By Wu You

Edited by Yu Kuai

Introduction: Why Haven't AI Photo Glasses Taken Off in the Chinese Market Despite Being Popular for Half a Year?

In Q1 2025, the global AI smart glasses market exhibited a dramatic growth trajectory, with total sales of 600,000 units achieving a year-on-year increase of 216%. However, a closer look at the data reveals that Ray Ban Meta dominates the market with an absolute advantage of 528,000 units sold.

This phenomenon exposes a contradiction in the Chinese AI photo glasses market: although local brands such as LeBird V3 and Xiaomi AI Glasses offer readily available AI photo products, the industry as a whole has yet to break through the paradox of "hot launches but cold market reception."

A sales tracking report by Vision Deep Insight reveals a crucial fact: Meta is defining industry standards with consumer-grade products, while the domestic supply chain is still struggling in the depths of technology.

Neil, the director of the General Video Product Line at Beijing Actions Semiconductor Co., Ltd., points out that this market discontinuity stems from dual industrial bottlenecks:

Firstly, aside from Qualcomm's AR1, the industry lacks mature compatible solutions, leading to a dilemma of "piecemeal innovation" in hardware selection.

Secondly, the system-level design difficulty of AI glasses has been severely underestimated. Achieving a balance between 12-megapixel photography and 4 hours of battery life within a 50g weight benchmark far exceeds the technical complexity of traditional wearable devices.

This lack of industry readiness means that even during the catalytic period of decreasing costs for large models such as Deepseek, AI photo glasses have not yet reached the tipping point for consumer-grade popularity.

Decreasing Costs of Large Models, AI Audio Glasses Leading the Way

"After Deepseek's popularity during the Spring Festival, the cost of accessing AI large models decreased, and at this stage, chip manufacturers began to see the possibility of AI glasses gaining popularity, gradually gaining confidence and taking action to enter the AI glasses market. If large models were unaffordable, the product form factor would still not materialize," recalls Neil.

Before this, many domestic chip manufacturers held a nearly pessimistic attitude towards AI glasses, leading to a slow maturation of the supply chain. An insider close to MediaTek told LeiPhone at the end of January this year that even if the mobile phone market does not expand in the future, it is still larger than the wearable market in terms of capacity. MediaTek is taking a wait-and-see approach to whether to actively enter the AI glasses chip market.

AI audio glasses, relying on the extension of the TWS earphone supply chain, have made breakthroughs first.

Deepseek has compressed the cost of accessing large models to a commercially viable range, while vendors such as Jiehuan have leveraged mature Bluetooth chips and microphone matrix solutions to achieve mass shipments of AI audio glasses. This "earphone + conversational interaction" lightweight form factor avoids the complexity of optical system design and serves as a transitional form for market education.

In contrast, the technical stack complexity of AI photo glasses increases exponentially. Ray-Ban Meta's benchmark of 12 megapixels represents a trade-off between optical modules, ISP chips, and battery systems. Actual test data shows that current mainstream products generally have battery life below 3 hours in continuous shooting scenarios, and the 50g weight limit further puts most vendors in a dilemma of balancing battery capacity and device weight.

With Ray-Ban Meta's successful experience, Qualcomm AR1 has become the first choice for many AI glasses companies aiming for a better user experience. However, the dedicated SoC costs over $60, which is not affordable for most startups. Additionally, Qualcomm's strategy of prioritizing production capacity for head clients makes it difficult for small and medium-sized vendors to access, even if they have the money.

The imbalance in the supply chain has led many terminal vendors to choose their own solutions, but this also increases the risk of pitfalls. Any misstep in selecting Bluetooth chips, Wi-Fi chips, ISP chips, or storage chips can lead to product difficulties.

LeiPhone learned that in the past, many companies lacked in-depth understanding of chip performance, power consumption, compatibility, etc., resulting in selected chips that are incompatible with other hardware, compromising product performance or increasing power consumption. Coupled with insufficient software capabilities, it is difficult to even create a product demo, let alone mass production.

