Smart eyewear, though it remains debatable whether they’d prefer to be called ‘AI glasses’, is poised to become the next category tech companies have a bit of a battle over. Snap Inc., with the consumer release of its augmented reality glasses called SPECS, is making a $2,195 bet to take on Meta’s glasses before Google, Samsung and Apple have been able to. There’s still a bit of a runway till the time these glasses do begin shipping to buyers, starting with the US, UK and France this fall. Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel believes “SPECS bring computing into the world around us where we live, work, learn, create, and connect.” Earlier this year, HT had detailed Snap spinning off its consumer glasses business, and focus on building a developer ecosystem.
There are three key elements to the Snap SPECS proposition. First, the artificial intelligence (AI) powered computing promise for the real world around us. Secondly, these will be standalone augmented reality glasses which do not require a phone to deliver the AI assistance or immersive experiences — key to this will be a built-in display as well as hand tracking capabilities. Third, Snap’s efforts with developers including the Lens Studio would means a large variety of apps and experiences would be ready for consumers.
Snap insists that the glasses also feature a privacy-first design with on-device processing, a recording indicator, and user controls over stored and shared data.
Spiegel is careful about the proposition and the pitch with the AR glasses for consumers. “SPECS are not designed to replace the world. They’re designed to bring computing into it,” he says. The SPECS are designed for everyday usage, with the 47mm variant weighing 132 grams and the 52mm option weighing 136 grams. For context, an iPhone 17 Pro weighs 206 grams and Meta’s much less capable (owing to not having an integrated display) glasses made with Ray-Ban weigh around 53 grams. HT reviewed the Ray Ban Meta Gen 1 glasses but privacy concerns remained, something a subsequent report pointed out too.
Speaking of which, SPECS glasses integrate Snap’s proprietary liquid crystal on silicon display, with a 51-degree field of view and 16-million colours. This should, theoretically, result in a nice balance of contrast and crispness, for richer, smoother visuals. The field of view is claimed to be equivalent to a 24-inch desktop display for work or up to a 115-inch home cinema screen placed about 10 feet away. Snap Inc. says the SPECS are powered by two Snapdragon processors, one for computer vision and one dedicated to running Lenses. They say SPECS enable high-speed hand tracking, lower latency, and more natural interactions. As per verifications by advanced robotic measurement systems, these glasses can deliver 7-millisecond motion-to-photon latency, for a real-world overlay experience.
For an aviation enthusiast such as yours truly, this makes for interesting reading. Snap Inc. says the waveguide has been redesigned for minimal distortion, and it uses billions of invisibly small nanostructures (these are so small, 10,000 can fit on the tip of a single hair) for this. Secondly, the electrochromic lenses are inspired by the same advanced technology found in Boeing 787 Dreamliner windows, which can shift from clear to tinted in 10 seconds.
An early mover advantage
The smart glasses ecosystem is about to get a bit frenetic. Google’s delayed Android XR glasses are supposedly on their way too, with integrated micro-OLED display and Gemini AI. They were first announced at the Google I/O developer conference last summer, there seemed a sense of confidence from the tech giant that the first Android XR glasses from the likes of Samsung will be available to consumers before the end of the year. That however, didn’t pan out as planned. Now, it is expected that the first glasses from Samsung and XREAL will roll out “this fall”.
Apple is also believed to be actively developing AR glasses, either as an evolution, or as a complimentary product like to their $3,499 Apple Vision Pro spatial computing headset. It remains to be seen whether Apple’s approach integrated a display much like SPECS, or the non-display methodology of Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses. Apple’s glasses are expected next year.
