Over the ten years from 2014 to 2024, Apple has continuously invested in micro-LED technology, but due to the lengthy mass production of associated displays, it has abandoned these investments. Nevertheless, a recent blog post published by market analysis firm Counterpoint shows that micro-LED technology is now in its heyday. More specifically, global income from micro LED displays increased significantly last year due to the sharp rise of the AR smart glasses market, with annual growth of up to 150%.
(Quelle: Counterpoint)
AI integration in smart glasses is an unstoppable trend. The majority of smart glasses currently on the market already have AI capabilities. As the AI glasses market expands rapidly, the micro-LED industry has benefited.
Popular with well-known brands: Is micro-LED already a standard for high-quality smart glasses?
The year 2025 was a year full of innovations in the field of AI glasses. Many brands have launched their own products. These brands can be broadly divided into two categories: on the one hand, hardware brands such as TCL Thunderbird and Lenovo; on the other hand, Internet brands, most of which have their own Large Language Models, such as Alibaba and Meta. The author found that a significant proportion of Chinese AI glasses released last year and previous years use the micro-LED concept.
For example, the Thunderbird X3 Pro, released in May 2025, is equipped with the “dual-eye full-color micro LED.” According to official information, the Thunderbird
As for the specific parameters, the Thunderbird X3 Pro achieves an incident brightness of 3,500 nits and a peak brightness of 6,000 nits, which allows users to see the display contents even under strong sunlight. The Thunderbird X3 Pro is aimed at the premium segment market and is priced at nearly 10,000 yuan.
(Source: Thunderbird)
The AI glasses V1 released by Lenovo in November last year, on the other hand, uses a monochrome micro-LED concept with a peak brightness of 2,000 nits. Accordingly, the price of these AI glasses from Lenovo is comparatively cheaper and is 3,999 yuan. In addition, LED display company Leyard launched its first AI glasses last year, which also uses a monochrome micro-LED concept and also costs 3,999 yuan. Alibaba’s Quark AI Glasses S1 uses a monochrome micro-LED light engine and achieves an incident brightness of 4,000 nits.
(Photo: taken by Lei Technology)
It should be noted that the display solutions for AI glasses are significantly different from those of traditional mobile phones and monitors. When users wear glasses, they need to be able to both see the device’s display content and clearly perceive the real world through the glasses. Therefore, with these AR products, simply adding a screen is not enough. The Micro LED used in the above AI glasses is very different from the traditional LED screens.
To be more precise, the core of the Micro LED light engine is actually a tiny micro screen, which is just an image source. The images must be projected onto the edge of the glasses via an optical lens system and then reach the human eye via diffraction effects. Compared to smartphones, AI glasses are smaller and have less internal space. A balance must be struck between weight, function, battery life and performance. The popularity of Micro-LED in high-quality AI glasses is mainly because it has both small size and excellent display quality.
In terms of technological development, Micro-LED can be regarded as the next generation of ultimate display technology after Mini-LED. In addition, Micro-LED has a great advantage in brightness due to its many independently lit light-emitting diodes, which is crucial for outdoor AI glasses. There is currently still a difference between monochrome and full-color micro LEDs in AI glasses. The choice mainly depends on the features and cost. In the future, the full color variant will probably become the standard, but currently the costs are still relatively high.
In contrast, Micro-OLED can be considered an advanced version of OLED. It retains the characteristic of OLED that each pixel lights independently, resulting in excellent display quality, especially in black areas. However, Micro-OLED also has the disadvantages of OLED, such as: B. a limited peak brightness. Therefore, Micro-OLED is more suitable for indoor use. The Apple Headset Vision Pro, for example, uses this display. It’s unlikely users will wear such a large headset outdoors.
(What: Apple)
Of course, there are also AI glasses that use Micro-OLED, such as: B. the XREAL Air 2. However, these products have a slightly different target group. Devices with Micro-OLED provide users with a more immersive experience in scenarios such as movie viewing. Therefore, the author believes that there will continue to be a great need for AR scenarios for AI glasses in the future, and the combination of micro-LED and waveguide technology will be the trend of the future.
