An entrepreneur once known for his work on tiny displays for the U.S. military is making a late-career effort to compete with Meta Platforms and Hong Kong’s Ray-Ban with smart glasses that integrate artificial intelligence (AI).
The Solos AirGo V will immediately evoke a sense of déjà vu for industry observers more familiar with the frames Ray-Ban collaborated on with the Facebook owner. But John Fan Chin-chiang believes he has an advantage with his Hong Kong-based company, Solos Technology, which spun off from a company he founded in Massachusetts in 1985.
“Hong Kong is the center of eyewear – from design to manufacturing – and I think people miss it,” Fan said. “My No. 1 rule: focus on eyewear first before worrying about ‘intelligence.’”
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Solos Technology’s AirGo V range is getting a camera addition, with a lightweight design it hopes will help it keep up with the competition. Photo: Solos Technology alt=Solos Technology’s AirGo V range is getting a camera addition, with a lightweight design it hopes will help it keep up with the competition. Photo: Solos Technology>
Much like the latest version of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, the AirGo V frames feature a built-in camera that allows users to ask AI models of their choice about what they see around them. Fan touted his glasses as the trendiest and lightest product, claiming they weigh just 30 grams compared to Ray-Ban’s 49 grams.
The Solos app also offers a variety of AI options from different companies, including OpenAI’s latest GPT-4 and 4o models and different versions of Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude. Solos must pay separately to use each model, according to a company representative at a June 28 presentation event in Hong Kong. Users will get a three-month free trial, after which they will be charged for a subscription, the person said.
Solos has not yet set a release date for its latest glasses, but has said it is targeting a December launch.
One thing that is noticeably missing from Solos and Ray-Ban glasses is a micro-display in the lens, as companies like Brilliant laboratories And TCL RayNeo are doing. Fan said it was coming, but Solos is focusing on audio for now.
The absence of displays is notable given Fan’s background in the field. A few years after founding his first company, Kopin, out of MIT, where Fan worked at the Defense Department-funded Lincoln Laboratory after earning a PhD on the side at Harvard University, the company began working on display technology for U.S. military applications.
In 1990, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded Kopin $50 million in funding to develop microdisplays, a 14-year process that resulted in optical modules for use in weapons and pilot helmets, according to the company’s website.
Kopin has also received other U.S. federal funding. Between 1987 and 2010, the company received 48 grants from the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs, totaling $10,134,861, according to U.S. government data. Most of that funding came from the Department of Defense, but it also received funding from the Department of Energy, NASA and the National Science Foundation.
The company reached its peak in the early 1990s, with just two annual grants for small businesses in the late 2000s. By then, the company was already trying to move beyond the mobile phone to wearable computers. Its Golden-i headset, made by Motorola, was launched in 2009, four years before Google Glass, with voice commands and head tracking.
Yet Kopin was not yet a well-known brand in the field of specialized equipment for military and professional applications. Its octogenarian founder seems to want to change things.
Li & Fung Group Chairman Victor Fung Kwok-king tries out Solos AirGo V smart glasses during a presentation event on June 28, 2024 at Science Park. Photo: Matt Haldane alt=Li & Fung Group Chairman Victor Fung Kwok-king tries out Solos AirGo V smart glasses during a presentation event on June 28, 2024 at Science Park. Photo: Matt Haldane>
For the AirGo V unveiling event, Fan invited Victor Fung Kwok-king, chairman of Li & Fung Group, an old friend from his Harvard days.
“I really admire how John has built a career in technology and is now on the verge of making a major breakthrough in the business world,” Fung said at the event. “What I see today is the kind of value-add that Hong Kong needs… Solos demonstrates what Hong Kong is striving for.”
Fan founded Solos in 2019 and OLED maker Lightning Silicon in 2023, setting up operations in Hong Kong and Santa Clara, California, respectively. He became chairman of both new companies and stepped down from Kopin’s board in May 2023.
“The engineers are all in California and the Boston area,” Fan said. “Solos is a product, it’s not about component research… [Lightning Silicon] is still largely in the research and development stage.
Beyond Hong Kong’s architectural prowess, Fan intended Solos’s move to the city, even though it is part of the Cayman Islands, to be a homecoming for the entrepreneur. Fan was born in Japanese-occupied Shanghai in 1943, and his family moved to Hong Kong in 1949, when the Communist Party took power. He moved to the United States in 1961 to study electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Yet his decade in Hong Kong solidified a bond that would last his entire life.
“I grew up in Hong Kong, so it feels like I’m coming home,” Fan said of starting a business in the city.
Another motivating factor was support from Hong Kong’s Science and Technology Parks, a state-owned company designed to encourage innovation.
“Everywhere else is crazy. We pay three times more and we don’t have a support system,” Fan said. “They also have subsidies and they keep asking me to increase my staff.”
The company said the amount of funding received and details of other support are “confidential information.”
Twenty years ago, John Fan’s Kopin company made light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for electronics that would help it develop microdisplays. Fan, pictured here in Central on Sept. 5, 2002, has now set his sights on a larger market. Photo: Wan Kam-yan alt=Twenty years ago, John Fan’s Kopin company made light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for electronics that would help it develop microdisplays. Fan, pictured here in Central on Sept. 5, 2002, has now set his sights on a larger market. Photo: Wan Kam-yan>
However, this support does not guarantee that a future listing will take place in the city. The Hong Kong government has sought assurances from local tech champions that they will consider a future IPO on the local bourse, as it recently did for a strategic deal cooperation with AI unicorn SmartMore.
“The Cayman Islands allow us to do whatever we want,” Fan said. “It could be Hong Kong, China, the United States. Of course, if the conditions are right, the Hong Kong stock exchange is one of the possible options. But I don’t think that’s the case yet.”
For now, Fan is focused on creating a new interface for AI that can succeed in the market. AI startups Humane and Rabbit recently launched a pin and wearable AI devices, respectively, which have been widely criticized in reviews, in part because the limitations of LLMs at present don’t seem to justify buying a whole new device. However, like smartwatches, glasses are more easily integrated into everyday life and can double as a fashion accessory.
“Humans are different from robots… People want to be beautiful,” Fan said. “That’s why I came here.” [to Hong Kong]” . “
This article was originally published in the The South China Morning Post (SCMP) newspaperthe most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more stories from SCMP, please visit the SCMP Application or visit the SCMP Facebook And Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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