China Economic Net reporter? Chen Jialan? Wuhan report
On August 18, iSpace Technology’s third AI glasses product, loomos?L1, was launched. It has been a full 20 months since the first-generation product, the “Papai Mirror A1” AI glasses, was forced to shut down and offer refunds due to quality issues. Unlike most products in the industry that focus on functions such as taking photos and displaying content, loomos?L1 pins its selling points on “everyday wear.” With the entire unit weighing just 43 grams, it emphasizes long-term AI memory rather than imaging, attempting to sidestep the fiercely defended track favored by major players, and to find a breakthrough path for domestically made AI glasses from the gaps in everyday optical eyewear. The product is expected to achieve large-scale deliveries by the end of 2026.
FlashGe Technology was established in 2019 and is registered in Shenzhen. It is a charging and energy-storage company. As growth in the charging and energy-storage sector gradually hits a bottleneck and market competition becomes increasingly fierce, FlashGe has started to shift its attention to the emerging AI eyewear field. To date, FlashGe has released three AI glasses models. In addition to the “Papai Mirror A1” AI glasses and the Loomos?L1 AI glasses, FlashGe also launched the display-equipped AI glasses Loomos?S1 at the end of 2025, which is expected to go on sale in the third quarter of 2026.
However, a reporter with (China Business Daily) noted that, in the brutal reality of Meta crushing the market with an 85% share and the industry’s return rate surpassing 50%, whether this Loomos?L1 product—positioned as “near-daily wear”—can truly open up the market and provide a breakthrough path for domestically made AI glasses remains to be seen.
The cold reality behind the “Hundred-Mirror Competition”
In 2025, the industry calls it the first year of the “Hundred-Mirror Competition” for AI glasses. According to Omdia data, global shipments of AI glasses in 2025 reached 8.7 million units. Among them, Meta holds an overwhelming 85.2% market share, with shipments of 7.4 million units. By contrast, in the Chinese market, the total annual shipments of AI glasses from all brands are fewer than one million units.
Even more worth paying attention to is the persistently high return rate.
“Online channels are the main sales battleground for AI glasses in China. However, the industry’s online return rates generally exceed 50%, and some channels are as high as 80%.” Zhang Bo, founder of FlashGe Technology, believes that the consistently high return rate reflects, on the one hand, users’ dissatisfaction with the current product experience. On the other hand, it also shows that the category has not yet completed a closed-loop commercialization model, and the product has not reached the maturity needed for large-scale sales.
So, even though there is a global hit sample like Meta?Ray-Ban, why hasn’t the domestic industry replicated products at a comparable scale?
In Zhang Bo’s view, previously the industry generally had the practice of following hit products and copying them, and many companies set the ultimate goal of AI glasses as replacing smartphones.
But in Zhang Bo’s view: “From a longer time horizon, AI glasses might have the potential to replace smartphones. However, put into the next one or two years, that goal isn’t realistic.”
“A breakthrough approach aimed at daily wear”
In Zhang Bo’s view, Meta?Ray-Ban has achieved global shipments in the tens of millions in the form of sunglasses. But most AI glasses that Chinese users need are optical glasses for myopia, hyperopia, or astigmatism. Therefore, in the short term, the more realistic positioning for AI glasses is to replace ordinary glasses worn daily by the general public.
For this reason, Zhang Bo’s idea is: “To break the stalemate, we need to make AI glasses using the approach used to build everyday optical glasses.”
Based on this judgment, FlashGe anchors its AI eyewear product positioning on ordinary everyday optical glasses. The product uses an aviation-grade titanium alloy front frame paired with a natural acetate fiber board. The complete unit is lightest at 43 grams; the perceived weight of the front frame is only 19 grams, reducing the pressure on the bridge of the nose by 50% compared with mainstream AI glasses. FlashGe moves core hardware such as the battery and mainboard entirely into the temples, shifting the weight and center of gravity toward the back of the ears. In terms of battery life, Loomos?L1 uses a 5-second ultra-fast hot-swap battery architecture. A single battery has a capacity of 258mAh, and the multi-functional portable charging dock can provide 3 to 4 recharges.
On the AI capability side, Loomos?L1 is equipped with FlashGe’s self-developed LoomOS active AI memory system, which differs from the industry’s common passive wake-up approach. With user authorization as the premise, the product can automatically record, transcribe, and summarize conversation information from daily life to generate AI diary entries. It also deeply integrates into Feishu’s workplace ecosystem and, in the first batch, connects to Tencent WorkBuddy?AI assistant.
FlashGe Loomos?L1 didn’t take the traditional path of “stacking parameters and chasing photo quality.” Instead, it chose a differentiated direction of “long-term wear + active AI memory,” serving the goal of “16 hours of wear.”
