01 The smart glasses market has not yet reached the singularity
Compared with smartphones, smart watches and other devices, smart glasses are obviously a more niche market. According to IDC data, global sales of AR glasses will be 480,000 units and smart glasses will be 1.01 million units in 2023.
Smart glasses themselves are not a new trend. The track can be traced back to 2002, when the Japanese company Olympus launched the Eye-Trek series of consumer head-mounted displays. As the track was explored, Google released the Google Glass Explorer Edition, which was positioned as intelligent, in 2012, and Microsoft launched the HoloLens, which features AR and VR, in 2015. Both have driven the continuous changes in the direction and development pattern of the smart glasses market.
Of course, despite nearly 20 years of development, smart glasses have always been a niche product with sales volume in the millions.
In fact, in its relatively short history, smart glasses were not considered a good business. For example:
The first generation of Google Glass was priced as high as $1,500, and it also had problems such as limited applications and risks of privacy infringement, which dealt a heavy blow to the entire smart glasses market.
BaiduEye, which debuted in September 2014, has not yet been launched. Spectacles, a smart glasses launched by Snapchat in 2017, has been launched for several generations, and even though it has been improved every time, it is still not popular in the market.
Snap first released Spectacles, a pair of smart glasses with a built-in camera, in 2016. However, due to their exaggerated appearance, choppy operation, and unclear user usage scenarios, the final generation of the product only sold around 150,000 units, resulting in a loss of nearly $40 million.
In 2018, Intel unveiled a conceptual design of Vaunt smart glasses. However, due to the lack of support from the capital market, Intel closed its New Devices Group department in April of the same year and terminated the Vaunt smart glasses project announced in February.
In fact, the performance of most smart glasses is limited by performance. In a sense, they are considered to be just another screen of the smartphone. Although these devices are equipped with independent operating systems, their functions are still relatively simple and limited. In addition to the functions that smartphones can already achieve, such as voice interaction, photography and navigation, the control functions of smart glasses are also relatively basic. As for the cool application scenarios of AR, most of them are still in the conceptual stage.
Since the actual usage experience is far from expected, consumers are not very interested in these smart glasses that seem high-end but lack practicality, and are unwilling to pay for them.
Especially in the early days, the maturity of AR technology required joint progress in multiple fields such as sensors, displays, and batteries. However, at that time, these technologies were still in their infancy, and it was difficult to see significant breakthroughs.
In addition, another core problem of AR glasses is that it is difficult to balance computing power and energy consumption, so a split design is the only option. Even so, due to the limitations of the display mechanism, the weight of AR glasses is still too high. In the field of smart glasses, it will take time for the basic hardware to mature, and spatial perception and display technology also need to achieve major breakthroughs due to cost and technology. So for the smart glasses market, the singularity seems to have not yet arrived.
02 AI + AR may become a new trend
In fact, the pursuit of excellent performance is one direction for the development of smart glasses. From this point of view, Microsoft's Hololens has taken this route, but the market response to successive generations of Hololens has been unsatisfactory, and sales have been dismal. This shows that simply betting on performance is not the best choice.
In contrast, Meta has adopted a two-pronged strategy, that is, on the one hand, it pursues extreme performance, and on the other hand, it uses the continuous iteration of AI models and computing hardware to deeply introduce AI solutions to further open up the market. As early as September 2023, Meta and Ray-Ban launched the second-generation product Meta Ray-Ban, which is a reflection of this strategy. The product weighs less than 50g and has a starting price of only US$299, which solves the pain points of weight and cost. Compared with the first-generation product, the second-generation product has greatly improved the camera quality and sound quality while maintaining the same shape and price. The battery life and charging speed have increased by more than 30%, and the chip and storage have also been upgraded. In addition, the second-generation product launched the AI function in April 2024. Although it currently only supports English conversations and is limited to users in the United States and Canada, its sales performance shows a clear growth trend.
