Chinese Smart Glasses Come With a 50-Megapixel Camera

Alibaba unveiled a new pair of smart glasses this week, with more impressive specs than Meta’s.

For starters, the Qen Glasses N1, which are not available outside of China, come with a 50-megapixel camera, exceeding the resolution found on the latest Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3 glasses, which have a 12-megapixel camera.

Gizmodo reports that the glasses come with head-turning battery life: 25 hours while on standby and nine hours of music playback. Meta Ray-Ban glasses will reportedly play music for roughly six hours.

The Pro edition of the Qen Glasses N1 also comes with new eye-tracking features. A tiny 1.7mm camera will look at what the user is looking at to better answer queries. The feature is in the official presentation video below.

That same minuscule camera pointing at the wearer’s eye can also be used for biometric authentication. In China, virtually everything is paid for by QR code on Alipay, which is integrated into the glasses. So it appears that the user can confirm a payment simply by looking at a QR code.

There are a lot of features. And in addition to all of the above, plus the onboard AI assistant, there’s also a health feature in there, which works via a sensor on the nose bridge that tracks temperature.

The Qen Glasses N1 start at 2,999 yuan ($450), meaning they’re not any cheaper than Meta’s offerings. Bloomberg notes that it shows Alibaba is looking to compete on quality rather than price.

As Gizmodo notes, it is impossible to know whether all of the features work, but there is nothing comparable on the U.S. market.

Bloomberg reports that Alibaba positions itself as China’s full-stack AI provider, offering everything from data center infrastructure and software to consumer-facing products.

Speaking of Meta smart glasses, the Facebook company has now released a pair that doesn’t have a camera, following a growing backlash over privacy concerns.

The new audio-only glasses are getting good reviews, being praised for how light they are and for the fact that testers feel less creepy while wearing them.

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Image creditsAlibaba