It is worth noting that, from the perspective of the industry chain, most AI glasses currently use Qualcomm platforms. The big-model vendors provide standardized capabilities, the supply chain is highly mature, and reference designs converge—leading to homogenization.
In an interview with a reporter, Zhang Bo frankly admitted that although the solutions purchased by everyone do converge, FlashGe is also trying to find its own differentiation. FlashGe chooses to solve the problem of “being satisfied with how you wear it,” with a focus on long-term AI memory rather than optimizing photo-taking effects. The Loomos?L1 complete unit weighs just 43 grams at most; the front frame is only 19 grams. It uses a composite structure of titanium alloy and acetate fiber board, targeting “16 hours of daily wear.”
“Loomos?L1 doesn’t follow the industry mainstream in adopting the AR1, but instead uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon W5100 chip as the main processor, with lower power consumption. The W5100 uses TSMC’s 4nm process like the AR1. But in standby and recording scenarios, W5100’s power consumption is more than 30% lower, meaning that with the same battery capacity, it can support longer working time.” Zhang Bo said this trade-off also reflects a clear understanding for startups when facing giants: it’s unlikely to achieve breakthroughs in upstream core technologies such as chips. Rather than clashing head-on with giants on their main battlefield, it’s better to make reductions in functional positioning.
If it doesn’t partner with offline optical channel distributors, why open stores on its own?
From the channel perspective, against the backdrop of the “Hundred-Mirror Competition,” AI eyewear manufacturers typically collaborate with professional vision-optical channels such as Doctor Glasses and Biaodao Glasses to complete fitting and delivery. This is the lightest and most efficient approach. Most AI eyewear companies—such as Raybird Innovation, XREAL, Huawei, and Rokid—have adopted this strategy.
But FlashGe chose a completely different path. It is understood that FlashGe will open its own offline flagship stores to provide fitting services and a try-on experience. Its first directly operated store is scheduled to open in August in Wuhan’s Vientiane City.
Zhang Bo told a reporter that when FlashGe first negotiated with optical brands such as Essilor and Zeiss, it found that: “The authorization price for online brands is much higher than the price we can get through traditional channels like Biaodao and Doctor Glasses. Without a physical store, we might even not be able to obtain official authorization.” Therefore, FlashGe chose to open its own stores to secure better lens procurement costs and full fitting and delivery service capabilities.
It is understood that the Loomos?L1 product’s price range is 2,699 to 2,999 yuan. The version bundled with Essilor “Dianjing” 1.67 optical lenses is priced at 2,699 yuan, while the version bundled with Zeiss “Zeeruiplatinum” 1.67 lenses is priced at 2,999 yuan. The product is expected to achieve large-scale deliveries by the end of 2026.
From its initial pricing of 999 yuan to its current price starting at 2,699 yuan, FlashGe’s pricing strategy has undergone a significant shift. When talking about pricing, Zhang Bo said the team previously expected a price of 2,999 yuan. “Since we’re opening stores, don’t make a profit of those 300 yuan—let the price be more compelling.”
And this pricing also means FlashGe will face direct competition from traditional optical eyewear brands. In the 2,699–2,999 yuan price range, consumers can get mid-to-high-end Zeiss or Essilor optical lens frames from professional channels such as Biaodao Glasses or Doctor Glasses. Meanwhile, FlashGe needs to persuade users to pay extra for an “AI memory feature.” Features such as automatic recording, transcription, and AI-generated diary entries based on summarized conversations have not yet been validated by the market in terms of their day-to-day frequency and necessity for ordinary myopia users.
But Zhang Bo seems confident about this. He told a reporter: “Actually, we don’t hope to sell too many, because each one is manually processed and capacity is limited. We hope the first batch of users will be satisfied after receiving the products, and that word of mouth will ferment over time.” He also revealed that Loomos?L1 is sold in limited quantities and “won’t be sold wide open.”
It is worth noting that FlashGe will not completely give up traditional eyewear channels. Zhang Bo said that going forward it will continue to cooperate with eyewear chains such as Biaodao and LOHO (Lohuo). Direct operation is the first-stage strategy with heavy investment.
From being purely online to expanding offline, FlashGe is betting on “daily wear.” Its new start chooses a direction that is completely different from the mainstream path. In the AI glasses arena crowded by giants and flooded with new releases, whether this differentiated route can cross the “impulse-to-try” phase depends not only on the completion of product delivery, but also on the company’s endurance to fight on three fronts at the same time: offline operations, ramping up production capacity, and user education—still a test for time.
(Editor: Wu Qing?Review: Li Zhenghao?Proofread: Yan Jingning)