Review Institute: Future Human Lab Reviewers: Guizang, Li Chengye Filming: Wei Wei Source: 36Kr (Reprinted from Future Human Lab ID: LabforAI) Review Date: November 2025 (After the launch of Quark S1)
Amid the “thousand-glass war” sparked by the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, most AI glasses have fallen into the trap of parameter competition. However, Alibaba’s Quark AI Glasses has chosen a more practical path — first solving the core pain point of “unwillingness to wear and discomfort”. This time, we got our hands on the Quark S1 (codenamed “Wow”). Combining daily wear, scenario-based testing, and hardware analysis, we bring you the most authentic product review from four dimensions: design & wearability, core functions, hardware performance, and ecosystem experience, to see if it truly lives up to the claim of being “a pair you’ll never want to take off”.
I. Design & Wearability: Return to the Essence of Glasses, Full Comfort
The core threshold for smart glasses has always been “whether they can be worn daily like ordinary glasses”. In this regard, the Quark S1 performs as a benchmark in its class, earning recognition from He Tongxue (a renowned Chinese tech YouTuber) and Luo Zhenyu (a well-known Chinese media figure). At the press conference, He Tongxue criticized Meta’s Ray-Ban for being too heavy — requiring removal after 20 minutes of wear — with a forward center of gravity that easily slips and strains the nose bridge. In contrast, the Quark S1 is lightweight and flexible, staying in place even when shaking the head vigorously back and forth.
From our test data, the Quark S1 weighs approximately 51 grams (including plain lenses), similar to most smart glasses on the market. However, its key advantage lies in its “1:1 front-to-back weight distribution” design — placing the main board and battery at the front and rear of the temple arms respectively, allowing the center of gravity to fall precisely at the geometric center of the glasses. This completely solves the common problem of forward center of gravity in smart glasses. Equipped with large-leaf bionic adjustable nose pads and ultra-thin bionic ear hooks, it fits the human curve closely, making it more suitable for Asian facial shapes. Even after 2 hours of continuous wear, there are no obvious indentations on the nose bridge or soreness in the earlobes.
In terms of exterior design, the Quark S1 adopts a restrained “invisible” style, breaking the stereotype of smart glasses being “bulky and clunky”. The thickest part of its temple arms is only 7.5 millimeters, and the frame is just 3.3 millimeters — about 25% thinner than the industry average. Through custom-developed 7-layer flexible circuit board technology, complex components such as the battery and main board are cleverly “hidden” in the slim temple arms. From the front and side, it is almost indistinguishable from ordinary black-framed glasses, greatly reducing users’ social psychological burden. The temple arms are made of titanium alloy integrated injection molding, covered with skin-friendly PU paint for a delicate touch. It also supports an integrated lens fitting solution, making it easy for myopic users to adapt.
II. Core Hardware: Solid Configuration, Attentive Details
As Alibaba’s first self-developed AI glasses, the Quark S1 does not blindly stack parameters in its hardware configuration. Instead, it focuses on “practical experience”, with every configuration tailored to daily usage scenarios.
In terms of display, it is equipped with dual flagship chips and dual light engine binocular display, adopting a two-dimensional diffractive waveguide solution and high-refractive-index lenses with coating technology. The lenses are transparent with no obvious reflection, and it achieves an integrated design of prescription lenses and waveguide lenses, avoiding the embarrassment of magnetic clip-on lenses (used by similar products) which are prone to dust and fog. The in-eye brightness is as high as 4000 nits, ensuring that text and icons on the screen are clearly visible even outdoors at noon. Moreover, the light leakage design is optimized — others can hardly see the content on the wearer’s near-eye screen from any angle, protecting privacy without affecting aesthetics.
In terms of interaction and battery life, the Quark S1 is thoughtfully designed. The right temple arm integrates a sensitive touch area, supporting gesture operations such as tapping and sliding. The bottom of the temple arm is equipped with a power button and a sliding touch bar, with an interaction logic similar to TWS earphones, resulting in extremely low learning costs. The right temple arm also has an independent camera button with a two-stage design (light tap to focus, tap to take photos, long press to record videos), making operation convenient. For battery life, it adopts a dual-battery swappable design — the battery supports hot swapping, and the device will not shut down directly when the battery is removed. A single battery provides a comprehensive battery life of up to 7 hours, and with the charging case, “unlimited battery life” can be achieved, effectively solving the battery anxiety of smart glasses. Additionally, the battery can be replaced separately when aging, extending the product’s service life.
In terms of audio-visual and shooting capabilities, the Quark S1 performs impressively. Equipped with a five-microphone array and bone conduction technology, it can accurately pick up human voices and filter environmental noise, allowing natural conversations with the AI assistant even in noisy scenarios such as subways and streets. It is equipped with mobile phone-level imaging technology, supporting 0.6-second fast capture and 3K video recording, which can be output as 4K video after super-resolution and frame interpolation. Combined with Super Raw low-light enhancement technology and dual anti-shake system, it greatly improves the shooting quality and stability in low-light environments, easily handling daily recording and scene capture.
