Consent came down to a swipe on the temple
WeChat Pay published a software development kit for smart glasses on 8 September, and Rokid AI Glasses was the first product adapted to it. A user applies through the eyewear maker's phone app, then verifies a payment password inside a WeChat mini program, which binds the glasses to the account. The payment itself runs in order: a voice command, framing the merchant's payment code, a swipe on the temple to confirm, and the result appearing on the display and being read out.[1]
The kit is in beta and runs with a daily limit of 200 yuan; glasses that identify the wearer by iris or fingerprint carry a higher limit. A payment completes only while the connection to WeChat on the phone holds. The scope is narrow too: face-to-face codes, personal merchant codes and aggregated codes are supported, while mini program codes and object recognition stay outside it. Those limits also describe how much of the payment happens on the glasses: the device reads the code, and the verification is shared with the phone.[1]
When the assistant opens the conversation
In the internal test reported on 7 September for the same app's assistant, Xiaowei, a user's assistant contacts a friend's assistant directly and handles the opening exchange. For tasks such as arranging a meal the two assistants talk between themselves first, and the user steps in only at the authorisation and decision points. The content of that exchange does not appear in the personal chat box; it stays inside Xiaowei. The test is limited to users with access to the assistant's trial build.[2]
In both announcements the system performs the act: the camera reads the code, the assistant composes the sentence. What is left to the user is a single approval. That changes which side produces the data: the payment data comes out of the link between the glasses and the phone, and the conversation data out of Xiaowei. Both published texts give a limit, a daily 200 yuan, and a placement, inside Xiaowei, while neither says which data is kept or for how long. One explanation may be that the retention terms sit outside these two notices, in the existing payment and assistant agreements.[1], [2]
The document that would close the gap
An updated notice would close that gap: a text naming what the glasses send to the phone and to WeChat Pay during a payment, what Xiaowei keeps from an exchange between two assistants, how long each of those is held, and whether the person on the other side is shown that they are dealing with an assistant. None of that appears in either announcement. The absence on its own is not evidence of misuse; a product announcement and a privacy notice are different texts, and the terms may be set out in another document.[1], [2]
There is a testable threshold. If the kit leaves beta and the daily 200 yuan limit is raised for glasses with iris or fingerprint verification, WeChat Pay is expected to publish a document stating whether that check runs on the device and what leaves the glasses. If no such document appears by the end of December 2026, the raised limit operates without the check it rests on being visible.[1]