Apple AR is absent again, and domestic consumer AR brands support industry confidence

At 1:00 a.m. Beijing time on September 8, Apple held its autumn press conference, known as the "Technology Spring Festival Gala". The content of the press conference was quite rich. In addition to the much-anticipated iPhone 14, the Apple Watch product line and the AirPods product line were also updated. However, it is regrettable that AR hardware was absent again. Since 2016, Apple's AR hardware has been "done" for six consecutive years.

Behind Apple's repeated delays in AR, has the "wind" of consumer-grade AR not really arrived yet? In fact, we don't have to focus our attention and expectations too much on a single company. Looking at the domestic market in the past two years, consumer-grade AR has great potential.

Using technology to shorten the distance, AR/VR enters the fast lane of development

According to VR TuoGyro data, the amount and number of financing and mergers and acquisitions in the global AR/VR industry have increased significantly compared with the same period in previous years. In the first half of 2022, the total amount of financing and mergers and acquisitions in the global related industries reached 31.26 billion yuan, an increase of 37% compared with the same period last year; the number of financing and mergers and acquisitions events was 172, an increase of 17% compared with 2021, showing that the capital market has strong confidence in the development of the AR/VR industry.

Looking at it separately, the VR market has officially entered its harvest period after a long period of user doubts. According to data from Weishen Information's "VR/AR Industry Shipment Tracking Report for the Second Quarter of 2022", global VR headset shipments in Q2 2022 reached 2.33 million units, a year-on-year increase of 31%.

The success of the popular head-mounted display devices has played a positive educational role in users and the market. Meta's Quest 2 device continues to sell well, with shipments reaching 1.82 million units in the regular off-season Q2, up 28% from the same period last year, accounting for 78% of the total sales of VR head-mounted display devices.

Quest 2 continues to sell well two years after its release. Meta has made the consumer market aware of the charm of VR technology with an entry-level device.

Quest 2 alone can influence the overall market performance of VR. As Meta recently announced that it will change its previous hardware subsidy sales policy and increase the price of Quest 2 by $100, it will affect the overall sales of VR devices to a certain extent. Weishen Information lowered its forecast for global VR shipments in 2022 from 16 million units at the beginning of the year to 13.75 million units.

The success of Quest 2 in the consumer market is mainly due to its affordable price, decent picture quality, and inside-out technology that gets rid of expensive and cumbersome positioning base stations, bringing more convenience and comfort to the VR experience.

However, in comparison, AR technology, which liberates visual senses and can provide interaction between virtual and real scenes, undoubtedly has a wider range of application scenarios and potential for exploration, and is closer to the holographic interaction method in science fiction films and TV shows. Meta CEO Zuckerberg once said that AR glasses will replace all digital products, and "each hardware will exist in the form of an AR glasses APP."

From toys to tools, AR technology is about to blossom on the C-end  

After AR technology becomes popular, users will find that what they need is not a TV or a smartphone, but just an interface to the Internet. Even in the future, when users can create a virtual screen in AR glasses, the so-called TV, mobile phone, car central control, and even clocks, thermometers, etc. will no longer need to exist physically.

However, it has to be admitted that compared to VR devices that have now found a certain balance in form and performance, the AR industry has been in the exploratory stage. Only when the positioning is clear and trade-offs and balances are achieved in display effects, positioning technology, volume, weight, battery life, heat generation, etc., can it truly take off in the consumer market.

Before this, AR glasses devices only had a market within developers and in a few commercial scenarios.

For this reason, Google Glass, which has been on the market for 10 years, has never been officially launched. It officially withdrew from the stage of history after its last update in 2020, getting up early but catching up late.

Microsoft, which entered the AR field strongly in 2015, also focused on the B-end. Hololens, known as the most powerful AR device, has performed well in highly vertical fields such as education, medicine, industry, and military, but is still far from the C-end.

Magic Leap, which once became popular on the Internet with a short video and was crazy about financing and burning money, did target the C-end. However, after "expecting to sell 100,000 units and actually selling 6,000 units", it also experienced layoffs, leadership changes and other turmoil, and gradually turned its attention to the B-end.

Meta, which has bet all its efforts on AR/VR, also recently announced the cancellation of the commercial release of its first consumer-grade AR glasses. The AR glasses code-named Project Nazare, originally planned to be released in 2024, will no longer be sold to the consumer market, but will only be sold to developers.

It is not difficult to see that in the current market, it is still very difficult to truly enter the consumer market for AR glasses. The industry situation is quite similar to that of VR headsets in the "first year of VR" six or seven years ago. At that time, VR headsets were bulky, complicated to install and debug, had inaccurate positioning, poor display effects, and lacked software and content, which was quite questionable in the C-end market.

But it cannot be denied that the consumer market is the final destination of AR glasses, and those that enter the market earlier and gain an industry position in terms of ecology and content will be able to gain an advantage in future competition in the AR field.

It is gratifying that the consumer-grade AR glasses market has continued to be active this year, and many new products launched by domestic manufacturers have taken a different approach, entering from multiple scenarios in the form of subtraction, which has been recognized by consumers and officially set off a trend of AR technology on the C-end.