At the MetaConnect conference on September 25, 2024, Meta released its first AR glasses prototype, code-named Orion, which once again aroused the market's high attention to the smart glasses track. Orion glasses consist of three parts: the glasses body, the electromyography wristband (EMG), and an external computing module. It uses SiC lenses + etched diffraction optical waveguides and MicroLED optical solutions, with a FOV of 70 degrees, making it the product with the largest field of view among small AR glasses. The glasses weigh only 98 g, have a magnesium frame, and are equipped with 7 cameras. In terms of intelligence, Orion supports AI voice, gesture tracking, and eye tracking, and enables users to control with neural signals through an electromyography wristband (EMG). Users can wear glasses to open multiple MetaHorizonApp windows for multitasking, or use MetaAI to identify and annotate things in the real world, which also gives us a new understanding of smart glasses.
In addition to the Meta series of products, Web3 is also becoming a new solution. V3X, a newcomer in the smart glasses market, not only takes into account the ultimate performance, user experience and AI capabilities, but also further introduces a series of Web3 features, giving it an advantage in decentralized security, smart transactions, personalized AI interaction and device comfort. V3X is more suitable for users who have higher demands for data security, daily convenience and personalized services, and by introducing cryptocurrency elements, it is expected to maximize the value of users' attention and data, and even bring income to users.
In fact, before V3X was launched on the market, the field of smart glasses had not yet entered Web3. Therefore, while V3X is already in the first echelon in terms of performance and functionality, it also introduces a series of Web3 features, which undoubtedly aroused the market, especially some Web2 players, to have a strong curiosity about this product.
03 Is V3X the ultimate form of smart glasses?
Whether it is Google, Microsoft or Meta, when they launch smart glasses products, they often position them as smart wearable devices, mainly as visual entertainment products.
However, the product positioning of V3X is different. It is not only a smart entertainment device, but also focuses on the attributes of a "personal assistant", aiming to change the way users live and manage their assets.
Thanks to the integration with its long-term strategic partner, Web3 AI Intelligent Engine System D3X, V3X smart glasses have excellent AI capabilities and seamless access to Web3 functions. By providing a voice-controlled AI assistant, V3X provides seamless decentralized real-time interaction for personal and professional users, which not only enhances the daily life experience and asset trading experience, but also ensures data security through decentralized infrastructure.
In order to perfectly combine cutting-edge technology and user experience, the V3X device is equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 processor and dual 1080p AR displays to ensure that users can get high-definition display and powerful performance during use. The built-in 3500mAh battery supports up to 6 hours of active use to meet all-day needs.
In terms of intelligence, V3X's high-performance natural language processing (NLP) technology supports natural and intuitive conversations, can adapt and predict user needs in real time, and provides personalized services, allowing users to achieve convenient operations through voice interaction, significantly improving usage. experience.
In addition, V3X focuses on technical compatibility in hardware design and is fully compatible with the Android and iOS ecosystems, ensuring that users can seamlessly connect and use it on a variety of devices. Through cooperation with D3X, V3X has enhanced its intelligent advantages in the financial field and combined with advanced AI functions to greatly expand its application scenarios.
To further enhance the convenience of use, V3X supports three interaction methods, including voice interaction, gesture interaction and ring interaction (the ring has several buttons to select content on the glasses screen).
Leading a new intelligent trend
So when we use V3X smart glasses devices, in addition to engaging in some AR-based entertainment activities, we can also further enjoy the convenience brought by AI.
Based on the AI big model, accurate identification and labeling of objects in the real world is a basic capability of V3X.
For example, when we wear V3X smart glasses, we can identify the features of the people we observe, and match them with the user's social graph based on the features to help users better identify their identities. Or when we see something we like, we can interact with the glasses to intelligently identify the item and directly link to some sales channels for the product. Compared with most similar products on the market, V3X is in the first echelon in terms of experience and responsiveness.
Of course, the biggest feature of V3X is its intelligent assistant attributes.
