Snap unveiled an upgraded version of its Spectacles augmented-reality glasses on Tuesday, doubling down on its bet that wearable devices to enhance the view of the real world will be one of the next frontiers in tech.
The company, known for its popular messaging app Snapchat and animated filters, partnered with chipmaker Qualcomm and OpenAI’s ChatGPT to create the glasses, which allow users to place digital images and filters onto the real world through the lenses.
The smart glasses can connect directly to the Snapchat app – which has 432 million daily active users as of the second quarter of 2024, according to Statista.
Snap shares dropped 2% Tuesday after having increased about 10.8% over the past five days prior to the announcement.
The stock is down 41.8% so far this year.
The glasses will be exclusively rolled out to developers – who can work on new features for the product – and available for purchase online. Developers must pay a $99 monthly fee for a minimum of one year, then return the glasses once the subscription expires.
That is a key step toward building adoption among everyday users, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel told Bloomberg before Snap’s annual Partner Summit in Santa Monica, Calif.
“There has to be really compelling experiences,” he said. “By working really closely with developers and just continuously improving our platform, I think we’re going to get to a place where there are a lot of compelling lenses for people to try with Spectacles.”
The first edition of Spectacles launched in 2016, but the effort has not increased revenue for Snap, whose business relies on selling digital advertising.
Larger rivals are also racing to advance AR. Meta is expected to unveil its first AR glasses during its Connect developer conference next week.
The fifth generation of Spectacles is powered by a new operating system called Snap OS. The user interface responds to the wearer’s hands and voice and the operating system better understands the user’s surroundings to render AR effects, Spiegel said
“Hundreds of millions of people are using AR on the Snapchat application,” Spiegel said. “To really unlock the full potential of AR with glasses is something that’s really exciting to us.”
While developers create new apps for the glasses, Snap will work on making the product less bulky, Spiegel said.
The Spectacles have a black finish and rectangular frames, but they are bulkier than usual with very thick bands and lenses to make room for two Qualcomm chips and tiny projectors that cast images in front of the user’s eyes, according to a Bloomberg review.
The glasses have a button to take videos and a power button to turn the device on and off.
A blinking LED light on the side of the glasses will indicate when they are recording video.
Aside from the two buttons, the glasses are controlled with your hands: moving your hands in front of the frames to select and move around digital items.
A Bloomberg review said the glasses were “mostly easy to use” and easily worked indoors and outdoors, since they have transition lenses that darken in the sun.
Both Bloomberg and a review from The Verge said the glasses did not offer enough applications for users.
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