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You're listening to Roundtable, I'm Yoon Hong-Ling, joined by Steve and Yoo Shun. Walking down the street and seeing real-time translations, navigation hints or even your to-do list floating in front of your eyes, smart glasses are making that futuristic dream a reality. And with major players like Apple, Huawei, Xiaomi, pumping into the race, this is no longer a niche gadget. It's a billion-dollar industry on the rise. So, what's fueling this revolution? And why should you care? After that, Mondays can sometimes feel overwhelming, but they also hold endless possibilities. That's why Roundtable's Motivisional Mondays segment is here for you. Let's share a moment of inspiration to remind you that you are capable, strong, and ready to take on the week ahead. Before that, when I was a kid, wearing glasses was somehow considered nerdy. Now, young kids are wearing smart glasses, and it seemed super cool. Come to think of it, if my glasses could talk, translate, navigate, and even capture my memories for me, it's basically changing how I interact with the world. These years, with better AI, sleeker designs, and real-world applications, smart glasses are gaining new momentum. How good are they, and will they ever be essential as smart films? So, tell me what smart glasses look like nowadays. So, first of all, how do they look like? A lot better than they used to. Thank you! And also, is it better or not? They look just like a pair of glasses or sunglasses. So, basically that's how they look like, and what was the experience of using these kind of AI-powered, smart glasses? They have, for example, real-time translation right now, instantly convert your spoken languages into subtitles visible in your lenses. I saw a lot of videos, no matter if Chinese people go to a foreign country or just foreigners visiting a Chinese restaurant, they're using that kind of glasses and talk directly to the clerk. Yeah, they can communicate directly with that. Yeah, something that you were saying, and they can translate everything through the glasses, you can see the subtitle. When we say real-time, we're talking about real-time in, like, I can communicate with someone who's taking my order, or I can invite someone with a language I do not understand on Roundtable without worrying about dead air. Right. Both. Both. Wow, that's cool. Live navigation, that's a function as well. You can get GPS directions overlaid into your vision while walking or driving. I don't think driving, don't do that while you're driving. No! Seem like a good idea. The speech-to-text functionality exists as well. That's good for presentations or meetings or note-taking or things like that, office-related things. And you've got your entertainment stuff, voice-activated search to augmented reality applications or AR applications. And then some of them even have health monitoring systems as well, like biometric sensors for tracking your physical activity or your eye health or something. Of course, that is definitely a perk of a lot of people who are taking care of their health conditions these days. So I know on the market, there are a lot of different types of glasses that are not only helping my eyesight, but also other aspects of my life. There are the AR glasses, the VR glasses, now smart glasses. How are they different from each other? Yeah, when you're putting your eyes so close to that goggles or screens, I'm not sure that it's better for your eyes or bad for your eyes. But anyway, there are differences between these VR AR glasses or goggles and smart glasses. The VR ones are called headsets generally, aren't they? Yes, generally. So these has sets, basically you're wearing these has sets and they're designed to either fully immerse you in a kind of virtual world. That's called virtual reality. That's why it's in the virtual world and blend some of the digital elements into the real world. That's called augmented reality, putting some digital aspect or elements into your real world. Basically, you're seeing through the goggle your real world, but there are small gadgets. Like the GPS function that overlays on top of what you're seeing with your own eyes in the real world. The VR headsets tend to be quite clunky, quite big, and quite heavy as well. It's creating an entire world for me, so I kind of understand it. It's just one of the major differences between the glasses and the headsets. And also the portability, right? The glasses, you can tuck into a sunglasses case and put them in your pocket in your coat. Whereas the headsets, well, they're a little bit bigger and bulkier, so the packaging is a little bit tough if you want to carry them around. It's not impossible by any stretch. There's a size difference there. Also, for most of them, you may need a controller to actually operate in the system with that headset. But with the smart glasses, these kind of glasses typically don't allow for much interaction. Their functions are more specialized, such as you can use them to listen to music, or just take photos or videos, or just display translations like we've mentioned. But not like a whole operating system. You can actually do everything in that interface. My feeling is that the function or the kind of results that can be provided by these smart glasses are basically provided by our phones already, by our smartphones, and maybe in some cases some smart headset or earbuds. Because if you want to translate, you can have an application on your phone, such as those. So why are we having the talk of smart glasses now? What are they doing? Or what are they bringing to us? Well, it's not new, right? I mean, Google introduced Google Glass back in 2012. Do you remember when that came out? Yeah, that was huge. But basically, right after that, people realized that, oh, this is quite, I would say, useless. Primitive. Well, listen, no, I was reading a story about why did Google Glass fail? Because it did. It's generally agreed that it failed to gain widespread adoption. And one of the quotes was, they solved a problem that didn't exist. It just wasn't something that people were willing to