From the capital perspective, the attention to the domestic AR/VR industry increased significantly in the first half of 2022, with the amount of financing and mergers and acquisitions reaching 6.19 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 67%, and the number of deals reaching 68, a year-on-year increase of 45%.

Against the backdrop of a sluggish traditional economy, the policy side has also given strong support to the metaverse, including the State Council issuing the "14th Five-Year Plan" for the development of the digital economy, Shandong Province releasing a number of policy measures to promote the high-quality development of the virtual reality industry, and the Jiangxi Provincial People's Government issuing the "Jiangxi Province's 14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Digital Economy", all of which have indirectly driven capital's attention and investment in this field.

Focusing on entertainment and audio-visual, consumer-grade AR glasses are becoming a trend

Specifically in the field of AR glasses, mobile phone manufacturers such as OPPO, Xiaomi, and Huawei have all launched smart glasses products. However, OPPO Air Glass uses a single lens and is priced relatively high at 4,999 yuan; the Xiaomi Smart Glasses Explorer Edition is a new concept product that uses MicroLED optical waveguide technology, but the monochrome single screen is relatively simple; the Mijia Glasses Camera is a pair of glasses that focuses on taking pictures. Its appearance is quite different from ordinary glasses, and it has fewer usage scenarios, which has been criticized by many netizens.

Last October, Thunderbird Innovations also released an AR glasses product - Thunderbird Smart Glasses Pioneer Edition, which is the industry's first binocular full-color MicroLED optical waveguide AR glasses. This binocular full-color AR glasses focuses on navigation, information prompts, real-time translation and other needs, and is the main direction of future consumer AR glasses, but mass production still needs time.

Judging from current technology, entertainment and audio and video is a relatively mature development track for AR glasses.

On the one hand, watching movies, watching short videos, playing games, and working are all high-frequency and long-duration applications on the C-end, and are expected to become rigid demand scenarios;

On the other hand, focusing on the display properties of AR glasses allows the product to make subtractions in positioning, performance, battery, etc., making the glasses closer to traditional glasses in appearance and weight, greatly improving wearing comfort;

Finally, by using the mature Birdbath technology, the cost of AR glasses can be effectively controlled. AR glasses priced below 3,000 yuan already have the ability to be popularized in the market and educate consumers.

Although it is several years later than VR and there is still a gap in sales, AR glasses that focus on entertainment and audio-visual now have the product strength of Quest 2 level in their application scenarios.

Data shows that in Q2 2022, global AR headset shipments reached 86,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 28%. The main increase came from consumer AR glasses from domestic AR new forces such as Thunderbird, Nreal, Rokid, and Yingmu. For example, Thunderbird Air, Nreal Air, Rokid Air, and Yingmu Air have all achieved thousands of units shipped. In addition, the hot sales of AR glasses equipment on the C-end will continue, and it is estimated that global AR glasses shipments will reach 360,000 units in 2022.

It is worth mentioning that relying on the correct choice of vertical track, the sales of AR glasses of the four brands of Thunderbird Innovation, Nreal, Rokid and Yingmu currently account for 80% to 90% of the entire consumer market.

From the perspective of insight into user needs and product design concepts, the four brands have achieved the same goal in subtraction, achieving an excellent balance between hardware, cost and experience, and making it possible to watch movies, play games and work anytime and anywhere through AR glasses. In terms of active expansion of scenarios, Thunderbird Innovation and Nreal have also reached cooperation with Ideal Auto and NIO respectively to provide cinema-level giant screen audio and video and gaming experience for travel scenarios.

Consumers have also given a positive response to AR glasses, a trendy technology product.

Yingmu revealed on its official account that during the 618 period, Yingmu Air products ranked top 3 in category transactions on JD.com; and ranked top 1 in the XR device best-selling list and top 3 in the XR device purchase list on Tmall.

During the 618 shopping festival this year, Thunderbird Air won the first place in JD.com's 618 peak 28-hour smart life brand sales, smart life store sales, and AR glasses category in the peak day competition. According to JD.com Jingmai platform data, from February to July 2022, Thunderbird Smart Glasses flagship store sales ranked first in the AR category, and Thunderbird Air single product sales ranked first in the AR industry.

Currently, Thunderbird Air smart glasses rank first in JD.com's "AR glasses" category search comprehensive list, with more than 2,000 reviews and a 99% favorable rating, leading the industry.

Conclusion  

From cinemas to televisions, from PCs to smartphones, a century of change will eventually be overturned by AR technology. AR glasses are not only expected to end the output ports of all hardware and devices in real life, but also represent the first time that humans can personally enter a higher-dimensional virtual world - the metaverse.

Looking back to 2007, the concept of mobile phones was cut off by the "iPhone", which not only subverted the mobile phone products in terms of form, but also completely rewrote the way the Internet is played in terms of ecology. So the question is, looking back from the future to 2022, will Thunderbird Air, Nreal Air, Rokid Air, and Yingmu Air usher in the first year of AR glasses in the consumer market? Only time can give us the answer. But what we know is that they have indeed brought confidence to the industry.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.