Snap's New Spectacles 5: A Leap Forward in AR Technology for Developers

Snap's new Spectacles 5 AR glasses are very large and not for sale - here's why

Snap aims to bring 'cloud-hosted multimodal AI models' to its AR headset, which houses powerful hardware from Qualcomm. Developers can sign up here. Snap Inc., developer of the social media platform Snapchat, recently unveiled the fifth generation of its Spectacles AR headset at SPS 2024. The first thing you'll notice about the Spectacles 5 is its massive size. According to the company, the new pair are almost three times the size of the Spectacles 4 and weighs 226 grams (a little under half a pound). But bulking up the headset had to be done as Snap made numerous hardware changes that required the extra room. Also: The best VR headsets right now (and how Apple Vision Pro stacks up) While there won't be an external battery pack and everything is inside the frame, Snap states the device runs on a pair of Qualcomm Snapdragon processors. They support the four cameras at the front which "power the Snap Spatial Engine [for] seamless hand tracking." The Spectacles 5's legs house LCoS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) micro-projectors that send images directly towards the waveguides inside the lenses. Snap says each lens "delivers a 46-degree diagonal field of view with a 37 pixel-per-degree resolution." The company equates this to looking at a 100-inch display from about 10 feet away. CNET makes an interesting point about the headset, noting that the 46-degree viewing angle is fine for glasses like these but for displays on traditional VR headsets, it's like looking through a window with "the dimensions of a large phone screen." Also: These $400 XR glasses gave me a 200-inch screen to game and watch movies on Alongside the Spectacles 5, Snap also announced new partnerships with several third-party companies, most notably OpenAI. Snap says it aims to bring "cloud-hosted multimodal AI models" to its AR headset. So we could see the device support some form of ChatGPT when they finally become available to the public. The other partners indicate that video games will play an important role in the Spectacles 5. ILM Immersive, for example, is bringing a Star Wars title to the platform. Also: How VR and digital twins are streamlining remote work in technical professions It's unknown when Snap will bring its Spectacles headset to the masses. Despite being the fifth generation, the tech still isn't ready. The battery only lasts about 45 minutes. But if you're a developer in the US and are interested in trying them out, you can join the Spectacles Developer Program for $99 a month. You'll get a pair plus tech support from Snap itself.

Snap's extremely large Spectacles bring impressive AR to developers at $99 a month | TechCrunch

Snap's new Spectacles are the next big thing -- in the most literal way possible. The augmented reality glasses are extremely physically large. The social media firm sees the footprint as a kind of middle ground between a full extended reality headset and far more portable smart glasses. It warrants mentioning right out of the gate that, like their predecessor, the Spectacles 5 are designed specifically for developers. Snap could open them up more widely for consumers, but if I had to venture a guess, I would say that's probably going to be more of a Spectacles 6 thing. I had an opportunity to check the new Spectacles out, and I can immediately tell you two things. Due to the target audience being developers, Snap is taking a hardware as a service approach to product sales, charging devs $99 a month. Before you get too excited, however, keep in mind that there's a one-year commitment period, so you'd be getting out a little under $1,200, pre-tax. Interested parties will have to apply for the hardware through a developer program in Lens Studio. Once approved, they'll also gain access to support resources from the Snap Lab team. In spite of their large size, the new Spectacles weigh half a pound, which is significantly less than, say, the Visio Pro's 1.4 pounds. During my demo, I found the AR technology to be impressive for a full untethered headset, though the visuals and interactive quality are hampered by a small field of view. At 46 degrees, however, Snap says it's nearly 3x the size of the Spectacles 4, which is absolutely a step in the right direction. The glasses are powered by a pair of Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, with one in each temple. Snap's Spatial Engine, meanwhile, does a good job of understanding where you are in space. The social media firm is also launching a new operating system alongside the new hardware. Built atop the Android kernel, SnapOS is designed to streamline developing for the platform. The Spectacles launch with some key content partners, including Lego, Niantic, and ILM Immersive. The latter will launch a "Star Wars" title for the wearable platform, and Pokemon Go-maker Niantic will be bringing its titles, Peridot and Scaniverse. The company is also releasing new AI video generation tools for creators, as well as new Google Lens-type features for its My AI chatbot, and it's rolling out a "simple" version of the app as part of a test to make it easier to use.