adopt at the time. And it was thought of by tech experts and industry watchers to be a revolutionary new device that was going to change the way that human beings and technology interacted. But the main criticism of what the tech writers seem to say about Google Glass is that it was released before it was ready. Early users complained about short battery life and slow upload times. And the camera quality apparently was not very good. I've never used them myself. The voice control was not perfect. Voice recognition was not perfect. Apparently, the system often misheard words and was unable to pick up commands if there was some loud background noise. So essentially, it was a smart pair of glasses, but the physical design of the early ones, the early editions were not that smart, according to the critics. But still, thank you, Google Glass, for giving us a prototype, basically. But now we're looking at a lot of other brands and other products, both in China and in other countries as well, that are creating or solving the problems that we do need to have them solved. Yeah. And that's, you know, you're right, because even though the critics are quite harsh when they talk about Google Glass, that was kind of the, they were paving the way for what we see now. Meta, for example, which is formerly Facebook, right? They put a lot of money into AR and VR, and they launched the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses. These are pretty cool, I must say. They integrate AI assistance. They've sold over a million units. That's from The Verge. And I watched a video about these particular glasses, because I've always thought, I don't need these, right? To go back to that quote again, solving a problem that doesn't exist. So when I started to watch the review of these glasses, I thought, I'm not going to like this. That's what I assumed, right? And I watched the guy review it for about 11 minutes. And then I read the comments, really a lot of positive comments. People were saying, yeah, I own these. They're fantastic, actually. They're a game changer. And he said, you know what? They're better than I thought they were going to be. They record. So you put them on. They just look like a regular pair of sunglasses. They don't look like anything different from that. And then you hit record, and it records what you see. You can press a button to take a snapshot as well. It's got speakers on the side. He did have some complaints about them as well. But overall, the review was generally pretty good. Yeah, a lot of Chinese smart glasses companies or like Chinese tech giants or manufacturers are also rapidly entering this kind of area. For example, Huawei, Xiaomi, they all launched their versions of smart glasses trying to get, I would say, kind of a trial or taste in this area. They're not that popular, but at least they are having that kind of product line saying that this is probably one of the trends that in tech industries, AR companies like Rokid and Xreal are expanding their product lines, emphasizing spatial computing and AR integration. Speaking of spatial computing, we heard that basically from Apple's Vision Pro headset, that kind of thing. And it is, of course, bringing people new ideas of how we can actually utilize and maybe operate in the future with the whole operating system that is different from our smartphone. But right now, we have more options and of course, lighter ones that maybe we can change the way that we use all of these functions and features. Oh, definitely. One of the criticisms about the Ray-Bam Eddows is that that's not a product that's made by a smartphone maker, right? So the operating system, the interaction with the operating system on your phone isn't as seamless as you would want it to be. But we'll see that change in the future. And Huawei's iWear2, I think they operate on the Harmony system, right? So that solves that problem immediately. That was just one comment about the other product. Yes. And actually, the market is being very excited about this new industry or new product as well. Actually, market research firm like IDC, that's International Data Corporation, and CounterPoint report rapid growth in China's AR smart glasses market with a 150% increase in shipment in 2023 and then expected over 100% growth in 2024. And also, we see that the global sales of smart glasses reached almost 3 million pairs in 2024. And in 2025, the market expected to explode with sales projected to increase more than fourfold and the smart size anticipated to reach nearly 100 billion yuan. So Yuxuan, are you getting one? Let's see the price then, because actually, some of these... They're not bad. Yeah, some smart glasses can be quite expensive. Also, I am short-sighted. I mean, I need to wear glasses on a daily basis, which means maybe that's quite not that convenient for me to wear a separate sunglasses like that meta-rapin glasses, right? Yeah, but you can get... I don't know about every model, but you can get a prescription prescription lenses put in. Yes, I'm pretty sure that can be arranged. Yeah, and the price is not so bad. Hundreds of dollars, yes. But I mean, a regular pair of designer sunglasses can also cost you hundreds of dollars too. What's really funny is one comment I read is, yeah, these are really great products. These are really amazing. However, if you're a person who loses your sunglasses all the time, you might want to think about this because it's a pretty significant investment. Yes, that is a funny comment. But come to think of it, the reason... Well, I am actually quite into high-tech stuff as well. I love to buy them, but I decided to... Or I have... I don't know, after today's discussion, will this change my mind? But I've decided to wait for a bit because I believe the new technology currently is developing so fast. I'm waiting for the next IT glasses, the next groundbreaking one. I think it will happen in, I don't know, one or two years. Because currently, I still have some problems with these glasses. For example, the battery, let's say we have to charge it quite frequently and the battery life is not good enough. Yeah, maybe just a few