Text: Observer.com, Lu Dong].
This year's XR track presents "** double heavens", some people are forced to retreat by the cold of VR, and some people are attracted by the heat of AR.
On November 30, Meizu Group released its own AR smart glasses brand MyVu in Wuhan, and also launched two new AR glasses - MyVU Discovery Edition priced at 9999 yuan and MyVU priced at 2499 yuan. This officially announced that Meizu had entered the AR track.
AR stands for Augmented Reality, which is the superposition of the virtual world with the physical worldVR refers to virtual reality, which creates a completely virtual digital world that shields the physical real world. In short, AR glasses can see the physical world, VR headsets can only see the virtual world, and AR+VR is collectively called XR.
When Meizu entered the game, the XR track was showing a trend of polarization.
According to Lotu technology data, in the third quarter of this year, the domestic VR online sales were 290,000 units, down 49 percent year-on-year8%；The sales amount is 10 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 481%；AR online sales were 230,000 units, a year-on-year increase of **593%；The sales amount is 0600 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of **205%；The ratio of the two types of products** to the monitored market has evolved from 80:20 in the same period last year to 56:44 this year.
Some industry insiders pointed out to the observer network that the core reason for the polarization of the VR and AR markets lies in the product level. On the one hand, the threshold for VR entry is low, but at present, consumer-level VR is niche, and the content resources supporting the advantages of 3D immersion are not rich enough, and the viewing function of VR is also realized on AR, which is more comfortable and portable to wear. On the other hand, AR can be used by users to match and use various devices, similar to the logic of mobile phones, and is more likely to be used on a large scale.
The scene of the Interstellar Meizu press conference Source: Observer.com.
The difference between the two tracks also affects the flow of industrial resources.
Since the beginning of this year, under the influence of factors such as the cooling of the metaverse, the VR track has continued to hear the sound of layoffs. First of all, at the beginning of the year, Tencent's XR business was exposed to the suspension of all operations;Subsequently, in August, iQiyi Qiyu VR operator Dream Bloom Company was rumored to have come to a standstill in business, and more than 100 people were owed wagesIn November, ByteDance's PICO confirmed a 23% layoff, involving more than 300 employees.
On the other side, the AR track is hot. According to data from Lotu Technology, in the second half of this year, a total of 15 brands in the global XR market have released 18 new products, including 14 AR products and only 4 VR productsConsumer electronics brands such as Skyworth, Lenovo, Nubia, and Meizu, as well as start-up brands such as Unknown and Singularity, have laid out the AR track.
A large number of players have entered the game, which has increased the ** degree of the AR track, but at the same time, it has also intensified the congestion of the track.
According to Lotu technology data, in the third quarter of this year, Xreal, Thunderbird Innovation, Inmo and Rokid ranked among the top four in the domestic AR online market, with a total share (CR4) of 949%, in the past three months, the four major brands have released new products, and the competition between the top brands is anxious.
From July to October 2023, a summary of new products in the global XR market Source: Lotu Technology.
Choosing to enter the game at this time, how competitive are the Meizu products?
Observer.com learned that Meizu has positioned its AR products as "all-weather fashion AR smart glasses". At the press conference, Shen Ziyu, chairman and CEO of Meizu, introduced that the MyVU Discovery Edition weighs only 71 grams, which is currently the world's lightest binocular full-color AR smart glassesWith a weight of 43 grams, MyVU is the world's lightest AR smart glasses.
In terms of optical solutions, compared with the more common Birdbath optical modules on the market, the MyVU Explorer and MyVU use resin diffractive light waveguide technology, which is regarded as thinner and more glass-like form, and the permeability is gradually improving.
According to data from Lotu Technology, in the third quarter of this year, Birdbath's penetration rate in the domestic AR online market reached 846%, down 78 percentage points, mainly due to the squeeze of the optical waveguide scheme. Cinno Research's report a month ago mentioned that diffractive optical waveguide technology tends to mature, and the end product has dropped to the thousand-yuan levelThere have also been major breakthroughs in array optical waveguide technology, and the latest two-dimensional pupil expansion array optical waveguide solutions have been launched.
In terms of display technology, the MyVU Discovery Edition is equipped with the world's smallest 04cc volume full-color light engine, each light engine is composed of three micro LED screens, this technology compresses the size, but also makes the colors fuller and brighter;Myvu is equipped with the world's smallest 03cc Micro LED pure color light engine with a peak brightness of 2000nit in the eye, which can be used in sunlight.