New Snapchat AR spectacles are here, but not for you

The fifth-generation Spectacles are available to developers for $99 a month. Snap has offered smart glasses for a while now, letting you record video for Snapchat. The company previously launched augmented reality (AR) glasses a few years ago, and it's now launched a new pair of Snapchat Spectacles with AR capabilities. Snapchat announced the fifth-generation Spectacles at its Snap Partner Summit, and these are chunky glasses with a huge frame and thick arms. This thicker design accommodates two Snapdragon processors, vapor chamber cooling, and four cameras to power the screen and hand tracking. Either way, this is more conspicuous than the Ray-Ban Meta glasses and the firm's previous Spectacles. The star of the show is arguably the see-through AR display, powered by a pair of micro-projectors. Snap claims that the display is equivalent to viewing images on a 100-inch screen from 10 feet (three meters) away. The company says you can mirror your phone screen to this display, use your phone as a game controller with Lenses running on the display, and more. The glasses are powered by the company's Snap OS platform, which supports hand gestures or voice commands. Snap also confirmed that the platform will soon gain support for OpenAI's cloud-based AI models. All of this hardware and software comes at the cost of battery life, as the company says you can expect 45 minutes of continuous runtime. By comparison, the firm's original AR glasses offered 30 minutes of runtime. Unfortunately, the fifth-generation Snapchat Spectacles isn't meant for general consumers. Snap says the product is available via its Spectacles Developer Program for $99 a month. Yep, that's not a typo.

Snap reveals new Spectacles to entice AR developers

The latest AR glasses by Snap come with various upgrades and a sleek design, but developers have to commit to a one-year subscription of nearly $1,200 to get access. Snap has revealed its next attempt to break into the augmented reality sector, with a snappy new pair of Spectacles glasses. The social media company said these new AR glasses are the result of a decade of research and development. The glasses are quite light compared to other contenders on the market, being only 226 grams. Like many other tech developments in recent years, AI is inevitably also a key upgrade in these glasses. Snap said it plans to bring multiple cloud-hosted multimodal AI models to Spectacles through a new partnership with OpenAI. "Soon, this will help developers bring new models to their Spectacles experiences to provide more context about what you see, say, or hear," Snap said. Various reviews are speaking positively about these Spectacles - The Verge says the glasses have a richer display and last longer on a charge. But the drawbacks may be in their accessibility and their price tag. These Spectacles are currently only available to developers, who must pay $99 a month for one full year to gain access to these AR glasses - a commitment of nearly $1,200. Snap has been trying to gain more control of the AR market for years - the company was reportedly looking at every AR start-up it could find for acquisitions in 2016. The company revealed its first iteration of Spectacles that same year. In 2022, Snap acquired Paris-based NextMind to support its AR research efforts. But while Snap is pushing its AR developments, its core business has been struggling. The company shares fell by more than 20pc after the company reported underwhelming quarterly results last month. Meanwhile, competition is stiff in the augmented and mixed reality sector. Meta is offering its latest Quest 3 headsets at a starting cost of $499.99. Apple also revealed its own mixed-reality headset called the Vision Pro, though this comes at a much steeper cost. Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Snap's fifth-generation Spectacles bring your hands into into augmented reality

