CES 2025: Rokid has been turning out connected glasses for gaming and media for a while — but in Las Vegas I got chance to try its new fully AR specs.
Among the scores of AR smart glasses at CES 2025, most brands seem to be neck and neck in terms of their AR experiences. There are huge, chunky reference designs, such as the Vuzix Ultralite Pro, that offer a vision of what AR could look like.
And then there’s the plethora of (mostly) good-looking glasses from brands like Halliday, Rokid, RayNeo, Open Realities, and many others we tested. All of these brands are trying to recreate the wearability of Ray-Ban Meta, which has ignited the smart glasses industry—but with an AR element.
Different approaches are being taken to achieve this, whether through waveguides etched onto glass or by projecting directly into the eye. However, most have delivered a similarly basic experience: green text overlaid onto the world, reminiscent of The Matrix.
The Rokid glasses are perhaps the best example we’ve seen of this kind of design.
They use the Snapdragon AR1 to power a visual experience, feature open-ear speakers, and weigh just 49g. They also include a 12MP camera capable of capturing video and still images, activated via a button on the stem.
The user interface is well-designed, with a generous field of view (FOV) and large, easily readable text. The swipe controls on the stem were far superior to those of the RayNeo glasses we tested, making them intuitive and user-friendly.
In China, the Rokid glasses can also handle payments, which is a neat addition.
Most of these early-stage smart glasses have focused on the same core features: live translation, turn-by-turn navigation, and notifications, all powered by an AI assistant. We were treated to a live translation demo at the Rokid stand and were impressed by the low latency.
During the demo, a representative spoke to me in Chinese, and the translation was displayed quickly on the screen—taking just a couple of seconds. While the accuracy wasn’t perfect, the noisy environment of the LVCC Central Hall likely played a role, so we can cut it some slack.
The display overlaid the real world but automatically turned off after about five seconds, ensuring it didn’t interfere with conversations.
You could also take pictures and videos using a button on the stem, much like the Ray-Ban Meta. However, the AR element in the Rokid glasses helped frame the shot, addressing one of the challenges of photography with the Ray-Bans.
Wareable says
While not a million miles apart from other smart glasses we tested, Rokid’s easy-to-use interface and solid, locally performed translation set it apart from other demos. It could benefit from being slimmer and closer in style to a true pair of Ray-Bans, but it represents solid progress toward a consumer AR future.
