From Crowdfunding to Leading the European and American Markets: Five Years of VITURE and the XR Industry

Everyone says XR glasses are a peculiar product category.

Their specifications are updated every year and sales keep growing year by year, but on second-hand platforms, resale posts marked "used only twice", "felt dizzy after wearing for half an hour" and "selling after being left unused for half a year" seem to become more prevalent than those of any other consumer electronics category.

The industry often attributes the problem that the category fails to retain users and occupy their time to the immaturity of relevant technologies.

Jiang Gonglue, founder of VITURE, put forward another explanation based on the past five years of development.

"Before 2022, XR glasses were essentially screen-casting devices, equivalent to an external display. But what users expect and what we are developing is a computer, an all-in-one terminal device that supports computing, interaction and has abundant content ecosystems."

The huge difference between "clear" and "clear and smart" points to the core contradiction of the industry. A screen-casting device can only technically add an extra large screen in front of the user, but for the XR glasses category, if there is only one question it needs to answer for users, that question should be: why do I need to wear an extra pair of glasses today.

VITURE spent five years answering this question. Back in 2021 when it was founded, the company had only 10 employees, and it broke the crowdfunding record on Kickstarter that had been held by Oculus for years. Five years later, it has become the top-selling XR glasses brand in Europe and the United States in terms of shipment volume.

On August 6 more than five years later, the very day of the brand's fifth anniversary, VITURE globally launched the Pro 2 simultaneously.

One week after its release, the first batch of users shared their real experience feedback: Within the first week of sales, VITURE Pro 2 ranked No.1 in the SKU sales of XR glasses on JD.com for that week, and also became the Best Seller on multiple Amazon platforms overseas. This week, three authoritative tech media outlets Gizmodo, Tom's Guide and PCMag almost simultaneously gave it the consistent evaluation of "the best XR glasses experience at its price point".

The new generation product brings three key words to the market: 63 grams, 1999 yuan, and adjustable myopia support. Without fancy marketing narratives, the company still solves new problems by addressing the old core concerns, focusing on whether users can wear the glasses comfortably for long and whether the products are affordable.

How exactly can these two core supports meet the real demand of the XR industry?

The 1999-yuan "empty box"

In a conversation with 36Kr, Jiang Gonglue said he recently developed a new habit: when he picks up the glasses case for the Pro 2, he always feels there is nothing inside, and he has to open it to confirm that the glasses are really placed in the case.

A product expert who has been working on XR glasses for more than five years was finally "tricked" by his own product this time.

Weighing 63 grams, the Pro 2 is 20% lighter than the previous generation VITURE Pro, with the thickest part of the frame less than 18mm, which is claimed to be the thinnest in the entire industry at present.

It adopts a brand-new architecture: the optical engine is designed for lightweight, and the frame and temple are made of aviation-grade metal and plastic materials. Jiang Gonglue said that the weight could be reduced to less than 60 grams if the myopia adjustment function was removed, but the team decided to retain this feature without hesitation.

Behind this trade-off, another key figure that the team values is that there are 600 million myopia patients in China. The Pro 2 supports independent 0 to 500 diopter refractive adjustment for both eyes, users can adjust focus by turning the dial, no extra myopia lenses are needed. For domestic users, myopia adjustment is definitely the entry ticket for XR glasses. Without crossing this threshold, no matter how good the product parameters and usage scenarios are, the product will not fit the Chinese market.

After the weight is reduced, new niche markets will emerge naturally.

At present, male users account for more than 80% of the XR glasses industry. One of the key reasons is that the products are too heavy, making female users feel pressure on their noses. In the early experience feedback of the Pro 2, many female users shared the same comment: "This is the first pair of glasses that I can wear comfortably."

The applicable user groups of XR products are visibly expanding. Jiang Gonglue expects that the proportion of movie-watching users among female users will be significantly higher than that of game players, and the excellent movie-watching experience will also encourage users to spend more time on XR glasses for content consumption and interaction.

As for the price, 1999 yuan marks VITURE's first attempt to bring flagship-level experience into the thousand-yuan price range, and it is the only product in this price segment that uses Sony's Micro-OLED screen without any compromise. Sony's screens are widely recognized for their excellent color reproduction, brightness and service life, which are standard configurations for high-end product lines. This achievement benefits from VITURE's strong supply chain bargaining power brought by its doubling high growth rate every year.

In terms of other performance, the Pro 2 can reach a peak brightness of 1600 nits, which is the highest brightness in the current industry, so users can see the screen clearly even next to the window in broad daylight. The UltraClarity 3.0 full-color ultra-sharp technology pushes the clarity to a new level. In the past, XR glasses could basically ensure the central area of the screen is clear, but the edge area would be slightly blurred. However, the Pro 2 handles subtitles and dark details perfectly, and the screen will not shake or stretch when the user's sight moves from the center to the edge. In addition, the Pro 2 has obtained the SGS A+ low visual fatigue certification, users will not feel obvious fatigue after wearing it continuously for 3 hours, and it is praised as a pair of glasses that users can really "wear for a long time".

These seem to be just several simple key figures, but if you have bought any pair of XR glasses in the past few years, you will know how important they are in actual experience.

Referring to Apple's product line positioning, Jiang Gonglue took MacBook Air as the reference object for the Pro 2.

Several generations ago, the MacBook Air was positioned as an entry-level product to expand user groups, whose configuration and performance were not as good as the older MacBook Pro. But today's Air is much more powerful than the Pro released two or three years ago. The logic of VITURE Pro 2 is exactly the same: it is more affordable in price and lighter in weight, but never compromises on hardware, integrating strong performance and seamless comfortable experience into a wearable device on your face.

