The consumer electronics battle of the "post-smart era" has begun! Zuckerberg ignites the AI smart glasses revolution and declares war on the iPhone ecosystem.

Technology industry veteran journalist Tim Higgins from The Wall Street Journal recently wrote that Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg are doubling down on the future of "edge AI" beyond smartphones. They plan to integrate advanced AI models with smart wearable devices and strive to challenge Apple Inc.'s dominant position in the wide consumer electronics field, including iPhones and wearable devices, in the "post-smart era". According to market reports, Meta is set to release its first AI smart glasses with high-definition electronic screens by the end of this year. This product is seen as a key step for Meta to challenge Apple's ecosystem dominance in the smart consumer electronics market. Focusing on edge AI, these "thousand-dollar" AI smart glasses, which combine gesture controls and a single-eye screen, aim to become the best carrier of the revolutionary technology of artificial intelligence and directly compete with Apple Inc.'s consumer electronics ecosystem. Undoubtedly, the screen-equipped smart glasses will be another milestone for Meta towards truly "augmented reality (AR) + AI" smart glasses. The company previewed related technology internally last year. Hypernova 2, scheduled for release by Zuckerberg in 2027, will overlap with Meta's true "AR + AI" model of smart glasses development. The latter requires overlaying interactive images, videos, and information in the real world, with technical requirements far exceeding those of Hypernova's simple viewfinder high-definition display and much higher development costs. The new description of the "post-smart era" mainly highlights the trend that as the growth rate of smart phone demand continues to slow down, and the penetration rate of new wearable consumer electronics devices carrying large AI models continues to increase, the world is gradually reaching the peak of smart phone demand. At the same time, various smart consumer electronics devices carrying large AI models are rising in a "battle era". The pricing of the "Hypernova" smart glasses device is expected to exceed $1000, with the highest possibly reaching $1300 to $1400. Insiders suggest that the final price may only be determined close to the release date. Meta's most popular AI smart glasses, Ray-Ban Meta, have a starting price of $299, and their market performance has exceeded expectations. Meta stated that they will continue to sell this entry-level smart glasses product in the future and hope to use its popularity to drive users toward more high-end product models. In a recent market manifesto, Zuckerberg outlined his concept of "personal super intelligence". This concept includes an AI smart glasses that can "see, hear, and deeply interact with users around the clock", potentially completely replacing smart phones as the main entry point to the AI-based digital world. The American tech giant has long been trying to use Meta's smart consumer electronics products to replace the iPhone ecosystem, but has repeatedly failed. Now, he believes that Apple Inc. is significantly "falling behind" in edge AI, and thus is increasing investment, offering huge salaries to attract top global AI talents. Meta's AI smart glasses currently need to be used in conjunction with mainstream smart phones such as the iPhone from Apple Inc., but Meta's future AI smart glasses product line models are expected to have built-in displays and fully feature AI assistants and other breakthrough AI functions based on Meta's exclusive large AI models. Apple Inc.'s AI strategy has been repeatedly questioned. Last year, Apple Inc. released edge AI features, but progress has been significantly slower than expected, and the completion of embedding the most advanced AI models in Siri's all-around voice version may not be until the end of 2026. Additionally, the loss of several top executives in the AI model development and deployment field, including Pang Ruoming, has raised concerns about Apple's AI strategy. Other tech leaders are also vying for new prioritized smart devices embedded with large AI models. Cloud computing and e-commerce giant Amazon.com, Inc. is planning to acquire the wearable startup Bee, while OpenAI's leader Sam Altman is collaborating with former Apple Inc. designer Johnny Ive to develop an as-yet-unreleased AI-powered consumer electronic device. They believe that this edge AI device could challenge Apple Inc.'s leadership in the consumer electronics field. Meanwhile, Apple Inc.'s CEO Tim Cook is defending the enduring strong influence of the iPhone, stating that even with complementary smart electronic devices, the iPhone will remain at the core of people's lives. However, with the rapid development of AI large models exceeding market expectations, Zuckerberg sees a significant opportunity to completely redefine the rules of personal computing product lines with AI, hoping to define this new era of consumer electronics on his own terms according to Higgins' tech industry column on Sunday. Smart glasses may be the best end-side carrier of artificial intelligence technology According to the market research firm Counterpoint Research's "Global Smart Glasses Shipments Tracking Report", global smart glasses shipments are expected to increase by 210% in 2024 compared to the previous year, driven mainly by the strong demand for Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. Therefore, Counterpoint Research's data shows that the global smart glasses market has surpassed 2 million units for the first time, achieving unprecedented growth rates. In the latest report released by the world's largest eyewear manufacturer EssilorLuxottica SA last week, sales of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, in collaboration with Meta, doubled compared to the previous year. This success helped the company achieve total sales of 14.02 billion (approximately $16.25 billion) in the first half of 2025, representing a nearly 10% year-on-year increase. Francesco Milleri, CEO of EssilorLuxottica, and Paul du Saillant, Deputy CEO, stated in a joint statement: "We are leading the transformation of glasses as the next generation computing platform, where artificial intelligence, sensor technology, and rich healthcare infrastructure will merge, empowering humanity and unleashing our full potential. The success of Ray-Ban Meta, the launch of Oakley Meta Performance AI glasses, and the positive response to Nuance Audio are all important milestones we have achieved in this new field." According to Counterpoint's definition, Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are the first AI smart glasses on the market. They are equipped with integrated NPUs, advanced cameras, and audio components. These technologies enable core intelligent functions such as photo/video capture and audio playback, while supporting a wide range of applications through device-side AI algorithms, edge AI based on smart phones and other consumer electronics, and Llama AI large models. Following the release of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, there has been a surge in demand for smart glasses worldwide. According to Counterpoint's "Global Smart Glasses Shipments Tracking Report", global smart glasses shipments increased by 156% in 2023 compared to the previous year, and by 210% in 2024. Meta held over 60% of the market share in 2024. With the rapid development of edge computing, 5G networks, and artificial intelligence technology, edge consumer electronics devices are increasingly capable of processing real-time data and seamlessly interacting with cloud AI large models. This allows smart glasses to not only collect real-time environmental data (such as vision, sound, and location information) but also engage in real-time generated AI functions through local preliminary processing interacting with cloud AI large models, such as voice interaction, real-time translation, augmented reality navigation, and context information overlay. Counterpoint predicts that with the success of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, an unprecedented wave of AI smart glasses is emerging, with reference design products from supply chain companies and commercial products from eyewear brands emerging after the end of 2024. The institution expects that as leading smartphone companies globally release their first AI smart glasses in 2025, and more smart consumer electronics companies may enter the market in 2025 and 2026, the global smart glasses market will achieve a 60% year-on-year growth in 2025 and maintain a compound annual growth rate of over 60% from 2025 to 2029.