V3X can be fully voice-controlled and implement functions such as smart notes, reminders, and task automation to improve user work efficiency. It can even automate certain tasks. At the same time, the device will continuously optimize services as users use it, that is, through advanced AI models, predictive analysis, learning, predicting and adapting to user needs, and making personalized responses based on user preferences to further meet user usage habits and provide a hyper-personalized user experience.
Similarly, V3X is also an automated strategy tool and automated execution tool for users to invest.
D3X itself is the next generation of AI financial data analysis infrastructure. Through a complete AI solution, it can provide real-time insights into all data indicators of the on-chain market, including on-chain transaction data, market sentiment (positive, negative), emergencies, etc., and respond to market changes at millisecond speeds. At the same time, D3X uses artificial intelligence technology to collect information from different sources, conduct sentiment and technical analysis, and build personalized financial profiles. By analyzing the user's trading history, behavior, and risk tolerance, D3X provides a customizable and automated personal financial assistant that tailors personal investment preferences, enabling traders to make informed decisions and improve trading efficiency.
Through integration with the D3X system, V3X smart glasses have become a channel for investors to connect to the system, and through the V3X interactive system, they can perform financial transactions through glasses anytime and anywhere. It is reported that the precise trading signals provided by the D3X system can achieve an accuracy rate of up to 82.7%, which will greatly improve the timeliness, accuracy and convenience of financial investment.
Additional profit opportunities brought by Web3
In fact, Web3 airdrops are becoming an important way for many ecosystems to achieve early startup. For early contributing users or interactive users, the project is expected to issue token airdrops to users as rewards.
For example, users of Solana "Chapter 2" smartphones have received airdrops of multiple high-quality meme tokens, and the value of the airdrops can even cover the cost of purchasing the phone.
So this makes us wonder whether buying V3X smart glasses can also get a series of airdrops, including tokens issued by V3X itself, and a series of applications provided by a series of dApps developed with V3X as the carrier, etc. At the same time, V3X also supports users to interact with dApps on different chains through glasses, and can directly execute a series of on-chain transactions. Using V3X as an entry point is also an important entry point and way to explore the Web3 ecosystem and further capture revenue.
On the other hand, V3X itself also provides end-to-end data protection based on the DePIN (decentralized infrastructure) solution to ensure privacy and user data control. In the long run, through the further expansion of the business model, it may be able to provide users with further profit management, such as helping users to fully realize the value of data in certain scenarios.
04 V3X may help smart glasses occupy a larger market share
From the perspective of intelligence alone, AI glasses actually have a wide range of application scenarios.
With consumers' pursuit of convenient and intelligent lifestyles and the demand for intelligent solutions in various industries, the smart glasses market is expected to grow rapidly. In particular, smart glasses have great application potential in entertainment, education, medical care and industry.
After being equipped with a multimodal AI big model, the interaction mode of smart glasses changes from "hardware serving users" to "big model serving users", which simplifies product design and enables the device to achieve more functions while using fewer hardware components.
In addition, AI big models help eyewear products achieve more efficient and concise human-computer interaction, improving user acceptance. Multimodal big models can understand multiple input methods such as voice and images, and users can achieve human-computer interaction only through voice, gestures, etc. Therefore, in the subsequent product function upgrade and iteration process, model training upgrades will bear the user's learning cost for new functions, thereby improving user acceptance.
In particular, the new combination of V3X Web3+AI is expected to further help open up a new situation in the smart glasses market.
Compared with Meta's Orion, the V3X, which focuses on intelligence, has demonstrated advantages in many aspects.
In fact, for the V3X, which takes a different approach, its potential audience is more flat. It is not just for technology enthusiasts, but is closely integrated with life, work, entertainment, investment and other aspects. It is more likely to give smart glasses more practical uses and further improve their acceptance.
The wearable market has reached a valuation of $118 billion, and smart glasses, as a niche device, have always accounted for a relatively low proportion, which also means that there is still a lot of room for development in this field. As V3X further enters the market, the smart glasses market is also expected to usher in a singularity.