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On August 8, Luo Yonghao published a 5,000-word article, refuting the "Five Sins of Luo Yonghao" that were previously reported, and once again satirizing "Teacher Tie" (Yu Minhong). However, this is obviously not a topic that digital enthusiasts care about, as some netizens pointed out:

Where is Lao Luo’s thin red line?

As an AR startup under Luo Yonghao, Xihongxian has not launched a product so far, and it was also reported at the beginning of the year that it slowed down the development of AR business software and hardware. However, according to the information previously revealed by Luo Yonghao in the live broadcast, Xihongxian will officially launch two new products in September, priced at US$199 (approximately RMB 1,426) and US$299 (approximately RMB 2,144) respectively.

Among them, the new product priced at US$199 is unlikely to compete with the current mainstream lightweight AR glasses, so the industry generally speculates that this is an AI audio glasses, just like Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.

Not just the thin red line.

Also yesterday, Xiaomi's ecological chain company Honeycomb Technology released its own brand "Jiehuan" and the first generation of AI audio glasses, which is also the company's third-generation product.Prior to this, Honeycomb Technology has launched the Mi Glasses Camera and Mi Smart Audio Glasses for Xiaomi.

Photo/Xiaomi

Compared with the previous Mijia smart audio glasses, the most core change of Jiehuan AI audio glasses is that they are like Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses:

Access to the large model.

Before we know it, another trend may have arrived.

A domestically produced Ray-Ban Meta for 799 yuan?

At this stage, when talking about AI audio glasses, we cannot avoid Ray-Ban Meta.

Although the Ray-Ban Meta continues to use Ray-Ban's classic and fashionable eyewear shape like its predecessor, the Ray-Ban Stories, it brings major upgrades in sound and imaging, and introduces Meta AI (based on Meta's own Llama large model).

Last fall, Meta and Ray-Ban officially launched the Ray-Ban Meta together, which quickly shipped 300,000 pairs and achieved sales of over 1 million units four months after its release.You know, according to IDC data, the sales volume of AR glasses in 2023 will be only 480,000 pairs, and the sales volume of smart glasses will be only 1.01 million pairs, including hundreds of thousands of pairs of Ray-Ban Meta.

Image/Meta

The success of Ray-Ban Meta not only exceeded the expectations of Meta and Essilor Luxottica (parent company of Ray-Ban glasses), but also attracted the attention of countless people and companies. Some time ago, it was even reported that Google was planning to buy some shares of Essilor Luxottica in order to launch Ray-Ban smart glasses equipped with Gemini AI.

Domestic manufacturers have certainly also taken notice and have established or accelerated AI audio glasses projects, including Honeycomb Technology.

On August 8, Honeycomb Technology officially released the Jiehuan AI Audio Glasses, which are available in 8 frames and 14 colors, weigh 30.9g, and support music playback for up to 11 hours. In terms of price, the Jiehuan AI Audio Glasses are priced from 799 yuan, and the initial discount price is 699 yuan.

Photo/Hive Technology

In terms of hardware, the Jiehuan AI audio glasses also take the "daily route", maintaining the appearance design of regular glasses as much as possible, but the temples are inevitably a bit thick, which integrates the audio module, battery and AI module.

Like all audio glasses, the Jiehuan AI audio glasses are based on an open sound field design, have a 109mm² diaphragm, an amplitude of 0.5mm, and support directional sound wave transmission; equipped with an inverse sound field structure and an anti-leakage sound membrane, supporting dual anti-leakage sound; at the same time, they are equipped with dual microphone noise reduction and support call noise reduction.

In contrast, Ray-Ban Meta adopts Ray-Ban's most classic fashion glasses design. The temple design is originally wider and thicker, so it will not appear too abrupt after adding various components.

Another difference is that the Jiehuan AI audio glasses do not have a camera, which is one of the main selling points of Ray-Ban Meta. It can support first-person video calls, live video broadcasts on the Meta platform, and AI image recognition.

However, the Jiehuan AI audio glasses are still connected to the big model.According to the introduction, Jiehuan AI audio glasses are currently connected to 14 large models (including Tongyi, Baichuan, etc.), and are equipped with three AI applications, including AI chat, AI notification broadcast, and face-to-face translation.

"AI Chat" and "Face-to-face Translation" are self-explanatory. The only thing to point out is that "AI Notification Broadcast" is AI understanding all notifications and then summarizing and broadcasting them. The purpose of its design is to improve the efficiency of message notifications.