hours, right? Yes, and also I was thinking about maybe I can wait for a pair of glasses that is easier for me to interact with because now it's not very interactive. It's more of a working on its own but helping you with your life kind of mode. So what are some other features that you look forward to? Well, fixing some of the problems. And I don't know if we can call them problems. Again, this is amazing technology, right? It's incredible. But human beings are so picky, aren't we? We love to complain about stuff. It depends on the product, right? But they can be a little bit on the heavy side, which of course they are. They have a camera, they have speakers in them, some of them. And on the sides, the arms, I guess you call that the arms of the sunglasses. If you wear them for a few hours, you'll feel that weight and your ears might get a little bit sore, but that's if you're wearing them all day. But that being said, people do sometimes wear their sunglasses all day if you're out at the lake or whatever at the park for the whole day or at the beach. But the point is that they will not allow you to wear them all day because of their battery life. We're fixing problems. Because, of course, we're saying that the sunglasses or the smart glasses are just like your regular glasses, which means that kind of lightweight design and long battery life are often difficult to achieve together. And that the need for compact and energy dense batteries is critical to support prolonged use without like adding bulk. Yeah. But one of the things, the major issues that I think they fixed already is design. In my opinion, from an aesthetic point of view, one of the problems before is that it was very obvious that you were wearing some sort of technology. I thought it was intentional. Well, maybe at the time, that's what people wanted. And I don't have results from surveys or anything like that. But it's just my personal feeling that people don't necessarily want that. They like that they can wear sunglasses and they look like sunglasses and nobody really knows that you're wearing anything else. Yeah. So I think the design problem has been fixed already as well. And I'm sure they'll get even better and better. Yeah. I was also thinking, you know, because you were saying like consumers may have to have the kind of awareness of, okay, do I really need that pair of smart glasses? The thing I was thinking was a real time responsiveness and processing speed of these smart glasses. These smart glasses do offer many convenient features, like we said before. But are they truly convenient enough to make people give up reaching for their smartphones and using their well-developed mobile apps, like translators and everything like that? I believe this is not only a challenge for manufacturers to overcome, but also a matter of users' awareness and habit formation. Adopting a new technology and being willing to pay for it is a major hurdle for any new product line, because this is basically changing the way that you use your smart gadgets. I'm saying that it's possible that maybe if it's developed well enough, it can replace our smartphone, but it's still a long way to go. The review I watched, the guy made the comment. He said, I've actually spent the day paying attention to how many times I picked up my phone. And he said, it's a lot less when I wear these glasses. Oh, yes. We're staring at our phone all the time. Now we're creating another gadget. That is even more attractive and even more seamless. And it's making it easier for us. And this is just my personal opinion. Human beings, we always are looking for things to make our lives even easier. That's the human element of laziness, in my opinion. That's why we invented the remote control to the television, so we wouldn't have to stand up and walk across the room. These glasses will now limit our interaction to a certain degree with our smartphones. We can just reach up to our top of our head and press a button. You can interact with whatever music player you want. You can listen through your sunglasses as well with the speakers. I think the timing is right now and people are ready for this. And those statistics you gave before seem to point in that direction. I probably would get a pair really soon as well, but I'm not really sure. One, I have the choice of talking with both of you and also checking my text messages on my glasses that you won't even notice whether or not I'll do that and whether or not it'll be a good thing for me personally. But still, quite a fun product. You're listening to Roundtable, coming up next to Motivational Monday. Don't go away. It is Motivational Monday. Monday again. And you know what that means, it's time to shake off the weekend, reset your mindset, and step into the new week with confidence. So welcome to Motivational Monday, where we elevate and motivate. Are you ready to motivate, Yuxuan? Of course. Okay, so my Motivational Monday might have something to do or some connection to the first topic. It's an article, but it's an article about water. It's about a person who's faucet in their rental apartment broke. So here's the story. It was in his own place. He didn't want to bother fixing it because after all, it didn't really belong to him. Because he broke into the house? Whose house is this? He rented a house. Sorry, I missed that. Important detail. Yeah, so he kept using the shower head to collect water and use everything. This went on until one day, the shower had like splashed water all over him, feels frustrated. He finally decided to buy a new faucet. And in just 10 minutes, the problem was solved. And looking back, he realized that all the discomfort he had endured was completely unnecessary. So sometimes we are too good at enduring an inconvenience in our lives. There are problems that aren't hard to solve, things that we wouldn't take much effort to make life better, yet we often choose to deal with them with a temporary mindset. Telling ourselves, I'll just take care of it when the time is right, or this is a temporary inconvenience, I can take it. And just like that, small tasks that could be done in minutes get