There's a Ray-Ban Meta rival coming and it could be better on your pocket

The ever-improving Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses have been well received, and they're being updated with AI features to make them even smarter – but at £299 they're quite pricey for spectacles, no matter how smart.

However, there could soon be a rival that'll drive the price down.

Xiaomi clearly sees an opportunity. It's reportedly working on its own smart glasses and, given the brand's track record in other sectors, they're likely to be more affordable than Meta's.

The report comes from the Chinese site 36Kr, which says that Xiaomi has Meta's smart specs firmly in its sights. Its AI-powered glasses will "fully benchmark against Meta Ray-Ban", it claims. This sounds like they'll match or exceed the specification of Meta's product.

What to expect from Xiaomi's smart glasses

The smart glasses are understood to come with Xiaomi AI, which resembles Apple Intelligence and has similar privacy pledges. Xiaomi promises that its AI never uses dodgy sources or user data for training, and that AI happens locally on your device rather than in the cloud.

With smart glasses, the hosting device is more likely to be your phone than your peepers, as the processing power AI demands is likely far beyond that of a wearable. Certainly in Apple's case, Apple Intelligence officially requires an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 16.

Where Xiaomi tends to do very well is in bringing high specifications to devices with relatively low price tags. There are exceptions – the Xiaomi 14 Ultra phone, which we recently reviewed, has a high price to match its high spec – but if the company really wants to take on Meta then aggressive pricing is likely to be a key factor.

We should find out soon enough. The report also says that the smart glasses will arrive in the second quarter of 2025, most likely during April's Mi Fan Festival.

However, we don't yet know if the launch will be China-only or if Xiaomi is considering a wider release.