Rokid Releases Full-Color AI Glasses Rokid Color, Misa Says Losing If It Can't Reach Ten Million Units

On October 27, after the debut of Rokid Color, the company's first full-color AI glasses, Rokid founder and CEO Misa threw out this line.

Compared with existing full-color attempts on the market, Rokid Color is not telling a new story; the difference is that it retains complete functionality such as a camera and speakers within a 55-gram body, without cutting configuration to reduce weight. Before this, Meta made a monocular version weighing 68 grams, and RayNeo made the binocular X3 Pro, but it weighed 76 grams.

Coincidentally, on the same day, RayNeo officially announced its fourth-generation binocular full-color AI glasses, the RayNeo iO+, and INMO Tech also issued a teaser for a spatial smart glasses launch event themed "More Than Full Color."

The competition in full-color glasses has suddenly become a head-on contest among leading players. Why do Rokid and the entire industry insist on going full color? And why now? 01 "Humans are greedy for color"

The starting point for full color is users' dissatisfaction with the monochrome green experience.

At the launch event, Misa mentioned that a user had once said they "didn't want to see all-green stocks anymore." "Even if there are no new features, just because it goes from monochrome to color, it's a must-have." He also said, "People's greed for visuals is very strong; it's a dopamine-like feeling."

More fundamentally, a single monochrome screen alone cannot support a content ecosystem.

For functions such as translation, teleprompting, and navigation, a single green screen is already sufficient. Misa also acknowledged that among Micro-LED, green light technology is the most mature, while blue and red light pose potential risks to the eyes, so in monochrome solutions, green became the only option that balances safety and cost.

But if a content ecosystem including social networking, entertainment, and more is to be built, full color becomes a necessary condition rather than an added bonus.

It is reported that Rokid Color was initiated in November 2024. Last year, Misa said he hoped to make full-color glasses weighing under 45 grams and supporting 720P movie viewing while controlling price and battery life.

A year later, through a customized 0.16cc Micro-LED full-color optical engine in cooperation with JBD, Rokid Color's weight finally came in at 55 grams. There is still a gap from 45 grams, which also shows that bringing full-color displays into a daily-wear form still involves engineering trade-offs.

The key to truly making full color a reality lies in the supply chain.

Several investors who have long followed the smart glasses industry have analyzed to Leifeng.com·Jingxi that glasses manufacturers' differentiation capabilities are largely constrained by the upstream supply chain.

In the monochrome green era, the entire industry was stuck at the red-light and blue-light barrier, especially red light, which has still not truly been solved. Full-color solutions essentially require combining red, green, and blue light; combining light is difficult, yields are relatively low, and costs are relatively high. For this reason, some products in the industry previously used dual-color solutions as a transition; those wanting full color could only make helmet-style bulky devices, and to make something at the semiconductor chip level, only green light was possible. However, once JBD launches a full-color solution, the entire industry can make full color; monochrome green is only a transition, and the real war has not yet begun.

The aforementioned person said that the endgame of the glasses industry will definitely be full-color displays. By then, information including images and videos can be better identified and understood, and glasses will move one step closer to becoming the digital platform entry point people envision. At the same time, with the explosion of new full-color display products, "next year the industry will be very lively."

This also explains why full-color glasses are appearing densely at the same time. On the day Rokid released Color, photos surfaced of RayNeo spokesperson Jiang Qiming wearing RayNeo's not-yet-launched fourth-generation binocular full-color AI glasses, the RayNeo iO+, and INMO will also hold a "More Than Full Color" spatial smart glasses launch event next month. Overnight, full color went from a "selling point" to a "ticket to entry," becoming standard equipment for the leading camp. 02 After color, the hard problems have only just begun

But whether full color can become a competitive advantage in the next stage will ultimately depend on the actual experience.

Whether everyone needs full color is a question worth asking.

An investor told Leifeng.com·Jingxi that most people certainly need full color, but some tech geeks belong to the retro camp; especially in Europe, many people still use Nokia phones, they prefer monochrome green displays, and they may not accept full color.

Whether users accept full color is only the first test in this controversy; even if they do, the real difficulties are still ahead.

First is display quality. One of the core problems currently facing full-color glasses is color cast; the actual display effect of some products still has a clear gap from true colors. In addition, the yield, cost, and mass-production capability of full-color optical modules also directly affect whether products can be scaled up.

Second is the visual area. Another industry insider mentioned that today's users have long been spoiled by high-definition phone screens, while glasses clarity only reaches the level of ordinary TVs, and the field of view is limited, so they may not be able to support applications such as video. More importantly, the industry has not yet formed a mature answer on how large and in what form colored information should appear in the field of view.

If the display area is too large, it may block the real environment; if too small, it will limit information presentation. How to balance image display with see-through effects of the real world, and how the eyes focus between virtual images and the real environment, are also issues that need to be solved.

Wearing comfort is the third hurdle. Full-color display requires balancing brightness, power consumption, heat dissipation, and size: insufficient brightness affects outdoor use, increased power consumption squeezes battery life, and a heavy frame may reduce everyday wearing comfort. The eye fatigue caused by color, as well as the conflict with real-world light, are also unresolved problems.

The most critical issue is the use cases. The translation, photo-taking, navigation, and other functions frequently mentioned for glasses can also be done on a phone. Glasses still need to prove which tasks are more natural and efficient to complete while wearing glasses than by taking out a phone.

On this issue, Rokid Vice President and co-founder Gary also admitted that the teleprompter is a native application, but not a killer app. For the "killer native app" that has not yet appeared, Misa's standard is, "Everyone will find that this thing cannot be done on a phone and can only be used on glasses, and it is high-frequency, highly sticky, and useful to most users."

Entertainment may be one direction. "This is the short-video era, and short videos are actually very suitable for glasses. The screen does not need to be that large, you do not have to keep looking down, and there is no pressure on your cervical spine." But Misa also admitted that there are still shortcomings: watching videos places enormous demands on battery life and still requires use with a capsule battery.

Therefore, full color is not the end point, but pushes the problem to the next stage: how to reduce costs, expand the field of view, improve resolution, and optimize power consumption while controlling the weight of the entire device. Misa calls reducing the device weight to within 45 grams the "iPhone 4 moment" for full-color glasses. He believes that reducing it by another 10 grams would basically allow it to rival most smart terminals.

Beyond product experience, market size also needs to be verified. According to the timetable given by Misa, next year Rokid will reach million-level shipments, the year after that several million, and the year after that tens of millions will definitely arrive. "If we cannot do it, someone else will. It will not be later than 2030 at the latest."

From 55 grams to 45 grams, from million-level to tens-of-millions-level, this is a race about speed, and also a test of whether the product can hold up. In the final analysis, full color is only the first half of this race. The second half may have to wait for a more ordinary moment: for just one thing, habitually putting down the phone and putting on the glasses. Only then will glasses truly pass their own iPhone 4 moment.

Leiphone.com · Jingxi will continue to follow developments in full-color display glasses. You are welcome to add the author on WeChat at frenchfries0016 to communicate.