"A product may be expensive, but as long as it creates more value for users, it is a good product; if users can get it at a lower price, the gain of value perception will be greater." Jiang Gonglue said this is the shared product philosophy of MacBook Air and the new VITURE Pro 2.

This is probably the reason why many people in the tech circle privately call "VITURE the most Apple-like XR company".

One week after its release, the early feedback from users clearly reflects this point. The three most frequently mentioned keywords of VITURE Pro 2 on Xiaohongshu are lightweight, clear, and myopia-friendly.

Some users described it as "weighing almost the same as ordinary sunglasses, there is little pressure on the bridge of the nose and ears after wearing for a long time, and it is very comfortable to watch dramas lying in bed"; some myopic users called it a "lazy man's gospel", because adjusting the dial can achieve focus, eliminating the trouble of getting extra customized lenses.

Subways, high-speed trains, and the head of the bed in hotels have become the most frequent scenarios where the "100-inch giant screen" appears.

Of course, users also mentioned the experience they expect the next generation of products to achieve. In the XR category that is still in the early stage of the industry, users' willingness to share it, praise it, and even put forward their own "wish list" expectations is often a sign that a new category begins to be taken seriously and an electronic device is regarded as a daily necessity.

Five years of VITURE, three "counter-intuitive" decisions

Jiang Gonglue graduated from Harvard University, and once participated in the development of Google Glass and Material Design at Google's Silicon Valley headquarters. He later reviewed that Google Glass was undoubtedly pioneering, but the problem of the project was that the technical form was developed first, and then the team tried to find applicable usage scenarios. The first reaction of users was always the same: I don't need it.

In this industry, the chicken-or-egg problem is not necessarily an entangled causal spiral.

In 2021, Jiang Gonglue and former members of the Google Glass team founded VITURE in Beijing and San Francisco. The company's first product creed sounds like self-challenging: the first principle of developing XR glasses is to admit that users "do not have the inherent need to wear an extra pair of glasses".

Therefore, since users have no natural reason to choose your product, you must find the scenario that they cannot refuse.

Since the first day of learning to falsify its own assumptions, VITURE has chosen a path opposite to the mainstream of the industry. Over the past five years, the choices made under the guidance of the first principle also led to three possibly misunderstood decisions at three critical moments.

"It may not be cost-effective, but we must be honest." Jiang Gonglue said frankly when looking back on the past.

The first decision they made was: to develop a "computer", not a screen-casting device.

In April 2022, VITURE launched its first product VITURE One on Kickstarter. At that time, the company had only 10 employees and almost no marketing budget, so instead of shooting a professional function demo video, they made a short movie clip: three students in the dormitory, one carrying a TV, the other two wearing glasses to travel.

The whole video only talks about one thing: how to play games during the trip.

This video was rated by many overseas users as one of the best crowdfunding videos in the history of Kickstarter, because it did not desperately explain what the glasses can do, but directly presented a scene that users can immediately relate to. As a result, the crowdfunding achieved a result of more than 3 million US dollars, breaking the XR glasses category record that Oculus had kept for many years.

But for a new product, what is more important than the cash brought by users' curiosity is the product form.

What VITURE One launched to the market was not just a pair of glasses, but a three-piece set: glasses, neckband, and Magic Dock.

The self-developed neckband of the company was the first device that integrated the computing unit with the glasses, with built-in YouTube, Netflix, and it can also remotely stream PS and Xbox games; the Magic Dock was specially designed for Switch, making VITURE the first XR brand that supports two-player same-screen games on Switch; the electrochromic technology also entered the industry starting from VITURE One.

"The first company to make innovations is always the hardest." Jiang Gonglue told 36Kr, it can be said that the neckband, external computing unit and full-device adaptation that are common in the industry today all originated from that crowdfunding project.

Looking back at the present, the answer to the current node was already buried when the company just started its journey.

The second time to reject the consensus was to choose to expand the European and American markets first, and then return to China.

Most domestic hardware brands are used to polishing their products in China first, and then go overseas with mature experience and proven product models. VITURE is a "born global" company: on the first day of its establishment, it set up dual headquarters in Silicon Valley and Beijing, and its first market move directly landed on Kickstarter, targeting the first batch of European and American users who have the highest tolerance for new consumer electronics categories and relatively low price sensitivity.

This choice later proved to be very wise. It not only helped VITURE avoid the expensive market education cost in the Chinese market, but also allowed the company to participate in the "hundred glasses war" with a market-verified product. In the early stage, it successfully obtained more imaginative capital, market exposure and brand loyalty through crowdfunding, and then cooperated with the supply chain to make innovations, negotiate prices and achieve positive growth, so its first-mover advantage became increasingly obvious.

But at the same time, it also led to a misunderstanding: VITURE entered the Chinese market too late, and many people in China regarded it as a latecomer.

In fact, in April 2022, VITURE's three products were already quite complete. At that time, large language models had not yet become popular in the work and life of ordinary people, and 90% of the smart glasses on the market today had no mature technical logic and scenario concepts at all.

At the end of that year, VITURE One won the Time Magazine Best Invention of the Year award, which was the only AR/VR consumer product on the list that year.

In the following years, VITURE Pro has long ranked on the bestseller lists of smart glasses on Amazon in many countries. In November 2024, it became the first XR brand to enter Best Buy, selling in 200 stores across the United States, and then expanded to JB Hi-Fi in Australia, Media Markt in Europe,