The business worth hundreds of billions that Lei Jun highly praised was "stolen" by this science and engineering guy.

In recent years, wherever Xiaomi goes, its competitors have been “wailing in despair.”

However, last Thursday, the highly anticipated product “Xiaomi AI Glasses,” one of the only two products personally launched by Lei Jun, encountered a tough competitor this time.

As soon as the Xiaomi AI Glasses with a starting price of 1,999 yuan made their debut, the Chinese AR company Rokid officially launched its Rokid Glasses, which had been announced more than half a year ago, at a price of 2,499 yuan.

One is Xiaomi, a brand that has its own popularity, and the other is a startup that many people have never heard of. It seems to be a one - sided game. But according to reports, the sales volume of Xiaomi AI Glasses in the first three days of the initial sale may have approached 50,000 pairs, while the global pre - order deposits for Rokid Glasses have exceeded 250,000 pairs.

There were so many orders that even Zhu Mingming, the founder of Rokid, was so anxious that he couldn't sleep and wanted to sleep directly in the factory.

Although it may not be well - known, in fact, Rokid's glasses have been popular several times.

For example, in February this year, Zhu Mingming wore his company's glasses and gave a speech on stage without looking down at the manuscript even once because the speech was in the glasses and he controlled the page - turning with a ring on his hand. This speech was quickly reposted by major official media and topped the hot searches on various platforms.

His glasses also went to the Chinese space station and are the world's first AR product to serve in space. Almost all the AR glasses in national museums are Rokid's, with a market share of up to 99%.

Lei Jun said that the AI glasses are the “portable AI entrance,” while Zhu Mingming has a more exaggerated idea: smart glasses will definitely replace mobile phones in the future.

Is this tech - savvy man actually bolder than Lei Jun?

It has preempted the title of “the first pair of smart glasses for young people”

In 2012, Google launched Google Glass. It was originally thought to be an epoch - making product, but it was criticized for being “more expensive than a mobile phone and not as useful as a mobile phone” and was discontinued three years later.

Although Google Glass fizzled out, it ignited Zhu Mingming's passion. In 2014, he left Alibaba and founded Rokid.

That year, everyone was looking for the “pigs that can fly in the wind.” What was popular in the market were O2O, social media, e - commerce, etc. In contrast, the AR and AI fields that Rokid focused on were very niche. So at the beginning, they didn't even bother to convince institutions to invest and instead chose to invest their own money. Zhu Mingming and a co - founder voluntarily mortgaged their assets.

Going against the current was definitely not easy. In order to survive, Rokid had to temporarily shift its main business to other fields for some time.

Zhu Mingming was very calm. When someone asked him “how to face setbacks in entrepreneurship,” he replied, “When there is no money, find money; when there are no people, find people. If the industry's tipping point has not arrived, just wait patiently.”

His patience was not in vain.

First, he waited for opportunities in the B2B market. For example, in museums and scenic spots, its glasses can provide intelligent guidance for cultural relics and scenic spots; in the industrial field, the products launched can not only provide safety protection for workers but also help workers record, measure, and communicate without manual operation.

However, the B2B market is limited. Rokid's annual product shipments are only in the tens of thousands, making it only a niche hit.

They must find a way to enter the mass consumer market. And Zhu Mingming waited for this tipping point: the explosion of AI.

Before that, he had also been trying hard to enter the mass consumer market and launched some smart glasses that better met the needs of the general public. Users can play games, watch movies, and work with them.

Playing “Black Myth: Wukong” with Rokid AR lite glasses

However, although these smart glasses priced at three or four thousand yuan are cool, they still lack convenience and practicality in daily life and are not popular enough to break into the mainstream.

It wasn't until AI was integrated into the glasses that the real industrial opportunity finally arrived.

Especially in 2023, Meta and Ray - Ban collaborated to launch Ray - Ban Meta. The following year, this pair of glasses added AI functions and sold 2.24 million pairs, showing great market prospects. At last Thursday's Xiaomi press conference, the Xiaomi AI Glasses clearly targeted Ray - Ban Meta, which shows its influence.

