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Snap Releases The Next Pair Of Spectacles
Courtesy of Snap
Snap is commercially releasing its first AR glasses since 2019: Specs.
The Augmented Picture: As a social media company, Snapchat has never reached the heights of competitors like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. But CEO Evan Spiegel’s bullish bet on transforming Snap into a hardware company could be its saving grace — not only helping it stay relevant, but also unlocking a new era of growth.
Behind The Lenses: The Specs — which will feature transition lenses and be compatible with prescriptions — will hit store shelves later this fall.
Here’s what’s inside:
A middle-of-the-road device. Specs are larger than Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses but smaller than Apple’s Vision Pro, with a price tag that strategically lands between the two at $2,195. More importantly, its capabilities are designed to strike a balance between functionality and comfort for extended wear.
An accessory for the real world. Specs are built around the power of AR. The device features a contextual AI assistant that can provide information about what you’re seeing, deliver turn-by-turn directions, and enable shared AR experiences through a feature called “EyeConnect.” It can also be controlled through hand tracking.
A hardware home for Snap’s software. For years, Snap has had AR developers building thousands of tools and games (dubbed “Lenses”), and many of those experiences will be available on Specs at launch. That means Specs won’t be a blank slate from the start, but instead will launch with a bevy of potential “killer apps.”
Last Looks: Are Specs the computer of the future? Spiegel certainly hopes so, especially after spinning out Snap’s smart-glasses division into a separate company to shield it from Snap’s rollercoaster stock price, which is down 30% this year. While the current version of Specs is designed to complement a smartphone, future iterations may no longer need to rely on one. That’s when Snap’s computing era could truly begin.
In the meantime, Spiegel wants to make it clear that rival Mark Zuckerberg won’t be ripping off Specs’… well, specs. “Those copycats up north aren’t going to be stealing this one. We’ve filed more than 7,000 patents.” Hilarious.
The Future: Smart glasses haven’t truly taken off yet, but if Snap can land the right celebrity or creator ambassador, it could be the major turning point the company needs for its ambitions to take hold in the culture.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.