III. AI & Ecosystem: Deep Integration with Alibaba Ecosystem, Outstanding Scenario-Based Experience
The core competitiveness of the Quark S1 lies in its deep integration of Alibaba’s Qianwen AI Assistant and the Alibaba ecosystem, allowing AI to truly land in high-frequency scenarios such as daily office work, travel, and consumption, realizing “efficient work without a mobile phone”.
Qianwen AI Assistant wakes up quickly and sensitively. Combined with real-time audio and video data obtained by the glasses, it provides an interactive experience different from mobile phone apps — no need to bow your head to operate; you can complete various needs with voice wake-up. For example, when shopping, you can search for products and compare prices with voice commands; scan codes to pay without taking out your mobile phone, and confirm the payment directly through the glasses. When traveling, in conjunction with Amap, Fliggy, and Alibaba Business Travel, it provides accurate navigation guidance and flight/hotel information reminders, eliminating the need to check your mobile phone repeatedly. In daily life, it can also realize functions such as voice search, information inquiry, and music playback, covering multiple vertical scenarios including life, office, and business travel.
In addition, the Quark S1 has also cooperated with partners such as QQ Music, NetEase Cloud Music, and Flight Manager to continuously enrich usage scenarios. In the future, it will support the MCP protocol to build a developer ecosystem and further expand the functional boundaries. Wu Jia, Vice President of Alibaba Group, stated that in the future, eye movement, heart rate, blood oxygen and other sensors may be added to the glasses, combined with Qianwen AI to provide more scientific health services and achieve a more proactive AI experience.
IV. Practical Test: On-Site Test at Guangzhou Auto Show, Full Practicality
To test the actual performance of the Quark S1, we wore it to the Guangzhou Auto Show for on-site testing. The core test scenarios included navigation, shooting, and information inquiry, and the overall performance exceeded expectations.
In terms of navigation, after voice-waking Qianwen AI Assistant and entering the destination, the navigation information is intuitively displayed through near-eye display — no need to bow your head to look at the mobile phone, and your sight can always stay ahead. Walking in the crowded auto show venue, the navigation guidance is clear and accurate, effectively avoiding getting lost and potential safety hazards. In terms of shooting, the 0.6-second fast capture can quickly capture the details of the models at the auto show, and 3K video recording is clear and stable. Even in low-light environments (corners of the indoor auto show), clear images can be taken without additional parameter adjustments. In terms of information inquiry, when encountering an unfamiliar model, you can quickly obtain model parameters, prices and other information through voice inquiry, without manual search, greatly improving the experience efficiency.
Wearing it for about 3 hours throughout the process, the comfort of the Quark S1 remained excellent, with no obvious nose pressure or ear drooping feeling. The temple arms fit the earlobes closely, and even when walking and turning quickly in the exhibition hall, there was no slipping, truly realizing “forgetting to take it off after wearing it”.
V. Summary of Advantages and Disadvantages & Purchase Advice
Core Advantages
- Comfortable to Wear: 1:1 front-to-back weight distribution + bionic design, 51g lightweight body, fits Asian facial shapes, no burden for long-term wear, appearance close to ordinary glasses, low social pressure.
- Solid Hardware: Dual light engine binocular display, swappable battery life, bone conduction noise reduction, excellent shooting and interaction experience, and thoughtful detail design.
- Improved Ecosystem: Deep integration with Qianwen AI and Alibaba ecosystem, covering multi-scenario needs, efficient use without a mobile phone, and strong practicality.
- Good Privacy: Optimized light leakage design, others cannot see the content of the near-eye screen, protecting personal privacy.
Shortcomings and Regrets
- Inconvenient Charging Method: No Type-C interface is designed on the battery module; a dedicated charging clip is required to clamp the metal contacts of the rotating shaft for charging, and the charging clip must be carried when going out.
- High Price: The minimum final price of the S1 series is 3,799 yuan (about 520 US dollars). Compared with similar products, the pricing is in the mid-to-high-end level, and the cost performance is not outstanding.
- Ecosystem Under Expansion: At present, the adaptation of some third-party applications is still being improved, and the developer ecosystem needs to be further enriched in the future.
Purchase Advice
The Quark S1 is suitable for users who value wearing comfort, have high-frequency AI interaction needs, and often use the Alibaba ecosystem (Alipay, Amap, Fliggy, etc.), especially those who need to wear smart glasses for work and travel for a long time. If you have a limited budget and pursue basic smart experience, you can consider the Quark G1 series (starting from 1,899 yuan, about 260 US dollars), which focuses more on fashion and portability (without display function, and the hardware configuration is basically the same as the S1). If you value cost performance more and have no high requirements for wearing comfort, you can choose other parameter-focused AI glasses at the same price.
Conclusion: The biggest highlight of the Quark S1 is that it jumps out of the vicious circle of “parameter involution” of AI glasses, returns to the essence of “glasses”, and truly realizes “being wearable every day” with comfortable wearing experience and practical ecological functions. It may not have the top parameters, but it is currently the AI glasses with the most daily-oriented comprehensive experience on the market. As He Tongxue said, “This may be the product closest to the form of ‘future glasses'”. For users who want to try AI glasses but are afraid of discomfort and useless functions, the Quark S1 is undoubtedly one of the best choices at this stage.
