Nobody asked for this…

The world is obsessed with face computers, and I for one am not impressed. Why? Because after a grueling Black Friday at the mall with my family of four… I decided it would be a great idea to check out the new Meta glasses. And not surprisingly, they were absolute trash. (Spoiler: The Best Buy salesman and I spent 20 minutes trying to get the glasses to notice my hand movements… with literally zero success.) Time = wasted.

(Source: Giphy) 

Which is why when I see Alibaba throwing its hat into the “computers on your face” sweepstakes, it’s about as exciting as watching paint dry. In short, Alibaba is releasing their Quark S1 smart glasses:  translucent displays, cameras tucked in the frame, bone-conduction audio, swappable batteries, and… because AI, duh… we have Qwen AI baked straight into the heart of the hardware. As for the pitch, it's to take the entire Alibaba ecosystem, compress it into eyewear, and hope consumers don’t mind being a walking Taobao pop-up. Point at an item in the real world and the glasses will quietly tell you the price on Taobao. Ask it questions and it’ll pull from the new Qwen app. Need travel, payments… it’s already wired in. Meaning, yes they are smart glasses, but it's more of an Alibaba storefront strapped to your face.

(Source: Bloomberg) 

And of course they’re releasing two versions. The S1 with micro-OLED displays for ¥3,799, and the G1 for ¥1,899 if you’re fine with no display and just want the assistant layer. Both hit Tmall, JD, Douyin, and a few hundred physical stores across China. International rollout hits next year for anyone feeling brave. Naturally, this really isn’t surprising of Alibaba considering they’ve been on a full AI reset since Qwen started pulling big download numbers, and the smart-glasses market in China is actually large enough to justify the experiment. IDC pegs shipments at ~1.6M units in the last year, with Xiaomi eating a third of it and startups filling the rest. Throw Meta’s  lackluster Ray-Bans into the mix and suddenly every major tech company is convinced glasses are the next consumer beachhead.

To their credit, Alibaba did what they always do: wire the hardware directly into their ecosystem and call it a day. The glasses talk to Taobao, Fliggy, Alipay, NetEase Cloud Music, QQ Music… basically anything in the Hangzhou–Shenzhen orbit. They’re even building a wearables line around this Quark brand so they can slot into whatever “post-smartphone” narrative everyone’s pushing now. Does it matter? Maybe. The AI-glasses market is still small but doubling year over year, and China tends to adopt these categories faster than anyone else. In fact, by 2026, the forecast is 10M+ units shipped. Alibaba wants a piece of that curve before Meta, Xiaomi, and Xreal carve it up. 

(Source: Giphy) 

So yeah… add another set of AI-infused glasses to the pile of sh*t. But hey, Alibaba is in the game now, and the market is moving whether anyone’s ready for it or not. Meaning, keep your eyes on this story and place your bets accordingly. Until next time, friends…

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News holds positions in Meta as mentioned in the article.