According to the Lotu Technology report, in the third quarter of this year, Micro OLED's share of the domestic AR online market reached 948%, up 25 percent year-on-year6 percentage points;The first solution provider is still dominated by Sony, and domestic companies such as BOE and Shiya have also made progressIn addition, the increase in the volume of new IMNO products drove the market share of Micro LED technology to 32%。
In terms of computing power, the Myvu Discovery Edition is equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon W5Gen1 with a 4nm process, and the MyVU chip has not been announced.
The scene of the Interstellar Meizu press conference Source: Observer.com.
At present, with the gradual maturity of technology and chain, the first AR products on the market are on a downward trend. According to Lotu technology data, in the third quarter of this year, the average ** on the domestic AR line was 2737 yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 243%。As a comparison, the price of Myvu Exploration Edition 9999 yuan is much higher than the average of the online market, and the 2499 yuan Myvu seems more affordable.
In the eyes of ordinary users, there seems to be little difference between the two AR glasses of Interstellar Meizu in terms of configuration, why is the price difference as high as 7500 yuan?
Shen Ziyu, chairman and CEO of Meizu, said that the only essential difference between the two products is the display: the MyVU Discovery Edition uses a full-color MiRLED display, while the MyVU has a monochrome green display. Because the full-color mircoled display is still in the stage of yield climbing, the cost is still relatively high, compared with monochrome, the cost of full-color display shows a geometric multiple increase.
Compared with hardware, the software ecology is also a major difficulty in the AR track. At the end of October this year, Xu Chi, founder and CEO of Xreal, admitted to the observer.com that the current AR market is particularly similar to the smartphone market of the year. Because the scale has not yet arrived, the native AR ecosystem is extremely scarce, and it is an era with no mature industrial chain, no hardware standards, and no software ecology.
In the absence of the native AR ecosystem, how to increase users' stickiness to AR has become an obvious problem. At present, the general solution idea in the industry is to transplant the existing ecology. For example, Meizu's FlyMe AR operating system can migrate high-frequency applications from mobile phones to glasses, and through FlyMe Link, the computing power of Meizu mobile phones can empower AR smart glasses.
In specific scenes, the myvu exploration version can be used to brush Douyin, navigation, speech inscriptions, real-time translation, etc., while the monochrome myvu lacks the function of brushing Douyin due to hardware limitationsIn addition, the two glasses are also connected to the large model of Interstellar Meizu's FlyMe AI, which is positioned as a personal voice assistantIn terms of usage, both glasses support ring interaction, glasses touchpad interaction, voice interaction and other interaction methods, after the user wears the ring, the operation can be completed through gestures and presses.
The scene of the Interstellar Meizu press conference Source: Observer.com.
Although there are many entrants and products are diverse, the current inflection point for AR popularization has obviously not yet arrived. At the end of October this year, Xu Chi, founder and CEO of Xreal, said in an interview with Observer.com that AR VR has not even reached the stage of iPhone1, "Before iPhone1 came out, everyone had not reached a consensus on commercialization, and it was an era of a hundred flowers blooming. ”
At this stage, the AR industry is very similar to AI, and the final volume will be close to or even surpass that of mobile phones, which is a huge opportunity, and the key is who runs fast to seize this opportunity. The current situation of the AR industry is that the upstream industry chain is seriously immature. To build a PC and mobile phone today, basically three or four line chain manufacturers can make equipment with more than 85 points, but frankly speaking, there is no ** chain of AR glasses that can complete this business, and it cannot reach a certain scale. He confessed.
According to iResearch's report in March this year, the AR market is currently accelerating the process of gradually developing to the C-end through the verification of the B-end market with high fault tolerance and low sensitivity, and the C-end market is gradually risingHowever, due to the immaturity of AR technology, the existing application scenarios on the C-side are not rigidly needed, and the alternatives are mature, it may face the problem of weak commercial monetization growth in the short term.
However, new entrants undoubtedly still have high hopes for the AR track, and even regard AR as an important part of the whole ecosystem. At the press conference, Shen Ziyu, chairman and CEO of Meizu, said that since its establishment, Meizu has established a business development curve of "mobile phone + XR + smart car", and the launch of a series of new products means that the company has entered the fast lane of development.
Looking forward to the prospects of the AR market, iResearch is "optimistic"** It is expected that by 2025, Internet companies, mobile phone manufacturers and other leading companies, including Apple, will successively launch new products to cut into the XR field to stimulate the positive promotion of the industryAround 2030, the AR industry may break through the existing technical bottlenecks, promote the maturity of the first chain, further reduce the unit price of terminal equipment, stimulate the purchase of C-end consumers, and finally complete the scale of the consumer market, and the shipment volume can reach 107.6 billion units.
This article is an exclusive manuscript of the Observer.com, and it is not allowed to be unauthorized and shall not be allowed.