Beijing Actions Semiconductor ISP Enters the Fray, AI Photo Glasses Have Chips to Use

The good news is that some chip companies have taken a proactive approach and begun to provide dedicated chips for the AI glasses sector, quietly changing the landscape of the AI glasses industry.

Leveraging its low-power ISP technology with over 50% market share in the AIoT sector, Beijing Actions Semiconductor has built a differentiated competitive advantage in AI glasses. Its C100 chip, with dimensions of 5mm*6mm and a weight of 0.053g, can achieve power consumption control of 280mW during 1080P/30fps video recording.

These advantages in low power consumption and miniaturization stem from Beijing Actions Semiconductor's more than a decade of experience in the wearable sector. From the launch of the Beijing Actions Semiconductor M200 smartwatch in 2014 to the current C100, Beijing Actions Semiconductor not only provides cost-effective chips but also highly mature software support packages.

In response to the industry's general pursuit of starting at 12-megapixel resolutions, Beijing Actions Semiconductor believes that ensuring low power consumption is more important at this stage, thus exercising restraint in pixel count.

Neil told LeiPhone that in social sharing scenarios, even though smartphones now have high resolutions, such as 50 megapixels when shooting, the shared content is still typically 2-megapixel resolution videos. Smartphones have long been engaged in an imaging arms race, but in reality, even when shooting, users need to adjust parameters to utilize the highest specification pixels.

Beijing Actions Semiconductor's restrained pixel strategy can also help reduce storage costs and battery capacity requirements. Taking Beijing Actions Semiconductor C100's practical application in an X customer project as an example, this customer, a veteran in the wearable sector, initially adopted an Android-based solution, which required a large-capacity battery to maintain battery life, resulting in glasses weighing over 50 grams. After adopting C100, the product weight dropped from over 50 grams to 37 grams, and with the added advantage of only 280mW power consumption during video recording, the wearing experience was greatly improved.

"March of this year was a very chaotic period. Everyone was discussing what solutions to use every day. After two months of discussion, it seemed like any solution could be used, but after combining them, it turned out none worked. It became clearer in April when chip manufacturers began to proactively support, and various vendors started to collaborate on solutions. Terminal vendors selected their options and focused on product development, so the industry has been relatively silent for the past month or two," Neil recalled.

It was during this chaotic period in March-April that Beijing Actions Semiconductor, leveraging its mature ISP technology and collaborating with partners in Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, CMOS sensors, and other fields, began to provide stable solutions.

As a member of the grouping the AI glasses chip market, Beijing Actions Semiconductor's T-series and C-series ISPs, covering resolutions from 1080P to 4K, have already been widely selected by AI glasses products upon entering the market. Besides the already released Kanan K1, multiple AI glasses vendors have adopted Beijing Actions Semiconductor's ISP solutions, with mass shipments expected in Q4.

Beijing Actions Semiconductor's Next-Generation ISP in the Making, AI Glasses May Usher in the "China Moment"

IDC data shows that global smart glasses shipments are expected to reach 12.8 million units in 2025, with a synchronous growth rate of 26%. Behind this data lies the technological leap of Chinese chip vendors resonating with the demands of the AI glasses market.

Beijing Actions Semiconductor is also continuously developing its next-generation CW-series ISP, further miniaturizing the chip while supporting higher pixel output and controlling power consumption even lower, fully adapting to the core needs of AI glasses. It is expected to be officially released at the end of the year.

When Beijing Actions Semiconductor ISP enters the AI glasses sector with its low-power technology accumulated in the AIoT sector, its significance lies not only in providing a chip product but also in reshaping the collaboration logic of the supply chain. It shifts from a passive "use what's available" approach to an active "build what's needed" definition.

With the mass production and launch of the new-generation ISP at the end of the year, the AI photo glasses market may usher in its true "China Moment" – not a simple replication of Meta's product form factor but a technological paradigm shift centered around power consumption control. This innovative vitality originating from the local supply chain may become a pivotal argument in defining AI glasses products.