postponed for weeks, or months, or even years. And in the short term, this kind of mindset lowers our quality of life, we say, in the long run. It breathes procrastination and also making our lives just more miserable than we could expect. Yeah, and it's of our own doing. Yes, unnecessary. Yes, there's a saying that resonates with me, your house may be rented, but your life isn't. We may not be able to solve all of life's big challenges right away, but within our ability, we can start from fixing small inconveniences, stop settling for less. And not only will this instantly improve the quality of our life, but it will also free us from unnecessary worries and allowing us to focus our energy where it truly matters. So that is my Motivational Monday. Take action now so you can truly enjoy the present. That is a beautiful Motivational Monday. It's a good one, and it's kind of related to what I think about all the time. Yeah, those annoying little things that we just have to do, but we tend to put off. I always say, don't think about it, just do it. Don't think about it, because thinking about it, you're giving yourself the opportunity to procrastinate. But if you just don't think about it, just do it and then get it out of the way, then you don't have to think about it anymore. Yes, and Yuxuan's example was that you can endure the kind of uncomfortness, but actually in life, like Steve said, for example, you're already very tired because of your old day of work in your home and do not want to wash your face, you do not want to brush your teeth, you want to postpone it to the very last minute. Guess what? It gets much worse at, I don't know, 11.30 when you really need to go to bed. It really gets worse. And I think it also has something to do with my Motivational Monday today, because mine is related to how our brain is wired. And before talking about mine, actually, our brain do not like multiple tasks, even though we say we can multitasking, we can do a lot of things together, we can think about them. Our brain hates it. So if you're constantly thinking about the small things that are bothering you, actually it also is lowering your ability to think, to focusing, actually focusing on the things that matter. So yes, listen to Yuxuan and let his quote motivate you to have a better week. And the reason, well, the reason I mentioned brain is because my Motivational Monday is from a book called The Idiot Brain, What Your Head is Really Up To. This is actually a really fun book that I am reading these days. It's published in 2016. And the book dives into the quirks, flaws and surprising strengths of our most complex work in our brain. And the author is actually a neuroscientist. His name is Burnett. He combines scientific research with witty anecdotes to explain why the brain behaves the way it does, often in ways that seems counterintuitive or sometimes downright baffling. And the reason I'm enjoying this book is because the writing is also quite interesting. So if you're interested, you can go take a read. And Burnett approaches the brain, not as a perfectly designed machine, but as a messy, imperfect system that evolved to prioritize survival over precision, which is why sometimes we feel like we're very emotional. We feel like we're not making the rational decisions. We feel like it is impossible for me to stand in a stage where everybody's looking at me and I'm giving a speech that is impossible. And then you feel like how come that's impossible? It's not a big deal. Why am I so afraid of that? That is because your brain is designed to make sure that you're not in the center of the spotlight. You're not being very obvious in the woods. So the predators would find you easier. So that's how our brain is designed. And the book talks about the flawed nature of our memory, emotions versus rationality, the role of stress and anxiety in social brains and loneliness, all these things. Yet the quote I picked or that impressed me in this book is about our relationships with people around us. I think it's very fascinating because the book says that we care what other people think of us at a neurological level and will go to great lengths to make them like us. And for a developing brain, the main source of information, information is other people. And the truth is, odd as it seems, much of the human brain is dedicated to and formed by interactions with other people. And we grow to depend on people as a result to a surprising extent. And that is why all of us, by design, can be a people pleaser at some level. Yeah, at some level. And some people, it's at a dangerous level, isn't it? Yes. I don't know if you've heard of that movie, Jim Carrey movie called Yes Man, I think, where he had made a decision. He was just going to say yes to everything that people suggested to him for a period of time. Because he thought, oh, I need to make that a part of my life. But doing it too much can be a little bit hazardous, I think. Yes. And for a really long period of time, I identify myself as a people pleaser. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. Everybody is to a certain degree. Rather than share my Motivational Monday, I'd like to comment on that book that you're reading. I think about the human brain all the time. It's really fascinating. And I always say that your brain can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Oh, yes. Depending on the day. And I was thinking, as you were talking, we act the way we do, we say the things we do, why, why? But if we start analyzing our behavior, what are we using to analyze our behavior? The same brain. Yes. It's like it's conducting a study, an ice cream company says, ice cream is good for your health. Well, you can't trust it because it's from an ice cream company. Just like your brain, you may not be able to trust it sometimes. I think about that kind of stuff all the time. But still, studying it a little bit would still help us understand ourselves a little more. Sure, sure. Yes. And you're listening to Roundtable. Thank you so much for spending this time with us. I'm Yuhan Lin with Steve and you should thank you again. We'll see you next time.