Snap's latest augmented reality glasses have a completely new -- but still very oversized -- design, larger field of view and all-new software that supports full hand tracking abilities. But the company is only making the fifth-generation Spectacles available to approved developers willing to commit to a year-long $99/month subscription to start. It's an unusual strategy, but Snap says it's taking that approach because developers are, for now, best positioned to understand the capabilities and limitations of augmented reality hardware. They are also the ones most willing to commit to a pricey $1,000+ subscription to get their hands on the tech. Developers, explains Snap's director of AR platform Sophia Dominguez, are the biggest AR enthusiasts. They're also the ones who will build the kinds of experiences that will eventually make the rest of Snapchat's users excited for them too. "This isn't a prototype," Dominguez tells Engadget. "We have all the components. We're ready to scale when the market is there, but we want to do so in a thoughtful way and bring developers along with our journey." Snap gave me an early preview of the glasses ahead of its Partner Summit event, and the Spectacles don't feel like a prototype the way its first AR-enabled Spectacles did in 2021. The hardware and software are considerably more powerful. The AR displays are sharper and more immersive, and they already support over two dozen AR experiences, including a few from big names like Lego and Niantic (Star Wars developer Industrial Light and Motion also has a lens in the works, according to Snap.) To state the obvious, the glasses are massive. Almost comically large. They are significantly wider than my face, and the arms stuck out past the end of my head. A small adapter helped them fit around my ears more snugly, but they still felt like they might slip off my face if I jerked my head suddenly or leaned down. Still, the new frames look slightly more like actual glasses than the fourth-generation Spectacles, which had a narrow, angular design with dark lenses. The new frames are made of thick black plastic and have clear lenses that are able to darken when you move outside, sort of like transition lenses. The lenses house Snap's waveguide tech that, along with "Liquid Crystal on Silicon micro-projectors," enable their AR abilities. Each pair is also equipped with cameras, microphones and speakers. Inside each arm is a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. Snap says the dual processor setup has made the glasses more efficient and prevents the overheating issues that plagued their predecessor. The change seems to be an effective one. In my nearly hour-long demo, neither pair of Spectacles I tried got hot, though they were slightly warm to the touch after extended use. (The fifth-generation Spectacles have a battery life of about 45 minutes, up from 30 min with the fourth-gen model.) Snap has also vastly improved Spectacles' AR capabilities. The projected AR content was crisp and bright. When I walked outside into the sun, the lenses dimmed, but the content was very nearly as vivid as when I had been indoors. At a resolution of 37 pixels per degree, I wasn't able to discern individual pixels or fuzzy borders like I have on some other AR hardware. But the most noticeable improvement from Snap's last AR glasses is the bigger field of view. Snap says it has almost tripled the field of view from its previous generation of Spectacles, increasing the window of visible content to 46 degrees. Snap claims this is equivalent to having a 100-inch display in the room with you, and my demo felt significantly more immersive than what I saw in 2021. It isn't, however, fully immersive. I still found myself at times gazing around the room, looking for the AR effects I knew were around me. At other points, I had to physically move around my space in order to see the full AR effects. For example, when I tried out a human anatomy demo, which shows a life-sized model of the human body and its various systems, I wasn't able to see the entire figure at once. I had to move my head up and down in order to view the upper and lower halves of the body. The other big improvement to the latest Spectacles is the addition of full hand tracking abilities. Snap completely redesigned the underlying software powering Spectacles, now called Snap OS, so the entire user interface is controlled with hand gestures and voice commands. You can pull up the main menu on the palm of one hand, sort of like Humane's AI Pin and you simply tap on the corresponding icon to do things like close an app or head back to the lens explorer carousel. There are also pinch and tap gestures to launch and interact with lenses. While Snap still calls these experiences lenses, they look and feel more like full-fledged apps than the AR lens effects you'd find in the Snapchat app. Lego has a game that allows you to pick up bricks with your hands and build objects. I also tried a mini golf game where you putt a golf ball over an AR course. Niantic created an AR version of its tamagotchi-like character Peridot, which you can place among your surroundings. You can also interact with Snapchat's generative AI assistant, MyAI, or "paint" the space around you with AR effects. Some experiences are collaborative, so if two people with Spectacles are in a room together, they can view and interact with the same AR content together. If you only have one pair of Spectacles, others around you can get a glimpse of what you're seeing via the Spectacles mobile app. It allows you to stream your view to your phone, a bit like how you might cast VR content from a headset to a TV. The new gesture-based interface felt surprisingly intuitive. I occasionally struggled with lenses that required more precise movements, like picking up and placing individual Lego bricks, but the software never felt buggy or unresponsive. There are even more intriguing use cases in the works. Snap is again partnering with OpenAI so that developers can create multimodal experiences for Spectacles. "Very soon, developers will be able to bring their [OpenAI] models into the Spectacles experience, so that we can really lean into the more utilitarian, camera-based experiences," Dominguez says. "These AI models can help give developers, and ultimately, their end customers more context about what's in front of them, what they're hearing, what they're seeing." CEO Evan Spiegel has spent years touting the promise of AR glasses, a vision that for so long has felt just out of reach. But if the company's 2021 Spectacles showed AR glasses were finally possible, the fifth-generation Spectacles feel like Snap may finally be getting close to making AR hardware that's not merely an experiment. For now, there are still some significant limitations. The glasses are still large and somewhat unwieldy, for one. While the fifth-gen Spectacles passably resemble regular glasses, it's hard to imagine walking around with them on in public. Then again, that might not matter much to the people Snap most wants to reach. As virtual and mixed reality become more mainstream, people have been more willing to wear the necessary headgear in public. People wear their Apple Vision Pro headsets on airplanes, in coffee shops and other public spaces. As Snap points out, its Spectacles, at least, don't cover your entire face or obscure your eyes. And Dominguz says the company expects its hardware to get smaller over time. But the company will also likely need to find a way to reduce Spectacles' price. Each pair reportedly costs thousands of dollars to produce, which helps explain Snap's current insistence on a subscription model, but it's hard to imagine even hardcore AR enthusiasts shelling out more than a thousand dollars for glasses that have less than one hour of battery life. Snap seems well aware of this too. The company has always been upfront with the fact that it's playing the long game when it comes to AR, and that thinking hasn't changed. Dominguez repeatedly said that the company is intentionally starting with developers because they are the ones "most ready" for a device like the fifth-gen Spectacles and that Snap intends to be prepared whenever the consumer market catches up. The company also isn't alone in finally realizing AR hardware. By all accounts, Meta is poised to show off the first version of its long-promised augmented reality glasses next week at its developer event. Its glasses, known as Orion, are also unlikely to go on sale anytime soon. But the attention Meta brings to the space could nonetheless benefit Snap as it tries to sell its vision for an AR-enabled world.

