Alibaba has begun selling its first pair of smart glasses driven by its Qwen AI models. This marks a rare attempt by the company in the consumer hardware sector.
The new Quark S1 glasses feature a semi-transparent display that can overlay relevant information onto the user's view of the surrounding environment. The product is equipped with a camera, bone conduction microphones, and swappable batteries rated to last 24 hours, aiming to provide a product similar to Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses for the Chinese market.
It marks an extension of Alibaba’s ambitious reorganization into an AI-first business. The company made a big splash with its Qwen app release last week, consolidating its various consumer AI services into a single, upgraded program that quickly attracted more than 10 million users. Chief Executive Officer Eddie Wu this week said the company has seen “exceptional user retention” with the new release. Alibaba has also integrated the Qwen suite into its Quark desktop browser and is now broadening its reach with the Quark wearables lineup.
Alongside the S1, which starts at 3,799 yuan ($537), Alibaba will offer a 1,899-yuan Quark G1 model that eschews the micro-OLED displays. Both are powered by Qualcomm Inc.’s Snapdragon AR1 platform, a chip designed specifically for augmented-reality glasses that includes neural processing units for AI tasks.
The S1 is available to buy immediately from Alibaba’s Tmall, JD.com, ByteDance Ltd.’s Douyin and more than 600 stores across 82 cities in China. International versions will come next year, with some available via platforms like AliExpress, according to a spokesperson from Alibaba’s Quark unit.
Smart glasses, particularly ones touting artificial intelligence capabilities like transcription, have proliferated in China over the past year. Many so far have come from startups like Even Realities, which aim at augmenting conventional glasses rather than reinventing them. Market tracker IDC saw 1.6 million shipments of smart glasses in China in the year to September, with Xiaomi Corp. claiming roughly a third. That figure rises past 2 million units once glasses with built-in displays are included.
“Alibaba’s entry will undoubtedly bring new dynamics to the competitive landscape of China’s smart eyewear market,” said IDC research director Sophie Pan.
More recently, Meta’s $799 Ray-Ban Display pair showed a more ambitious approach to the category, with integrated screens and a separate wrist band for gesture controls. Meta’s most advanced model is bulkier, heavier and pricier than usual, but it has drawn the contours of a promising path for development.
Alibaba has combined the numerous advantages of its ecosystem with the new Quark hardware, including Taobao marketplace, travel booking platform for air tickets, and payment services conducted through Alipay. The company has also collaborated with its neighbor in Hangzhou, NetEase Inc., as well as Tencent Holdings Ltd. in Shenzhen, to offer their music services - NetEase Cloud Music and QQ Music.