At the WWDC conference in June this year, Apple released the head-mounted display product Vision Pro. Apple CEO Cook described it:
The era of spatial computing has begun.
The AR industry was once very popular, but due to some technical flaws it has weakened its voice, and the entire industry is moving forward with ups and downs. It must be admitted that this time Apple released Vision Pro, which once again focused the public's attention on the AR industry.
However, Vision Pro’s ultra-high price of US$3,499 has also kept most ordinary consumers out of the door. It can be expected that Vision Pro’s sales will not be at the same level as the iPhone.
In the consumer electronics industry, in order for consumers to accept a new product, it is usually necessary to lower the consumption threshold and cultivate the habit of frequent use. This goal is easier to achieve with affordable prices and lightweight products.
Looking at China, there is an AR glasses brand that performs more eye-catchingly in terms of sales.
IDC data shows that China will ship 1.206 million AR/VR headsets in 2022. Among them, XREAL’s total sales volume was 98,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 717%, ranking first in the global AR glasses industry in 2022.
Recently, XREAL has released a new product, XREAL Air 2 glasses, with an initial price of 2,499 yuan, which is expected to set off another sales boom.
Compared with Apple, XREAL is obviously a young brand. Why can it make a big splash in the AR industry? Why can we continue to launch new products to meet market demand?
Behind the pain points: two routes of differentiation
In 2012, Google launched Google Glass, which is known as the pioneer of "consumer AR glasses".
However, due to the immaturity of the technology at the time, the experience of this product was not good. Many consumers complain that the product is bulky and makes them feel dizzy when using it. In the end, Google Glass was not widely accepted by the market.
In 2014, Facebook acquired Oculus VR for US$2 billion, detonating the entire VR industry chain. Technology giants such as Sony also entered the game. That year was also called the "Year of VR."
Although capital continues to enter the market, as a product that needs to be worn for a long time, the lightweight and comfort of AR equipment have never been well solved, and the consumer experience has not been significantly improved.
From the past to the present, the industry has gradually differentiated into two product lines as it moves forward:
Do addition and subtraction.
The product line of adding products will move towards a heavier form similar to Vision Pro. Apple's idea of making Vision Pro is to use a stacking method, pile all the good modules into it, and then see how the result is, which has also greatly pushed up its selling price.
The subtraction product route will be closer to XREAL, which means hardware choices are made from the user's perspective.
Take headphones as an analogy. At first, handheld headphones were very bulky, and later evolved into hanging headphones, head-mounted wired headphones, and now the most widely used wireless Bluetooth headphones. This is a process from complexity to lightness.
In the industry, unlike bulky helmet designs, XREAL was the first to make AR equipment into the form of glasses, launching the world's first full-featured AR glasses in the form of glasses, XREAL X. This also follows the logic of subtraction, making the product lightweight and hands-free from the beginning.
As a leading technology company, Apple naturally has the confidence and strength to “make additions”. But for many other AR companies that are still in the early stages of development, there are still certain risks in blindly "adding".
On the one hand, because the entire domestic AR industry is still in the first half and the supply chain is still immature, AR glasses that rely on supply chain technology have various shortcomings and are failing. It's not like the mobile phone industry has entered the second half, the supply chain is already very mature. A brand can rely on the supply chain to produce a mobile phone, and it can still pass the test.
On the other hand, Apple's approach to product development has always been not from the perspective of ordinary consumers, but to create demand in its own way. Vision Pro is actually not a product for ordinary consumers, it is essentially a development machine.
"Yidian Finance" believes that the two product routes of "addition" and "subtraction" are not better or worse, they just meet different needs in the market, and the two routes will coexist for a long time. As it develops now, the mainstream products of earphones have become lightweight wireless earphones, but you can still see large earphones.
However, judging from the absolute quantity, lightweight products must be more universal, suitable for the public, and more acceptable to ordinary consumers. XREAL's leading sales volume can confirm this.
"New ideas" and "hard technologies" to solve pain points
Market demand is not static, but is constantly iterating on the road to development.
After a round of market popularity, consumers have put forward new demands for AR glasses. XREAL found that when users use AR glasses for a certain period of time, they will ask a series of questions: Can the images displayed by AR be richer and more realistic? Can more images be pinned to the AR space without moving with the head? Can you be more immersive when listening to music?
To put it bluntly, consumers have put forward new requirements when faced with various different scenarios. What they want is:
AR glasses for all-scenario, all-weather applications.
However, AR products on the market still have common problems such as color cast, distortion, dizziness, and insufficient details in dark areas, which makes it difficult to meet the new needs of all-scenario and all-weather applications.
Where there are pain points, there are opportunities. The pain points of consumers have forced AR brands to re-optimize their products from a scenario-based approach. Wu Sheng, founder of Scenario Lab, once said:
“The product solves a problem, and the scenario continues to solve the problem.”
The meaning of this sentence is that using scenario-based ideas to design products can understand various consumption details and trend changes to a greater extent, and meet consumer needs more accurately.
The new demands of the market are driving brands such as XREAL to carry out new product iterations. The XREAL Air 2 series released this time has been upgraded around the three core experience points of "display, ergonomics, and sound quality", effectively solving pain points.
For example, in response to the common problems of color cast and lack of dark details in AR glasses in the past, XREAL Air 2’s upgraded self-developed “Jinghong Ruiying” optical engine 3.0 can bring color accuracy to the level of professional monitors and richer dark details in the picture.
This ensures that every consumer has a consistent experience when adjusting the brightness at any level, and the picture quality they experience is more natural and delicate.
