Rokid AI Glasses Style Challenge Meta’s Ray-Ban Dominance in Smart Glasses Market

Imagine slipping on a pair of lightweight glasses that not only capture your daily adventures but also guide you through city streets with voice directions—all without pulling out your phone. This vision is becoming reality with the latest entrants in the smart glasses arena, where Rokid’s new AI Glasses Style are positioning themselves as a notable alternative to established players.

Rokid AI Glasses Style: A Detailed Look at Features and Comparisons

The Rokid AI Glasses Style, priced at $299, enter a growing market spurred by Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, which have seen strong sales exceeding initial expectations. Upcoming competitors from Google, Samsung, and possibly Apple signal intensifying rivalry in display-less smart eyewear. Rokid’s offering aims to compete directly with Meta’s Ray-Ban Meta AI Gen 2 glasses, which weigh 48-50 grams, by emphasizing AI enhancements, media capture, and battery life.

Design, Comfort, and Build Quality

Rokid markets the AI Glasses Style as weighing 38.5 grams, but this figure excludes the lenses; with lenses included, the actual weight measures 45 grams—only 3 grams lighter than the lightest Ray-Ban Meta pair. This discrepancy has raised concerns about marketing transparency, as users always wear lenses.

• Frames resemble Ray-Ban styles but use plastic that feels less premium, with wider frames potentially suiting broader face shapes better.
• Nose bridge includes pads for a tighter fit, but this design leads to discomfort during extended wear, particularly on larger noses, unlike the smoother Ray-Ban bridge.
• Controls mirror competitors: single tap for play/pause, double tap to skip tracks, triple tap to rewind, swipe for volume, and hold to activate voice assistant.
• Lens options surpass Meta’s, including prescription, progressive, polarized, transition, and blue light-blocking varieties.

Battery life reaches up to 12 hours under typical use, such as intermittent music playback and calls, outperforming the Ray-Ban Meta’s 8-hour maximum. However, no charging case is included standard; a separate $99 case is required, and charging relies on a magnetic USB-C dongle. Initial Bluetooth connectivity issues caused disconnections, resolved via an over-the-air update.

Media Capture and Audio Performance

The glasses feature a 12-megapixel Sony IMX681 sensor, capturing photos at 3,024 x 4,032 pixels and videos at 3K resolution up to 30 frames per second. An LED indicator activates during recording for privacy notification.

• Photo quality is sharp and comparable to Ray-Ban Meta’s, though image processing preferences vary; some users favor Meta’s softer look.
• Video recording extends to 10 minutes maximum, double the Ray-Ban Meta’s 3-minute limit, with aspect ratio options (9:16, 3:4, 4:3) for social media compatibility.
• Audio delivers clear open-ear sound suitable for music and podcasts, with a dedicated podcast mode enhancing voice clarity; volume is adequate but less directional than Meta’s, appearing tinny in noisy environments like subways.

Calls present challenges: microphones pick up speaker output, causing echo audible to recipients, though lowering volume mitigates this. This issue, absent in Ray-Ban Meta, appears software-related and potentially fixable.

AI Capabilities and Everyday Utility

Rokid integrates advanced AI via its voice assistant, activated by “Hi Rokid,” which responds more efficiently than Meta AI in tests, though it occasionally cuts off mid-query.

• Navigation supports walking, biking, or driving directions with turn-by-turn audio guidance, a feature absent in Ray-Ban Meta.
• Offline translation covers six languages (English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, simplified Chinese) using a local model; online mode via Alibaba’s Qwen AI is faster but connection-dependent. “DuoTalk” mode translates bidirectional speech to text or voice, with directional (front-facing) or 360-degree microphone options.
• Additional functions include reminders, audio recording with app-based transcription or summarization, and computer vision for image translation (e.g., posters), performing adequately but struggling with small text.

Overall rating from testing: 3.5 out of 5, praising AI and media strengths while noting comfort and marketing drawbacks. As reviewer Raymond Wong noted, “Rokid is competition, and while it probably won’t unseat Meta from its pedestal any time soon, it goes to show you just how heated things are about to get.” These glasses offer viable alternatives for AI-focused users, though comfort lags behind Meta’s. How do you see this competition shaping the future of wearable tech in your daily routine?