Rokid was faster than Xiaomi. It launched Rokid Glasses in November last year. In the past, AR glasses were far from ordinary people, but this “AI + AR” smart glasses have instantly closed the gap in terms of price and function.

With the support of AI, smart glasses have immediately become a hot commodity. According to the monitoring and research data of iiMedia Research, it is estimated that by 2029, the market scale of smart glasses in China is expected to reach 119.11 billion yuan.

After quietly working for 10 years, Rokid has preempted the market in China and its valuation has reached 1 billion US dollars.

Why aren't they worried about Xiaomi's entry?

With Xiaomi's entry and Lei Jun's reputation of “being good at whatever he does,” some people think that Rokid, the former leader in the field, is in danger.

But currently, Zhu Mingming is still very calm.

On the one hand, although both Xiaomi's glasses and Rokid's glasses can be called smart glasses, strictly speaking, they are not in the same track.

On June 30, according to XR Vision, the sales volume of Xiaomi AI Glasses in the first three days of the initial sale may have approached 50,000 pairs, setting the fastest sales record for Chinese AI glasses. Zhu Mingming personally replied to netizens in the comment section of this article, saying, “The products are quite different. In fact, there isn't much competition. We need to learn from Xiaomi.”

What exactly is the difference? This involves the three main routes of current smart glasses. The first is smart audio glasses, which can play music and perform simple voice interactions; the second is products like Xiaomi AI Glasses, which add a camera on the basis of the first type; the third is the route like Rokid's, which adds an AR display module on the basis of the second type. It can not only take photos, record videos, and perform visual recognition but also display the results on the glasses.

Rokid's route is obviously the most radical, but if there are suitable application scenarios, the experience will undoubtedly be the best and most user - friendly.

It can be used as a teleprompter to display prompts on the glasses; when navigating, it can display navigation information on the glasses and plan routes in real - time; when translating, not only is there voice translation, but the translated text will also be synchronously displayed on the glasses; when cooking, you can ask the glasses how to cook a certain dish, and it will conduct an AI search and display the search results in front of you.

In addition, functions such as watching movies, playing games, and working are also beyond the reach of ordinary AI glasses.

On the other hand, it is difficult to overtake in the smart glasses field.

In the industry, many people call the implementation difficulty of AI and AR glasses the “impossible triangle,” that is, it is very difficult to simultaneously meet the requirements of high - performance computing power, long battery life, and light weight.

For example, Rokid Glasses, weighing 49 grams, are still a bit heavier than ordinary glasses, and their 4 - hour battery life is far from that of the mobile phones they want to replace. For this reason, they are also equipped with a glasses charging case that supports fast charging.

Even so, this product is already the culmination of Rokid's 10 - year technology. To make it perfect, the team made dozens of versions of the plan. Zhu Mingming said, “In our company, any weight change of the product exceeding 0.5 grams must be reported directly to me.”

Facing the “impossible triangle,” even giants can't achieve success overnight.

Xiaomi made a similar product in 2022 called “Mi Smart Glasses Camera,” but its 100 - gram weight was widely criticized.

Another example is Apple's Vision Pro, which has powerful performance and high playability, but weighs nearly 650 grams. Even the heads of enthusiasts can't bear to wear it for long. The most popular AI glasses in the industry, Ray - Ban Meta, weigh only 42 grams and only have functions such as taking photos, recording videos, and simple voice interactions, and each video recording can only last for 3 minutes.

Even Apple and Meta are like this. So, as Zhu Mingming said, even if big companies enter the market, they still have to “make do with limited resources.”

After reaching a valuation of 7 billion yuan, there are still two major challenges to overcome

As technology matures, not only Xiaomi but also many other companies are trying to get a share of the market.

At the CES exhibition in January this year, smart glasses products were the absolute stars, and the number of smart glasses, including AI and AR glasses, reached 59.