While many tech companies, including several in China, are trying to make wearing glasses “cool”, Singapore-based smart lens startup Brilliant Labs is the latest company to introduce smart glasses. became.
The company’s new Frame smart glasses, announced Friday, include a custom artificial intelligence (AI)-powered assistant called Noa that bundles together many large-scale language models (LLMs) to best suit a specific query. find something. Brilliant Labs, founded in Hong Kong in 2019, has also attracted several Chinese companies looking to capitalize on a market that is expected to boom this year by incorporating the technology into slim frames that can be worn all day. is jumping on the trend. This is thanks to Apple’s launch of the much larger Vision Pro mixed reality headset.
“I feel like this is similar to multi-touch on smartphones. Smartphones didn’t really exist until that technology and interface style was invented,” Tavangal said in an interview with the Post.
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He added that previous efforts to provide the fun of AR glasses, such as “a whale appearing in front of your eyes and a Tyrannosaurus rex dancing on a table,” had not been successful. “This has always lacked a purpose for its existence…What we believe in is generative AI,” he said.
Brilliant Labs began pre-ordering its frame glasses on Friday for $349 USD each. This device he will start shipping in April.
The company has a key value proposition for Noa Frame: For example, if a user requests an image to be generated in front of their eyes, Noa might utilize stable diffusion. Tavangal explained that more general information requests could come from his GPT model in OpenAI.
Tavangar had a unique vision for his company, and along with co-founders Raj Nakarja and Benjamin Heald, he started launching a single-lens smart device called Monacle. But with his Frame, Brilliant Labs has become part of a broader trend of producing trendy, smart eyewear that people actually want to wear in public.
Chinese companies at this year’s CES also used the glasses form factor to differentiate their products from front-heavy goggles from the likes of Apple and Meta, but their emphasis was very different.
RayNeo, the maker of X2 glasses that debuted last year, touted its ability to tap into the supply chain of TV maker TCL, where it is in development. The company launched its first generation of X2 glasses last year and said it is the market leader for AR glasses in mainland China. A more sophisticated version called X2 Lite debuted at CES 2024.
X2 relies on another form of AI as a selling point. There is a virtual assistant that appears as a cartoonish character in front of the user’s eyes, and the glasses can be used to overlay maps for navigation and perform speech-to-text with automatic translation.
Recognizing how crowded the field is, founder and CEO Howie Lee told the Post at CES: “For hardware developers like us, we believe it is important to own the core technology in order to be unique.”
Mr. Lee said that RayNeo was able to mass-produce smart glasses with full-color micro-LEDs in an unparalleled manner.
The $699 Air 2 Ultra drew comparisons to the Vision Pro at the show, with features like extended desktop capabilities for playing games, watching movies, and working with multiple virtual displays.
A number of other Chinese tech companies, including Xiaomi, Huawei, and Lenovo, are also dabbling in making their own smart glasses. However, no company has yet been able to break through with mainstream success in this field.
The company closest to making smart glasses for the masses may be Facebook owner Meta Platforms, which teamed up with Ray-Ban last year to make glasses with built-in cameras and speakers. However, this product does not have micro LED or AI assistant. Their biggest selling point is that they’re so stylish that you’ll actually want to wear them regularly.
Brilliant Labs sees an opportunity to offer something a little more advanced than Ray-Ban’s specs while still being stylish. We also need something a little more sustainable.
Tavangar said the company uses all open source technologies and off-the-shelf components for both hardware and software. This allowed them to centralize much of their manufacturing in Singapore, and moved their headquarters to the city-state. Like most electronics manufacturers, Brilliant Labs still relies on China for some parts, Tavangal noted.
Still, Brilliant Labs remains a relatively small startup, and its production capabilities reflect that. Tavangal said the goal is to have zero inventories, and they are keeping production as close to demand as possible.
According to the CEO, demand for Monacle surprised the company when orders reached thousands of units, as it expected to sell only a few hundred units. The company expects demand for frames to increase further, but declined to provide specific numbers.
