Lowpass, authored by Janko Roettgers, is a newsletter exploring the dynamic convergence of technology and entertainment. This weekly edition is exclusively available for The Verge subscribers.

Meta is poised to face a fresh rival in the realm of augmented reality smart glasses. A relatively obscure firm, Vonderful Inc., is preparing to introduce its inaugural pair of AI-enhanced glasses around the time of CES, as indicated by a prematurely displayed website and a recent filing with the FCC.

Operating under the Vonder brand, this company is set to unveil what it claims to be “the most advanced smart glasses ever made,” by integrating augmented reality with “real-time information and assistance” driven by sophisticated artificial intelligence.

This is an ambitious claim, especially considering Meta’s recent launch of their $799 Ray-Ban Display glasses, which stand as the most consumer-friendly AI glasses with integrated displays to date. However, Vonderful isn’t entirely new to the scene; it seems to be a covert venture under Viture, an AR startup engaged in developing glasses since 2021.

Details of this connection emerged from Vonder’s FCC filings, submitted by a Viture employee serving as a “project manager” for Vonder. Additionally, a landing page for Vonder, featuring a countdown timer suggesting a debut at the start of 2026, is hosted on Viture’s servers. Furthermore, a trademark for Vonder was filed by Eden Future HK Limited, identified by Chinese media as Viture’s proprietor.

Viture has yet to provide any comments in response to inquiries.

Viture is among a handful of companies with Chinese roots making visor-style glasses that plug into your phone or computer for power and compute, and then essentially mirror those displays with an AR overlay. These kinds of devices typically use what’s known as “birdbath” optics, which involves a set of mirrors to layer images over your view of the real world — a bulky approach that can’t really compete with the more advanced waveguide displays used by devices like Meta’s Ray-Ban Display glasses.

Basically, these glasses can be an okay solution if you want to have a secondary display for your phone, laptop, or mobile game console, but you wouldn’t want to walk down the street with them, unless you’re okay always having a cable dangling by your side that’s connecting your phone and your glasses. And without onboard compute, their AI functionality is also limited to whatever your phone has to offer.

Viture released a first such visor device in 2022 and doubled down on the product category with several new models this summer. In addition to the glasses themselves, Viture is also selling a neckband that packs the necessary compute to run the glasses without plugging them into a phone, while also providing some gesture control through integrated cameras.

I wasn’t able to learn the exact specs of Viture’s upcoming Vonder glasses — the FCC filing was heavily redacted — but a source with some insights into the company’s plans told me that the device may ditch birdbath optics for more advanced display technology.

The filing does reveal that the device is using Bluetooth, suggesting a standalone device that doesn’t plug into your phone. The absence of Wi-Fi further suggests that the glasses may not have a camera, as Bluetooth alone typically isn’t fast enough for real-time video streaming or the downloading of large amounts of photos. However, my source suggested that a camera-equipped version may be in the cards at some point as well.

Viture isn’t the only AR startup looking to expand from visor-style glasses with birdbath optics to more full-fledged all-in-one devices. Viture competitor Rokid recently completed a Kickstarter campaign for its own smart glasses, which feature monochrome displays in both lenses. The company also just unveiled a set of glasses without displays that more closely mimics Meta’s popular Ray-Ban smart glasses. And TCL offshoot RayNeo launched a first pair of standalone AR glasses in 2024. That device is currently sold out, suggesting that the launch of an updated version may be imminent.

It may seem difficult for any of these companies to compete with a giant like Meta, which has spent tens of billions of dollars on AR and VR to date. However, it’s still early for this product category, and there may be partnership opportunities for some hardware makers in the future. Case in point: Xreal, another Viture competitor, has teamed up with Google to make the first set of glasses powered by Android XR.
Viture does have a few things going for it that could potentially help get its new Vonder brand off the ground: The company already has a retail partnership with Best Buy, with its glasses being available in 200 stores. Viture also recently raised $100 million in financing, with the express goal of both retail expansion and “next-Generation Innovation, advancing both hardware and software ecosystems with AI-powered XR.”