① AI glasses currently still face pain points such as insufficient battery life and poor visual experience, and future breakthroughs will be required in areas including image quality, ultra-low power consumption, high-performance computing, integration, and miniaturization. ② As the industrial chain gradually matures, smart glasses are expected to see significant progress by 2028—though they may not yet reach an 'iPhone moment,' they will come infinitely close to it.
According to The Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily on July 11 (Reporter: Huang Xinyi), players ranging from internet companies and consumer electronics brands to AI ventures are rushing into the smart glasses market. Following new energy vehicles and humanoid robots, smart glasses have become another highly anticipated technological hotspot.
Market data confirms this surge in interest. According to the latest report from International Data Corporation (IDC), global smart glasses shipments reached 3.566 million units in the first quarter of 2026, a year-over-year increase of 130.1%, marking the industry’s entry into a phase of scaled growth. The Chinese market also delivered strong performance, with first-quarter shipments totaling 610,000 units, up 23.5% year-over-year.
However, despite being hailed as the 'next-generation terminal,' smart glasses still have a considerable distance to go before achieving true commercial viability. After the noisy 'hundred-glasses battle,' the sector is now accelerating its search for practical, real-world applications to demonstrate its value.
Multiple industry insiders told reporters that AI glasses currently still face pain points such as insufficient battery life and poor visual experience, and future breakthroughs will be required in areas including image quality, ultra-low power consumption, high-performance computing, integration, and miniaturization.
Regarding the timing of an industry boom, many professionals agree on 2028. 'As the industrial chain gradually matures, smart glasses will see significant progress by 2028—it may not yet be the 'iPhone moment,' but it will come infinitely close to that moment.'
▍Four Key Technical Challenges Facing AI Glasses
Huang Pan, CEO of Chuangshi Cloud Technology, pointed out that core barriers to everyday wearability of smart glasses include excessive weight, rapid battery drain requiring frequent recharging, overly wide temples that appear conspicuously technological and unconventional, privacy concerns triggered by built-in cameras, and display effects that cause visual fatigue—factors that often relegate these products to mere 'occasional novelties.'
Shen Bo, Co-founder and CTO of CoolChip Microelectronics, summarized four major technical bottlenecks facing AI glasses:
First is inadequate display and image quality. Current solutions suffer from low resolution, poor color fidelity, and lack HDR processing, resulting in blown-out highlights and crushed shadows, severely degrading visual experience. There is a fundamental trade-off between high-resolution displays and low power consumption requirements.
Second, battery anxiety remains severe. High-performance displays and AI computing consume substantial power, resulting in mainstream products offering only 2 to 4 hours of battery life—insufficient for all-day wear. The inherent constraints on battery capacity and the demand for extended usage create an irreconcilable conflict, directly limiting the expansion of use cases.
Third, AI processing power is inadequate. General-purpose chips struggle to support local deployment of large models, leading to high latency and low accuracy in complex scenarios such as voice recognition and real-time translation. The intense demand for computational power clashes with limited thermal dissipation space, creating a technological deadlock.
Fourth, wearing comfort is poor. Low chip integration results in bulky devices that cause fatigue and pressure during prolonged use. The pursuit of slim, lightweight designs conflicts with the need to integrate multiple functional modules, making it difficult to build user stickiness.
Voice interaction presents similarly acute pain points. Yan Yongjie, R&D Director at Daxiang Acoustics, noted that users must repeatedly wake up their devices, experience frequent recognition errors, and find the functionality nearly unusable in noisy environments. Background advertisements or conversations from bystanders can also easily trigger unintended activations.
Ma Guowen, General Manager of the XR Product Line at Quectel, analyzed the issue from an industry perspective, stating that a key reason for the currently high return and defect rates of smart glasses is the industry’s tendency toward premature commercialization—'pulling up seedlings to help them grow.' 'Manufacturers have already invested heavily in hardware and software development, and significant additional funding will be required to sustain product applications, marketing, and distribution.'
▍ The supply chain is advancing toward lower power consumption, greater miniaturization, and higher computational performance.
Faced with these challenges, the entire AI eyewear supply chain—from upstream to downstream—is aggressively driving technological upgrades, focusing on enhancing visual quality, reducing power consumption, and shrinking device size.
Zhang Dong, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Quectel, candidly acknowledged the extreme complexity of XR eyewear manufacturing: 'When a brand customer wants to develop an XR headset, it involves optical solutions, display modules, chip platforms, AI algorithms, and voice interaction systems, plus integration of the operating system and content applications. Then, in the production phase, they need SMT placement and full-device assembly, which requires partnering with specialized factories.'
