The release of Xiaomi AI glasses has attracted widespread attention, and as an important part of Xiaomi’s hardware ecosystem, it not only brings users a new interactive experience, but also brings new possibilities for content creation. From the perspective of a short video creator, this article delves into the advantages of Xiaomi AI glasses in first-person shooting, accessibility functions, and commercial monetization models, while analyzing its competitive position and future potential in the market.
01
The day before the Xiaomi press conference, my daughter-in-law and I discussed what to expect from the meeting.
The daughter-in-law believes that there are all side dishes outside of YU7, and everyone just wants to know how much it sells for. And the answer I threw out was AI glasses.
▲ Source: Xiaomi official Weibo
It’s not that I, as a BYD owner, look down on Xiaomi cars, on the contrary, the certainty of YU7 is too strong. The audience doesn’t need to look forward to it, just be ready to cheer and applaud, anyway, there must be surprises in price, the listing is definitely not enough to sell, and the output is sales.
But according to the famous saying in our stock speculation leek group: if the good is exhausted, it is negative. This may also be one of the reasons why Xiaomi Group’s stock price rose and fell on the second day of the press conference.
In Xiaomi’s “on-shipping” press conference, glasses and cars are the only two products released by Lei Jun. In the past two days, I have swiped dozens of evaluation videos of Xiaomi AI glasses on Douyin and Xiaohongshu, and even have the urge to buy one.
My daughter-in-law, who just gave me DJI Pocket 3 last year, threw a roll of her eyes.
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That was her blood to support my transformation into short videos, but I used it no more than 5 times in a year. Pocket 3 is good, but it doesn’t understand my laziness.
What interests me about Xiaomi AI glasses is convenience.
Convenience is a realm, and sometimes it can become a killer feature in business competitiveness. Can a mobile phone replace a camera because it produces better films? Jobs had to get up and wave his hand.
Under the premise of convenience, being able to take more beautiful photos is the key logic of competition among domestic mobile phone manufacturers in recent years. My daughter-in-law went to a concert with her friends a while ago, and when she came back, she was annoyed: she didn’t bring her Xiaomi mobile phone at home, and she was compared by her friend’s OPPO.
02
The evaluation bloggers in the technology digital circle should be the first batch of users of Xiaomi AI glasses.
Fast hands are king. Here, Lei Jun is still talking about his dream at the press conference, and over there, a blogger rushed to the offline store of Xiaomi Home to pick up the goods. It is also a product introduced by Lei Jun personally, and YU7 owners can only wait slowly.
Judging from the evaluation results so far, its advantages are: it is not ugly (note: this only represents the aesthetics of personal straight men), and it is very suitable for first-view shooting. DJI Pocket 3 also needs to occupy one hand, and the presence of glasses is much lower.
▲ Source: DJI’s official social media
This should be very friendly for short vloggers. Some time ago, I went to Xingtai to see the industrial belt and took some video materials, one of which was that I wanted to stand at the entrance of the village to introduce the local pet food workshop, holding the DJI Pocket 3, and the uncles passing by always stared at me.
When they took a look, my thinking was broken once. In the end, I was stunned until the sun was about to set and the uncles went home for dinner, and then I barely finished recording.
If AI glasses are used, the scene may be different. I can introduce myself as I walk, at most to make others think that I am reciting a mantra and consciously keep my distance.
However, as the first generation of Xiaomi AI glasses, the current limitations are also obvious: AI is still a bit mentally retarded.
More than one blogger showed the AI recognition effect, such as recognizing Tesla as ideal and not recognizing lemon black tea. Less than half an hour after its release, the glasses were all sold out in Xiaomi Mall, and 7,000+ were quickly sold in JD.com’s self-operated channels.
▲ Source: Social platform
Don’t worry about Xiaomi not being able to stand it. After Are you OK back then, the company went further and further on the road of playing memes.
What’s more, for a new product, it is better to be unknown because of the imperfection within the acceptable range of users.
Xiaomi is a newbie in the AI glasses business, but the business itself is not new. From big factories like Lenovo, Samsung, Byte, Baidu, and Alibaba, to startups like Rokid and Thunderbird Innovation, they are all on the field.
▲ The competition in the AI glasses market is quite fierce
Unfortunately, none of the products have the popularity of Xiaomi AI glasses.
This has something to do with the fact that AI hardware equipment has not yet become a mass product, but more importantly, it may be that they lack a top salesman like Lei Jun: they can sell a car priced at more than 200,000 yuan for someone else’s amount in one night; It can also make some obscure terms and relatively niche products memorable.
03
According to Xiaomi’s official statement, AI glasses are the AI entrance to personal smart devices for the next era.
I have analyzed in my previous article “Xiaomi with a trillion-dollar market value is waiting for the east wind of AI”, Xiaomi’s hardware ecological construction is very strong, and the layout can be described as meticulous, ranging from cars, refrigerators, TVs, to mobile phones, watches, and lamps. All products linked to users will be included in the huge “people-car-home” hardware ecological layout. This is Xiaomi’s “infrastructure”.
When the focus of the domestic AI track has evolved from 0-1 basic technology to the application level, the importance of infrastructure has become more and more prominent.
