Recently, at its Jungle 2024 event, Rokid partnered with Chinese eyewear leader BOLON to debut lightweight designer smart glasses in a bid to entice more early device adopters as smart glasses slowly become a trending technology.
The move seems to directly correlate with the recent success of the Meta Ray Ban smart glasses, which, in its Q3 earning calls, EssilorLuxottica reported that 60% of EU Ray-Ban stores mark the smart glasses as best-sellers.
The Rokid BOLON smart glasses arrive on Rokid’s 10th anniversary, and the firm appears to aim to retain its long-standing commitment to AR smart glasses with the BOLON partnership just as XR devices with reduced firm factor take off.
Like the Meta Ray-Ban product, the Rokid BOLON partnership aims to combine AR visualisation technology with traditional eyewear frame designs to introduce low-form factor immersive products more efficiently into everyday tasks.
Rokid has not yet debuted the product. However, by working with BOLON, Rokid is able to leverage its brand’s prominent reputation, therefore aiming to introduce the emerging AR technology market to more users via an accessible and ‘fashionable’ product.
The Rokid/BOLON partnership also aims to leverage the emerging AI space to continue driving its AR mission. According to Rokid, the BOLON partnership will “redefine” technologies that merge AR and AI; others like Meta are also taking this route by combining light AR visualisation technologies, lightweight form factors, and AI to enable emerging consumer and enterprise use cases.
Rokid’s Legacy of Smart Glasses Success
Earlier this year, Rokid saw great success and feedback when it launched a Kickstarter campaign for its Rokid AR Lite smart glasses.
The Rokid AR Lite device weighs just 75 grams, and the company emphasizes that its compact aluminium alloy frame closely resembles traditional eyewear, which can facilitate broader adoption.
The device features a 5000mAh battery and dual Type-C ports, supporting 18W fast charging. Additionally, the Rokid Station 2 solution ensures user success during long periods of use, whether for extended workflows or entertainment streaming.
The AR Lite product includes several design features to enhance usability during prolonged use. These features comprise intelligent interpupillary distance adjustment for optimal visual clarity and comfort, non-destructive diopter adjustment for nearsighted users, ultra-light air nose pads that reduce pressure on the nose bridge by approximately 30%, and an ergonomic design that improves comfort during extended wear.
Furthermore, the AR Lite suite introduces innovative human-machine interaction by eliminating physical buttons on the Rokid Station 2 in favour of touch controls that respond to single, double, and triple finger gestures. This change allows for seamless interaction with three-dimensional content, complemented by the precision of a spatial ray pointer.
Rokid is introducing various quality-of-life software improvements designed for immersive workflows to better align with new and emerging productivity use cases. These improvements include a Multi-Screen Mode that can display a virtual desktop screen of up to 300 digital inches, a Motion Mode that ensures picture stabilization during travel, Spatial Screen Casting for extending multi-platform content display, and enhanced connectivity to keep workers connected.