To address this, Quectel has established a dedicated XR assembly line at its Changzhou facility, entering the ODM/OEM development and manufacturing business for XR eyewear and achieving mass production capability. According to the company’s 2025 financial report, its AI eyewear solutions have already enabled a leading AR client to achieve shipments in the tens of thousands. On July 9 of this year, the company also launched multiple AI+XR core reference designs, covering diverse chip platforms, optical configurations, and compute requirements.
AI eyewear imposes stringent requirements on wireless connectivity—including power efficiency, data rate, concurrency—as well as on audio systems, demanding advanced noise cancellation, AI-powered interaction, and ultra-low latency. Lin Hao, Co-founder and CTO of Wuxi WUQI Microelectronics, explained that the company introduced this year the Wi-Fi 6 chip WQ9002A, specifically designed for AI eyewear. 'Most existing Wi-Fi chips are adapted from smartphones and other conventional devices, and their power consumption fails to meet the needs of smart glasses. The WQ9002A aims to reduce Wi-Fi power consumption by 50% to 60%.'
Moreover, Wuqi Micro plans to launch a new generation of on-device AI chips in 2027, fabricated on a 6nm process and integrating Wi-Fi transmission, Bluetooth connectivity, and NPU computing capabilities to further reduce power consumption through advanced process technology. Reporters from Sci-Tech Daily noted that Wuqi Micro is preparing for a STAR Market listing, and its IPO application was accepted by the Shanghai Stock Exchange at the end of June.
In June this year, Corechip Microelectronics launched the ARS45, a new AI glasses-specific chip, and is currently applying for a Hong Kong IPO. It is reported that Corechip Microelectronics has partnered with over ten AI glasses manufacturers, and the ARS45 chip is used in AI glasses products from iFLYTEK and Quectel. For Birdbath-type products, customized versions serve the XREAL series.
Shen Bo, Co-founder and CTO of Corechip Microelectronics, stated that the core requirements for SoC chips in AI glasses can be summarized as 'excellent image quality, ultra-low power consumption, high-performance computing capability, and extreme integration and miniaturization.' He added, 'The width requirement for chips in the temples is strictly no more than 8 millimeters—and will need to shrink further to 6 millimeters in subsequent designs.'
The ARS45 already has segmented variants, each integrating DDR memory of different capacities. The version with the highest shipment volume integrates 512MB of DRAM. A newly introduced model, the ARS41, is scheduled to begin sampling in Q3 2026 and integrates 128MB of DRAM, aiming to address the significant rise in DRAM prices since last year and offer customers a more cost-effective option.
Regarding voice interaction, Yan Yongjie, R&D Director at Elephant Sound Technology, explained that the team is developing technologies such as wearer-specific audio zones and front-directional sound pickup, enabling smart glasses to completely block ambient voices and capture only sounds coming from directly in front of the wearer. 'It picks up the voice of whoever you’re looking at—and isolates all other sounds.'
▍2028 Could Be the Pivotal Year for Industry Breakthrough
Commenting on the current state of the industry, Ma Guowen, General Manager of Quectel’s XR Product Line, said there is broad consensus that orders have not yet begun climbing rapidly, and smart glasses remain in what resembles the 'Nokia era' of smartphones. 'However, by 2028, AR glasses will see significant advancements. The next three to five years may still fall short of an “iPhone moment,” but we will steadily move closer to it.'
Yan Yongjie of Elephant Sound Technology observed that smart glasses are gradually evolving. 'Last year’s products still looked quite crude—not much like real eyewear—but this year, most have slimmer temples and are already suitable for all-day wear.'
He believes that in the early stages of industry development, products have leaned more toward AI-powered audio and camera glasses, fulfilling high-frequency needs such as voice recording and basic video capture. As the supply chain matures, this category could experience a surge within the next one or two years. However, full-featured XR glasses with spatial computing capabilities will require more time to develop.
Shen Bo, Co-founder and CTO of Corechip Microelectronics, similarly anticipates that the 'iPhone moment' for smart glasses may arrive in 2028. 'By 2027, whether it’s chips, displays, or other supporting components, everything will reach a new level compared to this year, setting the stage for the 2028 market. Apple also plans to launch its first smart glasses in 2027, which will further accelerate the entire industry’s development.'