When a typhoon comes, an 80-kilogram person will definitely stand more steadily than an 80-pound person.
However, judging from the configuration of the first generation of products, Xiaomi is still relatively conservative. It chose more practical AI camera glasses to highlight camera and multimodal AI interaction capabilities without challenging AR.
It honestly extends the function of the “eye” and expands the boundaries of visual ability.
For example, I sit in front of the computer, coding words while processing information on my mobile phone with the help of AI glasses; When riding, I used AI glasses to call navigation and answer calls; When taking photos and recording videos, there is no need to hold the mobile phone, a voice command can start shooting.
In other words, different from the alternative meaning of DJI Pocket 3 to mobile phones, it is more like a partner of mobile phones, visualizing some of its functions.
This is also Xiaomi’s cleverness: not to pursue a perfect product appearance, but to occupy a place on the field by solving the rigid needs of a small group of people. Obviously, this is a long-term battlefield, with 8 billion pairs of eyes in the world, and the number of “occupied” by AI glasses is almost negligible.
Of course, the competition is already intensifying. Meta smart glasses developed by Ray Ban will sell 2 million units in 2024, an increase of 210% compared to 2023. Meta has announced plans to expand production, expecting to produce 10 million AI glasses by the end of 2026.
In addition, institutional data shows that global AI glasses sales will increase to 5.5 million units in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 135%. IDC data shows that AI glasses shipments in the Chinese market will exceed 2.75 million units in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 107%.
Xiaomi does not create an outlet, but it does choose an outlet.
04
In February this year, at the general staff meeting of ByteDance, the company’s CEO Liang Rubo put forward a key goal for 2025: to explore new interactions. Multiple sources have confirmed that ByteDance is actively promoting its self-developed AI glasses project, which may become the “protagonist” of ByteDance’s new interaction.
Byte’s past record in hardware projects is not ideal, whether it is spending money to take over external projects or internal teams to make products, it has not been able to reproduce the ultimate in traffic business on these products.
In contrast, Xiaomi’s infrastructure for hardware is obviously stronger. An industry analyst previously said in response to a fan’s question on Douyin:
“(If you pay attention to the AI glasses industry), you will keep an eye on Xiaomi and see when Xiaomi will ‘end up’.”
From another point of view, Lei Jun actually gave Douyin a “big gift”: in the first step, users who buy Xiaomi AI glasses can make vlogs and shoot life materials from a first-person perspective, and the increase of this kind of content can effectively enhance Douyin’s sense of life; In the second step, other hardware manufacturers may follow suit, and more AI glasses with camera functions will appear on the market, further lowering the entry threshold for short video bloggers.
In other words, even if the self-developed AI glasses are not competitive, it will not prevent Byte from enjoying this wave of dividends.
Of course, this is only the worst result. Byte attaches great importance to AI at present, and even Zhang Yiming frequently returns from Singapore to meet with relevant people in the AI industry. It should not be willing to become a “soup drinker” in the AI glasses business.
Finally, I would like to say that AI glasses, as a new interactive carrier, have at least three advantages that deserve the attention of all content creators:
First, the new “first-person perspective” brings the audience from flat narrative to spatial experiential narrative.
There are three elements in theatrical performance: real listening, real seeing, and real feeling. For short video users, this experience is also very important.
In the past video and live broadcast content, in order to create a “first-person perspective”, the anchor would put the camera on his head, and some anchors held their mobile phones and took pictures while walking, but the picture they presented was different from the real “first-person perspective”.
Although there are still great shortcomings in terms of image quality, image stabilization, shooting length, etc., these can be continuously iterated and upgraded in subsequent products. The “first-person view” can greatly enhance the realism and immersion of videos and live streams, which is ideal for video creators who share tracks such as travel, cooking food, sports adventures, etc.
Second, unlock the auxiliary function.
AI glasses undertake some operations that originally need to be performed by hand, and can send voice commands through Super Xiaoai (intelligent large model), which can provide anchors with video and live broadcast assistance.
For example, in the jewelry and jade industry where I work, there are many “mobile purchasing”, they take more than ten pounds of mobile phones, brackets, and batteries to wander around the major jade markets.
In the store broadcast scenario, AI glasses can be used as a “teleprompter” or as a live broadcast assistant, such as when the anchor encounters an unfamiliar problem, he can query it at any time.
In street interview content, AI glasses can reduce the tension of the person being photographed and more easily capture real reactions because of their weak presence.
Third, a new business monetization model
The traditional short video monetization methods are mainly advertising and delivery, the former requires traffic foundation or creativity, and the latter requires sales ability.
AI glasses are directly beneficial to experiential content, such as when we go to high-end hotels, sit in first class, and use AI glasses to shoot, the content presented to users is more direct and infectious, and around the keyword “experience”, there may be more flexible forms of monetization in the future.
These points will need to be verified slowly in the next time, but for now, I may have to spend a sum of money first:
Last night, my home egg incubator successfully hatched the first chick, and my daughter-in-law held it in the palm of her hand, excitedly called me to see, asked me to take out my mobile phone and take a good picture, while muttering:
“If I had AI glasses, I would be able to record them myself.”
What my daughter-in-law is worried about will one day appear in my house. I know that I definitely have to chase the outlet of AI glasses.
