Alibaba is making smart glasses now. Yes, Alibaba, the ecommerce company, detailed its Qwen Glasses N1 series at an event in Hangzhou, Bloomberg reports, and the N1 Pro adds eye tracking to the camera, microphones and AI assistant that both models share.
The N1 series of smart glasses is actually a sequel – there are first-gen models that came out in November 2025. Sales of the new ones already started in China this October 13th.
With eye tracking, the N1 Pro can supposedly follow where your eyes point. Alibaba uses that for object recognition: the assistant can work out which thing you’re looking at, so you don’t have to describe it.
The same eye tracking also handles payments. The N1 Pro can confirm a purchase with an iris scan, reading the pattern in the colored ring of your eye the way a phone reads your face or fingerprint. So, Face ID, but with your eyes.
These glasses can reportedly both shopping and health tracking. They both come with a 50MP camera sensor for first-person HD capture, which should show exactly what users are looking at.
Alibaba’s AI assistant is built-in, and users can talk to it via bone-conduction microphones. They can pick up your voice as vibrations through your head rather than through the air around you. As for battery life, Alilbaba rates a charge at 25 hours of standby or 9 hours of music playback.
Qwen Glasses N1 and N1 Pro key specs
- Sensors: 50MP camera sensor for first-person HD capture; eye tracking (N1 Pro only)
- Battery: 25 hours of standby or 9 hours of music playback per charge (Alibaba’s rating)
- Software: Qwen AI assistant
- Other: bone-conduction microphones; iris-scan payment (N1 Pro only)
The company also started selling the Qwen Clip, its first AI earbuds. They clip onto your ear and leave it open, and Bose, the headphone maker, co-engineered them for better sound. Qwen handles face-to-face translation, note-taking and voice tasks.
Price and availability
The N1 starts at ¥2,999 (about $450 or Php 28,000) before discounts, and the N1 Pro costs ¥3,499 (about $520 or Php 33,000). The Qwen Clip earbuds cost ¥1,299 (about $195 or Php 12,000). Bloomberg points out that the N1 is no cheaper than Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, the market leader, so Alibaba is competing on features rather than just price. Just like that, Meta smart glasses may finally have some decent competition.