Photo/Hive Technology

It should also be pointed out that although the cost of calling large models has been reduced on a large scale after several rounds, it is still not low. As a startup, Jiehuan AI Audio Glasses offers that users who purchase the product before the end of this year will be able to use the AI ​​function permanently for free, and users who purchase it thereafter will be charged 19.9 yuan/month (or adjusted with the API price).

To briefly summarize here, the application scenario of Jiehuan AI audio glasses is actually very simple, even simpler than Ray-Ban Meta. It is basically a traditional pair of glasses with "a pair of open headphones" and "some AI functions" added.

If you are looking for AI, at least for now, I don't recommend buying it, it's too tasteless. But if you want a pair of audio glasses for daily wear, the Jiehuan AI audio glasses, which start at 799 yuan, are worth paying attention to.

Tech companies flock to AI audio glasses

The launch of Jiehuan AI audio glasses is just a small part of the AI ​​audio glasses market.

In April this year, AR startup Li Weike Technology launched its first AI glasses - Meta Lens Chat, priced at 699 yuan. The core of the glasses is that the AR display module is removed and the main feature is AI voice interaction (based on the self-trained WAKE-AI large model). It is said that it can accurately identify user commands within 500ms and it only takes about 2 seconds to call the cloud-based large model to answer.

Photo/Li Weike

At the Huawei Summer All-Scenes New Product Launch Conference held in May, Huawei, which entered the audio glasses market earlier, also launched a new smart glasses - Huawei Smart Glasses 2 Square Frame Sunglasses, priced at 2,299 yuan. The core highlight of this product is that it is connected to the Huawei Pangu model, supports smart broadcasting (similar to the Jiehuan "AI Notification Broadcast"), and the battery life can also achieve up to 11 hours of continuous music playback.

Photo/Huawei

There are more manufacturers preparing to launch similar products. In April, the media revealed that ByteDance acquired the open-ear headphone brand Oladance, and one of its important goals was to launch AI audio glasses similar to Ray-Ban Meta. Judging from the pricing, the new product priced at $199 mentioned by Luo Yonghao is likely to be AI audio glasses without the AR display module.

Ironically, the lack of AR capabilities is an important reason why AI audio glasses have become a new favorite.

As we all know, the optical display module has always been the core technical challenge faced by AR glasses and one of the largest hardware costs. Cutting off the optical display module directly means a reduction in cost and price, an increase in battery life, and it can also be designed to be lighter and thinner to improve the wearing experience.

Although all lightweight AR glasses emphasize the design of fashionable glasses, they are actually constrained by the optical display module, so they are different from traditional glasses in wearing, and they still look a bit strange to outsiders. Whether it is Ray-Ban Meta or Huawei's previously launched smart glasses, their appearance design is similar to traditional glasses that people are more willing to accept.

But this alone is definitely not enough, otherwise Ray-Ban Stories or Huawei smart glasses would have been popular long ago. The core still needs to go back to the upgrade of Ray-Ban Meta in audio, imaging and AI through software and hardware integration.

For domestic manufacturers, the hardware is not a big problem, but the key may be software and scenarios. Thanks to Meta as a social giant, Ray-Ban Meta's live video and video call functions can fully utilize better cameras and shooting quality. In fact, this is also the core selling point that attracts many people to buy.

Ray-Ban Meta has upgraded its camera and algorithm. Photo/Meta

In contrast, if domestic manufacturers do not connect to platforms such as WeChat and Douyin, even if they add cameras, it will be useless and even increase costs and weight. After all, there are not many scenes that really need to be shot with glasses instead of mobile phones.

As for the introduction of AI, it is undoubtedly the sexiest "part" of the Ray-Ban Meta story.

A ZDNET editor commented, "Meta AI, the built-in chatbot of the glasses, really makes these smart wearable devices smart, but there is still room for improvement." Many buyers are also interested in Meta AI. For AI, Ray-Ban Meta even stuffed Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 and a small model on the side, at the expense of a certain weight and battery life.

But it must be said that at this stage, the greatest use value of AI may still be its powerful semantic understanding ability. The rest is that it brings greater "room for improvement" and "imagination space" to the device experience. In other words: there is a promising future.

After the bubble of the so-called "new AI species" AI Pin and Rabbit R1 burst, many people began to disenchant with "AI+". Similarly, don't expect too much from the "AI" experience on AI audio glasses. Considering it as a "value-added function" of audio glasses may help you more intuitively evaluate its purchase value.