Smartglasses are moving from an emerging niche toward a new generation of AI-powered devices. As cameras, voice assistants, and AI capabilities become integrated into everyday eyewear, the question is no longer whether smartglasses can offer new experiences, but whether they could eventually become a meaningful alternative to the smartphone.

This question was at the heart of our webinar in collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and Counterpoint Research. Bringing together perspectives on market growth, product development, imaging, and AI performance, the session explored where the smartglasses category stands today and what will shape its evolution in the years ahead.

The market is growing rapidly, but the technology is still evolving. Camera quality, video performance, AI capabilities, and the way devices process information all play an increasingly important role in defining the user experience.

A Market Moving from Niche to Mainstream

The smartglasses market has experienced significant growth following the launch of the first-generation Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses in 2023. According to Counterpoint Research, the overall market is expected to reach an estimated CAGR of 75% between 2025 and 2028. AI glasses, integrating AI-capable processors, voice interaction, visual AI assistance, and connectivity, are the key driver of this growth, representing 86% of the smartglasses market in Q1 2026.

Meta currently leads the global market with an 84% market share in Q1 2026. However, regional ecosystems are evolving differently, with local players and OEMs gaining traction in markets such as India and China.

The next stage of growth could come from AR + AI glasses, combining augmented-reality displays with AI-driven features to support social and life-assistance scenarios. While the category remains niche, it is projected to grow at a 115% CAGR between 2025 and 2028, with China currently leading the market.

Benchmarking the Smartglasses Experience

As smartglasses become more capable, evaluating their performance requires more than simply looking at technical specifications. Their compact, hands-free form factor introduces new imaging challenges and new use cases, from photography and POV videos to AI-powered experiences.

DXOMARK has closely followed the evolution of imaging over the past 20 years, from digital cameras to smartphones, and is now expanding into smartglasses. With this new form factor and its emerging use cases, new evaluation needs arise. An objective, repeatable benchmarking framework will be essential to understand their true performance, giving both manufacturers and consumers a reliable basis for evaluating and benchmarking these emerging devices.

Rather than immediately introducing a public ranking, DXOMARK has chosen to take a progressive approach, allowing its methodology to evolve alongside the rapid development of the smartglasses market. The benchmark is based on typical consumer usages and applies DXOMARK’s traditional methodology of blending lab measurements with evaluations of real-life scenes.

The benchmark includes the following smartglasses models Rayneo X3 Pro, Ray-Ban Meta Display, Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2, INMO Air 3, HTC Vive Eagle, Rokid AI Glasses, and Quark AI Glasses S1.

To assess the maturity of smartglasses imaging, two complementary devices were selected as reference points. The Apple iPhone 13 front camera provides a relevant benchmark for gauging how current smartglasses compare with a previous generation camera. The DJI Osmo Pocket 3 offers a second reference, as compact action cameras are functionally closer to smartglasses use cases than smartphones.

Photo Performance: Outdoor Quality Is Maturing

Key takeaways:

  • Outdoor image quality has reached a relatively mature level, with most smart glasses delivering accurate exposure and acceptable color rendering in simple lighting conditions (standard dynamic range, outdoor)
  • HDR and lowlight are the two biggest unsolved challenges, where performance significatively drops. Issues were visible particularly in terms of detail preservation, noise management, and exposure
  • Quark AI Glasses achieve the strongest overall photo performance, combining robust exposure, wide dynamic range and solid low-light capabilities across a broad range of use cases. Ray-Ban Meta Display is closely following behind
  • Among smartglasses, no device consistently leads on all image quality dimensions Significant tradeoffs are applied (for example preserving highlights and subject exposure, overall detail and noise tradeoff)

Video Performance: The Next Challenge for Smartglasses

Key takeaways:

  • Video quality remains less mature than photo quality, with larger performance gaps between products and more visible limitations across challenging lighting and motion scenarios
  • Dynamic range and HDR processing are becoming key differentiators, with Ray-Ban Meta Display standing out as the only device supporting HDR video output, although HDR implementation is still immature
  • Stabilization and dynamic artifacts are becoming as important as traditional image-quality metrics, with ghosting, flickering, blocking, flare often more noticeable to users than noise or color inaccuracies
  • Low-light video remains the most challenging use case, as most devices sacrifice exposure and details to keep noise under control, while often exhibiting noticeable color casts and reduced color accuracy

AI Performance: The Image Pipeline Matters

DXOMARK’s AI benchmark looks beyond the relevance of the final answer, evaluating the complete user experience through metrics including accuracy, latency, and hallucination rates. The results also show that the quality of the image reaching the AI model can be just as important as the model itself.

Key takeaways:

  • The key differentiator is the image-processing pipeline, performance differences appear to come from how each device captures and preprocesses images before sending them to the AI model, rather than from the AI model itself.
  • User experience depends on both accuracy and speed, a highly accurate AI response has limited value if it takes too long to generate.

Qualcomm Technologies: An innovative tour of the smartglasses AI ecosystem

Sahil Bansal highlighted that AI models will increasingly be hybrid, dynamically balancing between on-device and cloud processing depending on the nature of the query and the computing power it requires.

Personal AI use cases in smartglasses are rapidly emerging, spanning both consumer and enterprise applications: from agentic assistance, health and fitness, social interaction, and entertainment, to productivity, professional medical support, remote assistance, and education.

The evolving product configurations shaping this ecosystem were also explored. Beyond the established glasses-to-cloud and glasses-to-phone/PC/car models, a third configuration is emerging: glasses to a dedicated puck with greater onboard computing capability.

Today, many technology companies are investing in personal AI, and the industry’s growth potential is significant. As a leading force in personal AI and smartglasses, Qualcomm Technologies works closely with the broader ecosystem, having already helped enable a wide range of AI glasses alongside new form factors such as AI hearables and other wearable AI devices. Qualcomm Technologies’ ambition is to keep supporting this ecosystem end-to-end: from foundational building-block technologies and System-on-a-Chip (SOCs) to advanced perception and algorithm solutions.

The session also covered key considerations for smartglasses camera design, alongside the introduction of Qualcomm Technologies’ newly launched Snapdragon® Scalable Turnkey AI-Ready Toolkit (START), a solution comprised of silicon, software, and white-label products designed to help partners bring new smart glasses and use cases to market faster.

Explore the Smartglasses Benchmark in More Detail

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