Alibaba's New Smart Glasses Take On Meta Ray-bans - Here's What They Offer

3 weeks ago

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

Alibaba's caller smart glasses are now disposable for preorder.
The Quark AI glasses costs $659 and are disposable successful China.
They are Alibaba's first consumer-facing AI product.

Another institution is throwing a brace of smart glasses into nan ring. Chinese tech elephantine Alibaba unveiled its first smart glasses, nan Quark AI Glasses, successful July, and they are officially connected pre-sale starting today, Oct. 24. Could they beryllium Meta Ray-Bans' newest rival?

The AI-infused glasses are powered by nan company's Qwen ample connection model, which already has complete 400 cardinal downloads and 140,000 derivative downloads, Alibaba wrote successful a property release at nan time.

Also: Missed retired connected Meta Ray-Ban Display? Verizon is trading nan smart glasses now, but enactment fast

The glasses merge pinch Alibaba's ecosystem of services, including navigation done Amap, payments done Alipay, value comparisons done Taobao, and recreation bookings done Fliggy. Like different smart glasses, nan Quark AI Glasses support calls, euphony streaming, and connection translation.

Alongside nan preorder announcement connected Thursday, Alibaba besides launched a caller AI Chat Assistant wrong nan Quark app. Users tin query nan adjunct for conversations, inquire questions, and more.

The pre-sale motorboat of nan smart glasses is now unrecorded successful Asia, and willing customers tin bargain them done Tmall for 4,699 yuan ($659). Orders will vessel successful December, according to Alibaba.

Also: I tested nan Oakley Meta Vanguard connected a 5-mile locomotion - here's really it hit my Ray-Bans

Alibaba's Quark AI smart glasses are nan company's first effort to create a consumer-facing AI product, arsenic astir of Alibaba's products are made for businesses. They besides correspond a increasing inclination among tech companies to create their ain smart glasses.

According to Markets and Markets, manufacture analysts expect nan smart glasses marketplace to turn by 29.4% from 2024 to 2030, hitting a predicted valuation of $4,129.3 million. AI is powering these innovations, alongside advancements successful oculus and motion tracking, AR and MR, and increasing adoption, those analysts determined.

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Meta has seen a successful tally of its smart glasses truthful far, pinch income of its Ray-Bans tripling complete nan year, according to EssilorLuxottica. Earlier this month, Meta unveiled a caller lineup of smart glasses astatine Meta Connect, including nan second-generation Meta Ray-Bans, Meta Oakley Vanguard, and Meta Display.