On October 13, Alibaba's Qwen unveiled three wearables at once: the N1 and N1 Pro AI glasses, and an AI earclip headset built with Bose. All three went on sale the same day through Taobao, Tmall, JD.com and Douyin, with stock on hand and no reservation period.
After national subsidies and limited-time discounts, the standard N1 bundle starts at RMB 2,218, the standard N1 Pro bundle at RMB 2,600, and the headset at RMB 1,099. According to the price list compiled by ITHome, the standard bundles for the two glasses cost RMB 2,899 and RMB 3,399 before subsidies, and each "extra-long battery bundle" costs roughly RMB 400 more. Outlets have reported different list prices, so check the e-commerce pages for the current figures.
How the two glasses differ
Both models share the same foundation: a three-chip heterogeneous computing platform and a 50-megapixel sensor, with support for 4K video, live photos and multi-stage stabilization. The battery sits in the temple arm and can be pulled out and swapped at any time. The Pro supports hot-swapping, so the device stays on during a battery change. Quoted battery life for mixed use is about 9 hours on the N1 and about 8 hours on the N1 Pro.
The N1 Pro adds three things:
- Eye-tracking interaction, which lets wearers select and confirm items with their eyes;
- Iris-verified payment, which the company describes as financial-grade;
- All-day health monitoring, covering heart rate, blood oxygen and skin temperature, paired with AI health readouts and a mood-care feature.
Qwen calls the N1 Pro the first AI glasses in the industry to monitor vital signs in real time. That "first" is the company's own claim, and no third party has checked whether glasses with comparable sensors have shipped before.
The N1 drops eye tracking, iris verification and health monitoring and is positioned as a first-person recording device. It keeps the imaging, proactive sensing and swappable battery.
Both put "proactive sensing" front and center: automatic meeting notes, travel reminders, plus translation and an AI notepad. The company's framing is that AI should move from waiting for commands to serving the user proactively. The headset focuses on multilingual translation, real-time transcription and task delegation. Some reports say it was tuned by Bose and covers 89 languages for translation.
How it stacks up against rivals
Set against this year's AI glasses, Qwen's lineup stands out in two ways.
The first is payment and identity. Most AI glasses at home and abroad lean on photography, voice assistants and translation. Building iris verification into the glasses and using it directly for payment is uncommon. Alibaba owns Alipay, a link that rivals would find hard to copy. The launch materials do not say where the iris data is stored, whether matching happens on the device or in the cloud, or who is liable if something goes wrong.
The second is battery swapping. A removable temple battery is a different trade-off between weight and runtime: the cell does not have to be large, because carrying a spare extends the day. The cost is that users must carry extra batteries. No report gives a specific weight, so whether the glasses press on the nose after a full day of wear will only be clear once the official spec page is updated.
On price, the subsidized RMB 2,218 starting point puts the N1 in the mainstream band for AI glasses in China. Features such as eye tracking, iris scanning and health monitoring have mostly appeared in pricier headsets or watches; this time they have been packed into a pair of glasses.
A cooling market
The market backdrop is not exactly lively. IDC counted 611,000 units of smart glasses shipped in China in the second quarter of 2026, down 8.0% year over year, the first decline the market has recorded. A report from Founder Securities argues that AI glasses are moving from product validation toward volume, while the consumer side is still at the introduction stage. The 21st Century Business Herald concluded that makers are competing fiercely on looks, image quality and specs, and that a breakout product has yet to appear.
Song Gang, vice president of Alibaba Group's Qwen business unit, said at the launch:
"Qwen's goal is to become everyone's Personal Agent. We see AI wearables as Qwen's extension into the physical world, and an important part of the Personal Agent."
That line suggests Qwen sees glasses and headsets as another entry point beyond the app. Whether that entry point holds depends on how much the Qwen inside the glasses can actually get done. The descriptions of voice-driven errands and task delegation in the launch materials are general; there is no public list of which Alibaba services it can connect to, or whether it can place orders and book tickets. Qwen has also released no sales or pre-order figures, so feedback from the first buyers will not be visible until a few weeks after the debut.
Sources: ITHome (bundle prices and hardware specs); Sina Finance; CocoLoop; 21st Century Business Herald; IDC quarterly China smart glasses shipment data; Founder Securities research report.