Glasses use micro-LED, how long do cell phones and televisions have to wait?
The author already saw many television manufacturers presenting micro-LED products at AWE 2024. From his personal experience, the display quality of the Micro LED TVs was amazing, and the screen brightness reached up to 10,000 nits.
(Photo: taken by Lei Technology)
However, micro-LED televisions have not yet found their way into mass markets. The reason for this is simple: limited production capacity and high costs. Currently, the only Micro LED TV sold publicly by Samsung is a 115-inch model that costs 199,999 yuan. Hisense introduced a 163-inch Micro LED TV in the spring of last year that costs 799,999 yuan.
(Which: Samsung)
Given the cost, Micro-LED is currently more suitable for small and microscopic devices. In theory, of course, it would be ideal if cell phones, tablets and laptops had Micro LED screens with excellent display quality and high brightness. But even if you ignore the cost, OLED is still the better choice in the smart device market at the moment.
OLED has stable production, mature technology and controllable costs. Compared with traditional LCD screens, it has many advantages in terms of display quality, size, power consumption and flexibility. That’s why the OLED screen is now standard in smartphones. In addition, the disadvantages of OLED are not very pronounced in mainstream hardware products. On the one hand, the brightness of small OLED devices is already sufficient, but on the other hand, traditional problems such as “burning-in” are gradually being alleviated through technological improvements.
That’s why OLED is currently becoming increasingly popular not only in smartphones, but also in laptops and tablets. For small devices such as smartwatches and bracelets, OLED is the best solution. In these areas, micro-LED is possible, but it does not have great advantages in terms of cost and user experience.
Although many people consider Micro-LED to be a “future technology”, it is difficult to further develop this technology through financial contributions alone unless a stable and sustainable commercial application environment is found. Even Apple, a company with enormous financial resources, gave up after years of investing in micro-LED when it saw no prospect of practical application. The sudden explosion of the AI glasses market has given micro-LED a new opportunity. Combining micro display motor and optical waveguide, it provides the best solution for AI glasses at present.
Although the overall market for AI glasses is still relatively small compared to other industries such as mobile phones, it can already support a number of suppliers, thus providing the basis for the continuous development of micro-LED technology.
AI Glasses Market Explosion: A Mysterious Unicorn Becomes the Big Winner
When reviewing the new AI glasses released last year, the author found that most of the AI glasses using the micro-LED concept are supplied by JBD. “JBD” is the abbreviation of Shanghai JBD Display Technology Co., Ltd., which was founded in 2015 and specializes in the field of micro LED micro display technology. According to official information, JBD currently mainly offers three types of micro LED solutions: micro displays, light engines and optical modules.
More specifically, microdisplays are extremely small micro-LED screens. The microdisplays shown on the JBD website have a size of 0.1 inch and 0.13 inch, a resolution of 500 x 380 pixels and a pixel density of 6,350 PPI, and a brightness of 10 million nits.
(Quelle: JBD)
Obviously, the micro display cannot be used directly like a normal screen. It must be projected onto other display devices via an optical device. The high pixel density and brightness of the microdisplay are designed precisely to compensate for the decrease in parameters during the subsequent “propagation”.
The light engine actually consists of a micro display and optical components and has the “projection capability”. For example, JBD’s latest Kolibri II color light engine can display colors by combining three 0.1-inch microdisplays for red, green and blue with a prism. Using waveguide technology, it can achieve an incident brightness of 4,000 nits.
The optical module mentioned by JBD is an even more complete solution. It already looks almost like a complete pair of AR glasses and is a combination of a light engine and a waveguide. It essentially solves all the display problems of the glasses, and manufacturers only need to install other components and the system, which is very convenient.
(Quelle: JBD)
Currently, JBD has a clear technological advantage. In addition to the Chinese AI glasses brands, all of which are committed to its
date: 2026-02-12 03:04:00
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