Luo Yonghao is now aiming to ride the wave of AI hardware.

Luo Yonghao's "True Repayment Chronicles" have yet to reach a conclusion, but his "final entrepreneurial venture" is already well underway.

In 2022, Luo Yonghao founded Thin Red Line Technology Co., Ltd., initially planning to develop AR operating systems and hardware products. However, in 2024, the technological winds shifted, with the industry focusing on the AI sector, directly impacting Thin Red Line's strategic layout.

According to media reports, insiders at Thin Red Line revealed that the company will release its first AI hardware product around the Snake New Year. The focus of the new product will be the software solution, featuring the AI Agent, complemented by an AI-native hardware with two initial versions. Insiders also described the product concept as "very avant-garde," with the final pricing not yet determined. Internal expectations are that it won't be cheap, and sales are not optimistic due to "new things often lacking references."

Recruitment platform information shows that Thin Red Line Technology Co., Ltd. is currently recruiting AI product managers and AI R&D engineers, demonstrating Luo Yonghao's commitment to going all-in on AI.

(Image from Boss Zhipin)

After failing in his smartphone venture, Luo Yonghao, with incredible luck, paid off his debts through live streaming e-commerce. However, Luo Yonghao is a typical entrepreneur who "folds until death." After bidding farewell to AR operating systems and hardware, Thin Red Line has shifted gears, aiming at the AI hardware trend.

It is worth noting that Luo Yonghao can be considered a pioneer in AI hardware. In 2018, when Lei Tech was invited to the penultimate launch event held by Smartisan in Chengdu, Luo Yonghao personally unveiled an "AI hardware" product called TNT – a desktop computer that relied 100% on voice interaction, priced in the tens of thousands. However, constrained by the AI technology of the time, Luo Yonghao's vision of enabling TNT to "process Word and create PPTs with a single command" could not be realized. Accompanied by the famous scene of "Shh! Don't disturb me using TNT," TNT became Smartisan's final swan song.

Now, with the explosion of large model technology, the industry has once again placed AI-defined hardware on the agenda, and it is trending towards becoming a hotspot in the hardware industry. Will Luo Yonghao create a truly revolutionary product with his new AI hardware venture?

Luo Yonghao's First AI Product is Not Ordinary

In April this year, Luo Yonghao announced in a live stream that he would release a mysterious product with disruptive and destructive innovation, mentioning that the new product would be a "high-tech product" and an "intelligent device," urging fans to prepare a budget of $199 and $299. At the time, he did not reveal the specific form of the new product, but judging from the budget, it aligns well with the price range of mainstream domestic AR glasses.

Insiders at Thin Red Line revealed that about a month ago, a group of people in the company were pulled into a secret closed R&D project. To rush the project, the closed R&D team has been working intensively for several days. The urgency and rush probably indicate that Thin Red Line's R&D direction and projects have undergone significant changes in the short term, necessitating a rush to meet deadlines.

It is worth mentioning that insiders said Thin Red Line's new product does not plan to conduct pre-sales and will be available for purchase upon release, which also means that the product development cycle must be compressed to its limit.

Considering these clues and Luo Yonghao's attitude towards products, it seems that Thin Red Line is pushing forward with a product form that may be unprecedented, at least not commonly seen in the market. We might be able to guess Luo Yonghao's vision for the next generation of smart devices through the following new AI species.

At the CES 2024 exhibition, the American startup Rabbit introduced a new AI species called "Rabbit R1," consisting only of a 2.88-inch touchscreen, analog dial, and rotatable camera. The computational hardware is simple, priced at just $199, and sold 10,000 units on the first day of pre-sales.

(Image from Rabbit)

The core of Rabbit R1 is its built-in Rabbit OS, which possesses the ability to understand natural language and automatically execute large model capabilities, supporting a series of automated actions such as controlling music, booking tickets, planning itineraries, shopping, and hailing taxis. In other words, the entire hardware setup revolves around AI large model interaction.

While there is certainly innovation, Rabbit R1's interaction is somewhat presumptuous due to insufficient supporting services. Many users reported feeling disillusioned after receiving the product, and it soon fell out of favor, even being named the "Worst AI Product of the Year."

Another startup, Humane, introduced the AI Pin, considered a revolutionary product by the industry. It interacts primarily through touch, voice, and gestures and projects display content through a projection device. It is equipped with GPT-4 and can operate independently without relying on personal devices like smartphones.

Its fate was similar to Rabbit R1. Ultimately, the technology concept advanced too quickly, ignoring current real-world conditions, resulting in a "half-baked" product. AI automation seemed promising but had many shortcomings stemming from the data reservoir of large models. Even Honor's YOYO assistant, which focuses on "autonomous driving," does not claim full-scenario automatic interaction.

Due to changes in interaction logic, hardware design centered around large AI models will indeed differ from traditional personal devices and rely more on supporting services. These new AI species undoubtedly serve as important lessons for Thin Red Line's new AI products.

