.2%. XREAL founder Xu Chi revealed in an interview with the Star Daily that the cumulative shipment of XREAL's AR glasses has surpassed 400,000 units, approaching 0.5 million units.

Currently, smart glasses are becoming an important direction for AI Hardware. After the release of the second generation product Ray-Ban Meta in collaboration with Ray-Ban in September last year, the shipment volume exceeded 1 million units.

"AI is a huge opportunity, comparable to the level of the Industrial Revolution," Xu Chi believes. However, current AI glasses are still not intelligent enough. "For example, Meta Ray-Ban does not strictly count as an AI glasses, it is more like a fashion item with an AI Concept."

Regarding the prospects for AI glasses, Xu Chi determines that there will be significant changes in the next 2-3 years with the enhancement of large models. "Within two or three years, we will definitely see really useful, wearable, and very intelligent AI glasses come out, and we are full of expectations for this."

To achieve this, optimizing both Software and Hardware experiences is essential. "The experience of AI glasses is 70% dependent on large models, as there is a need to optimize the multimodal experience to make it smarter. The remaining 30% relies on the tuning of the Hardware, meaning the glasses must provide a better experience than opening an AI app on a phone. Unfortunately, current AI glasses on the market have not achieved this; they have not surpassed the phone's experience. This 30% tuning must depend on the efforts of the glasses manufacturers."

In Xu Chi's view, in the ideal state, AI glasses would be like a "good close friend" who knows multiple foreign languages, has a comparable IQ, and valuable companionship. "There are many things to talk about with it, and many tasks to let it help you with; it will independently and intelligently complete many tasks. We believe this can be achieved within the next two to three years, but it requires deep integration and refinement by both large model companies and glasses manufacturers."

The immaturity of the Industry Chain has long been a hidden reef in the AR market, leading to high costs and limited supply of components. Reporters from the Star Daily learned that to address the bottleneck in the Industry Chain, XREAL is collaborating with industry partners such as Longqi Technology and Luxshare Precision Industry, and has established optical factories in Wuxi and Kunshan.

"When the supply chain is not mature enough to support the scaled product experience, what should be done? We grit our teeth and built our own optical factory. Earlier this year, we established the second factory in Kunshan; the first one is in Wuxi. The Wuxi factory is currently the world's first and only fully automated production line that automates the entire core optical display module, a process that took us over three years to accomplish," Xu Chi stated.

When discussing expectations for product sales, Xu Chi expressed hopes that the newly released XREAL One AR glasses would help double the company's sales. "I expect the first generation of products could reach a goal of 500,000 to 600,000 units over their lifecycle. However, deep down, I genuinely feel that only when the annual shipment exceeds 1 million units can we say that AR glasses have truly been verified by the market. I look forward to seeing such a breakthrough in the next two to three years."