Alipay has completed its first-ever smart glasses-enabled e-wallet transaction outside mainland China, signalling a major move toward hands-free, screen-free payments.
The pilot was carried out in Hong Kong using Meizu’s StarV Snap smart glasses, in partnership with Ant International, the global arm of Chinese fintech giant Ant Group.
The eyewear, embedded with AlipayHK’s payment capabilities, allowed the user to scan a QR code and authorise the payment using voice commands.
This process was supported by Alipay+’s AI system, which handles voice interaction, recognises payment intent and authenticates users via voiceprint.
Ant Group, which is part of Chinese tech giant Alibaba, believes smart glasses are more than just an experiment.
In its announcement, the company hinted at a future where people could pay for items just by looking at them or making a gesture.
It’s a step towards reimagining how transactions happen in everyday life—without a phone, card or cash in hand.
While AI-powered features in smart glasses aren’t new, embedding a secure mobile payment function adds a fresh layer of practical use.
Peng Guo, General Manager of Meizu’s XR Division, asserted,
"The offline payment function of smart glasses launched overseas by Meizu and Alipay+ has set a new technological benchmark for the industry."
This international debut follows a similar launch earlier this week in mainland China.
There, AR glasses made by Rokid—another Chinese tech firm—enabled in-store payments using Alipay technology.
Now, Meizu's smart glasses have joined the global stage.
The payment solution is built into the eyewear itself, using Meizu’s optical waveguide display, code-scanning camera and noise-cancelling microphone, all combined with Alipay+’s advanced software development kit (SDK).
Alipay+ aims to roll out the technology to its global network of 36 partner e-wallets—such as GrabPay and Line Pay—which together serve 1.7 billion users across 70+ markets.
AI is accelerating interest in smart glasses beyond entertainment.
Startups and tech giants alike—from Meta to Samsung—are integrating AI into wearables to handle tasks like messaging, translations, food ordering and navigation.
According to research by PYMNTS Intelligence, younger consumers in particular frequently use connected devices to engage in multitasking.
"Smart glasses provide hands-free connectivity to users, who can use the embedded AI assistant to do online searches, take photos or videos, read and write text messages, and translate foreign languages in real time, among other capabilities.”
David Jiang, CEO of smart glasses maker Viture and a former Google executive, observed that past attempts like Google Glass lacked daily purpose.
"People didn’t have a reason to wear it every day.”
He noted, however, that the situation has changed.
“5G is here. Streaming services are everywhere."
Beyond smart glasses, Alipay+ is quietly expanding its broader suite of tools for digital payments.
The platform supports both QR-based and NFC card payments globally and includes a GenAI-powered AI-as-a-Service platform to help e-wallets add personal assistant functions and streamline commerce.
Jiangming Yang, Chief Innovation Officer at Ant International, said:
“We are grateful to work with industry leaders like Meizu to pioneer smart glasses-embedded payment solutions… Smart glasses will rapidly transform into the next-gen personal device like the mobile phone.”
The hardware is improving. The software is catching up.
And now, so is the use case.
But the big question remains: will users embrace a device they wear on their faces?
Convenience is key—and if smart glasses can deliver faster, safer and more seamless ways to interact and pay, they might finally move beyond niche status.
The success of this initiative may not just hinge on innovation, but on whether smart glasses become something people truly want to wear every day.
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