In my opinion, Luo Yonghao most likely does not accept half-baked products. His years of sarcasm towards Apple show that he has his own pursuits for products. Insiders describe Luo Yonghao as very "perfectionistic," pushing his team hard and refusing to bring unfinished products to market.

AI Hardware is Everywhere, but Luo Yonghao Doesn't Want to Be a "Follower"

Does All-in-AI Luo Yonghao still have a chance to return to AR? My view is that it's not ruled out, but the possibility is low. It is understood that Thin Red Line's team peaked at over 150 people, including veterans from Smartisan and practitioners with AR hardware development experience, but there is still a huge gap from Luo Yonghao's planned thousand-person team.

With Thin Red Line's current technical reserves and team size, it is unrealistic to launch a sufficiently mature and well-experienced AR glass within a short period. Meta invested tens of billions of dollars into AR but has only successfully launched a basic and relatively low-cost Ray-Ban.

Moreover, before significant breakthroughs in chip, optics, and battery technology, the path for AR glasses is nearly reaching its ceiling.

In the promising year of 2022 for AR, Luo Yonghao had planned to develop a prototype user operating system annually for five years before the maturity of AR consumer electronics, without releasing products externally. Now, it seems that the first-generation product is not yet ready, and the AR era has swiftly shifted to the AI era. On the bright side, Thin Red Line, without a product layout, can quickly change direction.

In comparison, AI has a broader range of applicable scenarios, can run on various devices, and has a lower entry barrier than AR/MR. Focusing on AI seems to be the most correct choice for Luo Yonghao, but it also means that previous efforts in the AR field will come to naught.

There are many mainstream AI software and hardware integration solutions on the market, such as "AI phones," "AI wearables," and "AI PCs." Development teams achieve intelligence by embedding AI large model capabilities into device operating systems, primarily providing abilities like text-to-text generation, text-to-image generation, and text summarization. In the phone sector, there are Apple, OPPO, Huawei, and Honor, while in the AI glasses sector, there are Rokid, LeTV, and Shanji.

(Image from Shanji)

Some manufacturers go further, reconstructing operating systems around AI intelligence to enable more complex large-scale task parallelism. For example, Honor's YOYO is representative in this regard, particularly in mobile "autonomous driving" mentioned earlier.

Additionally, there are AI products in software form, such as Doubao, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Kimi, which are generative AI software with broader adaptability and can be used on any compatible terminal.

But overall, this series of AI integrations are based on improvements to existing mature terminal solutions or rely on existing devices. The advantage lies in guiding users to engage with AI capabilities while retaining the functions of traditional devices. Thin Red Line's first product, starting with the AI Agent, has a different concept from conventional large AI models.

The market is not short of mature solutions. Following the mainstream won't be terrible, but it won't leave a memorable impression on the market, blending into the crowd. Luo Yonghao is obviously not such a person. Back in the day, Smartisan phones alone "fed" many domestic deeply customized systems in terms of functionality. He once expressed the idea that "phones themselves are bland" in response to a netizen's comment.

(Image from Weibo)

The emergence of large AI models has transformed the software ecosystem, giving rise to new human-computer interaction methods and usage scenarios, which will also directly affect the design of AI hardware. Rabbit R1 is indeed a suitable carrier for the AI Agent. In the future, all software services will be automated, eliminating the need for large-screen interaction, thus reducing screen size while adding an interactive design distinct from smartphones.

We are not yet clear about Luo Yonghao's understanding of the next generation of AI devices or the future significance of AI to us. In my view, under the wave of AI, the way software and hardware integrate is undergoing tremendous changes. Whether Luo Yonghao can launch a truly revolutionary AI product at this juncture will determine Thin Red Line's position in the AI era.

Always Chasing Trends, Always Feeling Great. Will Luo Yonghao Succeed This Time?

Perhaps in Luo Yonghao's view, whether it's AR or AI, the essence is leveraging his keen industry instincts to stay ahead of trends.

But whether it's AR or AI, Luo Yonghao, more than any other smart device company founder, needs a device now – one with revolutionary significance like the original iPhone + iOS.

Frankly, without a marketable product, it is difficult for Thin Red Line Technology, led by Luo Yonghao, to recoup funds, especially with debts from the Smartisan supply chain not fully repaid, adding considerable pressure. Thin Red Line invested a lot of time and trial-and-error costs in AR glasses. It was only in the first quarter of 2024 that Thin Red Line's development team focused on AI Agent software development, leaving little time for Luo Yonghao with tight deadlines.

(Image from Doubao AI)

Luo Yonghao has stated that he will "go all out, make waves, and use all legal, compliant, and ethically sound business practices" to grow cash income and repay the remaining 500 million yuan in debt. It is unclear whether this includes revenue from AI products.

Thin Red Line's first new product faces arduous tasks and significant market challenges. With the growing variety of AI products, AI companies with large model solutions and substantial financial support will rise faster, and it is only a matter of time before they dominate the AI sector. Regardless of the final form, Luo Yonghao's top priority is to present a sufficiently mature product.

This is Luo Yonghao's "final entrepreneurial venture," one where he has invested all his resources. I don't want him to fail.

Source: Lei Tech