In addition, XREAL Air 2 Pro is the world’s first AR glasses to achieve mass production application of electrochromic technology. It supports three levels of adjustment:
The first "home mode" is suitable for home environments with moderate illumination and simple lighting;
The second "travel mode" is suitable for public places with high illumination or complex lighting, such as offices, cafes, airplanes, etc.;
Three levels of "outdoor mode" are suitable for daytime outdoor environments with very high illumination, and are compatible with all light environments.
In different scenarios, XREAL Air 2 Pro can provide suitable solutions.
In response to the "lightweight" that consumers attach great importance to, XREAL Air 2 has undergone 7 ergonomic optimization and upgrades to reduce the weight-bearing feeling on the bridge of the nose, make the pressure distribution more balanced, and improve the comfort of wearing. At the same time, it also introduces new materials to reduce the weight of the fuselage by 10% to 72g (excluding nose pads).
This also makes it the lightest and most comfortable viewing AR glasses in the industry.
In the movie "Infernal Affairs", many people are deeply impressed by the line "Sweet high notes, accurate midrange, and deep bass". This time, XREAL Air 2 is equipped with the new X-Spatial Sound 2.0 secret space sound field solution, which greatly improves the mid-low frequency performance and brings more immersive surround sound.
In fact, some AR brands also know clearly that they need to optimize their products based on users' scene needs. However, achieving this goal requires hard-core technology to support it. Some brands do not have technical strength, but XREAL has formed technical competitiveness through continuous research and development and long-term precipitation.
Only technology that can be certified by the industry and form a consensus can be considered outstanding. XREAL Air 2 has a color accuracy of ΔE 2000＜3 and has obtained TÜV Rheinland color accuracy certification. At the same time, XREAL Air 2 is also the world’s first XR device to obtain this certification.
In terms of eye comfort, XREAL Air 2 has also obtained three authoritative certifications from TUV Rheinland for eye comfort, low blue light and no stroboscopic.
In the consumer electronics industry, there is such a growth logic - opportunities attract talents, talents improve technology, technology optimizes products, and products create greater opportunities.
AR is such a huge opportunity, attracting the influx of many talents, and the core competitiveness of talent formation is technology, because technology can make consumers have a better product experience in their hands. If the product is excellent, consumer stickiness and reputation will increase, thus opening up new opportunities for the brand.
XREAL is embarking on such a growth trajectory.
Leading the future of “Internet of Everything”
Overall, AR terminal products mainly do three things:
Display, calculation, interaction.
This is also the key for future AR brands to lead the era of spatial computing.
What exactly is spatial computing? To put it figuratively speaking, the head-mounted display device will recognize the volume and characteristics of objects in the space, such as ceilings, floors, walls, sofas, tables and chairs, etc., and then create relevant interactions based on the size and orientation of the objects, which is equivalent to "in the real world" Covered with a "digital layer" to create a truly immersive sense of presence.
In addition, in the era of spatial computing, the entire interaction method of users is not limited to small screens, but interacts with real objects and people through language, vision, gestures, etc. in daily life.
This means that in the future era of spatial computing, consumers will need an AR spatial screen that connects everything, can be defined anytime, anywhere, and as they wish.
A brand that can gain favor from the market must be forward-looking. Facing the needs of the future spatial computing era, XREAL has begun to make plans.
During the launch of XREAL Air 2, the spatial computing terminal XREAL Beam, launched in June this year, also entered the testing phase for the pre-installed movie viewing APP function. At this stage, XREAL Beam will be pre-installed with two applications, BiliBili and iQiyi.
In terms of interaction logic, XREAL Beam will adopt the spatial interaction form of "flying squirrel in the air": XREAL Beam turns into a remote control and clicks through the remote control to achieve fast and efficient APP interface interaction. After this function is launched in the future, XREAL Beam can be combined with XREAL Air 2 to form a "complete movie-watching system". You can watch movies and TV shows at will without connecting to any smart device.
The XREAL Air 2 series, paired with XREAL Beam's AR spatial screen package, can break through the physical limitations of physical screens and bring a unified 3DoF spatial computing experience. It introduces three screen projection modes: hover, gimbal, and floating window. It also supports wireless and wired The two connection methods are compatible with almost all personal smart terminals including mobile phones, tablets, computers, and game consoles/hosts.
This means that it brings a more stable, freer, and more space-based screen projection experience that is suitable for more life scenes.
Looking further, the release of XREAL Air 2, in addition to solving pain points, actually creates two values:
On the one hand, it creates new growth points for XREAL and builds brand competitiveness.
The core principle of "Positioning Theory", the "First Law", states that companies must differentiate themselves from competition in the minds of customers and become the number one in a certain field, so as to lead business operations and win better development.
XREAL Air 2 has further deepened the perception of XREAL as "lightweight" and "technical" in consumers' minds, maintaining its competitiveness as "the number one in sales volume in the industry".
On the other hand, the release of XREAL Air 2 has also set a value example for the industry to learn from. It allows other companies to have more confidence in the "subtraction" route, thereby promoting the industry to open up greater development space.
In NBA games, if you want to win at a moment of rapid change, you need a "key force" to make a winning shot. This "key force" is usually driven by star players, such as Jordan, Kobe, etc. They are also called the "key men" of the team.
Shopping malls, such as stadiums, actually also need "key forces" and "key men" in the development process of industries and enterprises.
As the AR industry begins to burst out with new vitality, the XREAL Air 2 series products have undoubtedly become the "key force" in accelerating the comprehensive popularization of consumer-grade AR glasses, and XREAL has become the "key man" in forming this force.