Xiaomi Launches China’s Rival to Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, Packed with Standout Features

Alright, so let’s dive into this. Xiaomi just had this big event, right? I mean, they’re calling it ‘Human x Car x Home’—not sure what that’s supposed to mean, but whatever. The big reveal was their new AI Glasses. Yeah, they’re going head to head with Meta and EssilorLuxottica.

Apparently, last year there were these rumors floating around—Xiaomi teaming up with Goertek, a local ODM. The gist? New AI glasses that could supposedly give Ray-Ban Meta a run for its money. Thing is, Ray-Bans aren’t even officially in China—go figure.

Now, these Xiaomi AI Glasses—they’ve got all sorts of gizmos. There’s this Hyper XiaoAi doing voice assistant stuff, and a 12MP camera with some kind of stabilization—EIS or something?—to keep your shaky hands in check. They’ve packed in a bunch of mics, speakers; all using this low-power, fancy chip from BES and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon AR1. Sounds pretty top-tier, doesn’t it?

The odd part? No displays on these glasses. Nada. Everything is controlled by voice and touch—talk about minimalism. Oh, you can also translate foreign text and take photos or videos with a simple tap or voice command. Fancy, huh?

Let’s talk battery. Xiaomi says the 263mAh battery goes for about 8.6 hours. You know, just regular stuff like video recording, photos—boring, right? They claim standby lasts 21 hours—do people even leave things on standby anymore?

Oh, and here’s a quirky bit—imagine just looking at a QR code and paying for stuff. That’s happening soon… in September 2025. Only in China for now—which makes sense since they’ve kind of shaped it for Asian faces. Maybe global folks will have to wait or wear it crammed on their noses.

Design-wise, there’s just one frame, but they’ve mixed it up with three color options. Black, something called semi-transparent tortoiseshell brown, and parrot green. The lens options might make convincing fashion statements against Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley. Or not.

The price tag? Starts at around ¥1,999 RMB—that’s about $280 USD if you’re counting. But hey, if you’re feeling posh, there are those electrochromic lenses that’ll set you back about ¥2,999 RMB or $420 USD. Sounds steep? Depends on who you ask.

What’s cool—well, maybe?—is that you can fiddle with the electrochromic lens shading by just touching the frame. Imagine feeling powerful enough to control the light with a tap? And yes, you can throw in your prescription lenses, too.

This is quite the first mass market play by Xiaomi under their own label. Prior tries like Mijia didn’t have cameras. Except there was this Mijia Glasses Camera thing in 2022—but that’s a whole other story.

The specs list—oh boy, do they have one—includes the camera, video details, battery life, and more. I caught a whiff of this info during the presentation.

Oh, by the way, over in China, people are going bonkers over these. Some outlet called Vrtuoluo says more than 25,000 reservations happened on JD.com just this morning.

And that’s the vibe. Xiaomi’s clearly diving into the future here, and whether or not these glasses will be your next wearable obsession, who knows? But one thing’s for sure—this is a sign of the crazy tech times we live in.