China's Smart Glasses Are Once Again Going All the Way Off

There are officially too many wild pairs of smart glasses coming out of China to keep track of. First, it was Xiaomi with its Ray-Ban-stomping pair of glasses that can record 45 minutes of consecutive video and boast an 8.5-hour battery life. Then, just last week, a company called Wigain announced a breakthrough in making mass-producible smart glasses with optical waveguide lenses. Those, I might add, also feel very Meta-killing. Now, it’s Alibaba’s turn, or it’s about to be if rumors are to be believed.

According to unconfirmed reports from the XR Research Institute, which is also connected to rumors surrounding the third-gen version of Meta’s Ray-Bans, Alibaba could release its first pair of self-made smart glasses very soon, and they could be—similar to the aforementioned glasses—far more advanced than what Meta offers in the U.S.

While I’m normally more skeptical of unconfirmed rumors like this, there’s already supporting evidence on Reddit percolating out of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai. Pictures, which surfaced on Friday, show a huge promotional pair of smart glasses hovering over a section of the conference for Tmall Genie. If you’re not familiar, Tmall Genie is an Alibaba-owned brand, and rumors suggest that the glasses will allegedly launch under that banner. And on top of those clues, there’s also the fact that Alibaba already has one toe in the smart glasses world with software.

Xiaomi has already partnered with Alibaba on a payment feature for its new AI smart glasses and has collaborated with AR glasses company RayNeo, so, given those ties, Alibaba seems like an obvious player in the space. If rumors are accurate, its product may be more advanced than Meta’s Ray-Bans in a couple of key ways. For one, Alibaba may offer a pair of glasses with an actual display on them, which is something that Meta has yet to do. That will likely be the game-changing factor for most people on the fence about smart glasses who don’t find them quite “smart” enough to warrant spending money on a pair. On that same note, XR Research Institute suggests that Alibaba’s glasses will include optical waveguide lenses that make passthrough on AR glasses sharper and clearer—aspects that early startups in the AR glasses space have struggled with.

Even without knowing or confirming the rest of the smart glasses’ specs or features, those things alone would be enough for Alibaba-made glasses to blow past Meta Ray-Bans, which are arguably the most popular brand of smart glasses in the U.S. It’s once again proof that China is cooking on smart glasses and probably evidence that we can expect a lot more from China-based brands on that front. I’m curious whether any of those technological advances trickle over into the U.S. market as a result. My fingers are crossed, because as much as I use Meta’s Ray-Bans, it’s about time Meta takes a big step forward into the world of on-lens displays.