Snap has officially unveiled Specs, its first consumer augmented reality glasses and the company’s most ambitious attempt yet to move computing beyond the smartphone.
Available to pre-order now for £1,995, Specs are expected to begin shipping this autumn in the UK, US and France. Unlike many smart glasses currently on the market, Snap is pitching them as a fully standalone device that blends AI assistance, entertainment and productivity into a lightweight pair of everyday glasses.
The headline feature is a transparent AR display capable of projecting digital content directly into your field of view. Snap says the experience is equivalent to having a 24-inch desktop monitor for work or a 115-inch cinema screen for watching content. All this is possible without needing to pull out a phone.
Under the hood, Specs pack a pair of Snapdragon processors, one dedicated to computer vision and another for running AR experiences. The glasses also feature a 51-degree field of view. They support 16 million colours, and use electrochromic lenses that can switch from clear to tinted in around 10 seconds.
While the specs are impressive, the bigger story is what Snap wants people to do with them. The glasses can display navigation directions, provide contextual AI assistance, stream media, mirror screens and run hundreds of developer-created AR experiences. Furthermore, Snap highlighted examples ranging from golf coaching and educational tools to immersive historical experiences.
The company is also keen to position Specs between existing smart glasses and mixed-reality headsets. According to Snap, today’s AI glasses are comfortable but limited, while headsets offer more power at the expense of portability. Specs are designed to sit somewhere in the middle, offering richer AR features without the bulk.
Battery life is rated at up to four hours of mixed use, while the bundled charging case extends that to around 20 hours.
Snap says more than 7,000 patents and over a decade of AR development have contributed to Specs. Whether consumers are ready to spend nearly £2,000 on AR glasses remains to be seen. However, on paper, these look significantly more ambitious than anything Snap has launched before.
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