Here's what I made of Snap's new augmented reality Spectacles

Anyway. Snap announced a new version of its Spectacles today. These are AR glasses that could finally deliver on the promises devices like Magic Leap, or HoloLens, or even Google Glass made many years ago. I got to try them out a couple of weeks ago. They are pretty great! (But also: see above) The new 5th generation Spectacles can display visual information and applications directly on their see through lenses, making objects appear as if they are in the real world, with an interface powered by the company's new operating system, Snap OS. Unlike typical VR headsets or spatial computing devices, these augmented reality (AR) lenses don't obscure your vision and recreate it with cameras. There is no screen covering your field of view. Instead, images appear to float and exist in three dimensions in the world around you; hovering in the air or resting on tables and floors. Snap CTO Bobby Murphy described their intention to MIT Technology Review as "computing overlaid on the world that enhances our experience of the people in the places that are around us, rather than isolating us or taking us out of that experience." In my demo, I was able to stack LEGO on a table, smack an AR golf ball into a hole across the room (at least a triple bogey), paint flowers and vines across the ceilings and walls using my hands, and ask questions about the objects I was looking at and receive answers from Snap's virtual AI chatbot. There was even a little virtual purple dog-like creature from Niantic, a Peridot, that followed me around the room, and outside onto a balcony. But look up from the LEGO and you see a normal room. The golf ball is on the floor, not a virtual golf course. The Peridot perches on a real balcony railing. Crucially, this means you can maintain contact - including eye contact - with the people around you in the room. To accomplish all this, Snap packed a lot of tech into the frames. There are two processors embedded inside so all the compute happens in the glasses themselves. Cooling chambers in the sides did an effective job of dissipating heat in my demo. Four cameras capture the world around you, as well as the movement of your hands for gesture tracking. The images are displayed via micro-projectors, similar to those found in pico projectors, that do a nice job of presenting those three dimensional images right in front of your eyes without requiring a lot of initial setup. It creates a tall, deep field of view - Snap claims it is similar to a 100 inch display at 10 feet - in a relatively small, lightweight device (226 grams). What's more, they automatically darken when you step outside, so they work well not just in your home but out in the world. You control all this via a combination of voice and hand gestures, most of which came pretty naturally to me. You can pinch to select objects and drag them around, for example. The AI chatbot could respond to questions posed in natural language ("what's that ship I see in the distance?"). Some of the interactions require a phone - but for the most part Spectacles are a standalone device. It doesn't come cheap. Snap isn't selling the glasses directly to consumers, but rather requires you to agree to at least one year of paying $99 per month for a Spectacles Developer Program account which gives you access to them. I was assured that it has a very open definition of who can develop for the platform. Snap also announced a new partnership with OpenAI that takes advantage of its multi-modal capabilities, which it says will help developers create experiences with real-world context about the things people see or hear (or say). Having said that, it all worked together impressively well. The three-dimensional objects maintained a sense of permanence in the spaces you placed them -- meaning you can move around and they stay put. The AI assistant correctly identified everything I asked it to. There were some glitches here and there, LEGO bricks collapsing into each other for example, but for the most part this was a solid little device. It is not, however, a low-profile one. No one will mistake these for a normal pair of glasses or sunglasses. A colleague described them as beefed up 3D glasses, which seems about right. They are not the silliest computer I have put on my face, but they didn't exactly make me feel like a cool guy either. Here's a photo of me trying them out. Draw your own conclusions.

Snap's $1,200 AR Glasses Are Fun to Use, But Need More Apps

(Bloomberg) -- Snap Inc. is trying, again, to make smart glasses trendy. The social networking company has been building tech-infused frames for nearly a decade as it attempts to make money in new ways besides advertising. It's not alone. Amazon Inc., Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Meta Platforms Inc. have all tried to make smart glasses a thing, but none of them have gained much traction. For Snap, maybe the fifth time's the charm. The company's latest glasses, called AR Spectacles, let wearers take images or videos to send through the Snapchat app. They also include augmented reality technology that can overlay the world with digital filters. The glasses are mostly designed for software developers, who can get their hands on a pair by applying online and paying $99 per month for a minimum of 12 months. Snap hopes to eventually sell the glasses to regular consumers as well. Why Now? Most of Snap's $5 billion in revenue comes from advertising, but the company has been looking for other ways to make money. Chief Executive Officer Evan Spiegel has said he sees augmented reality, or AR, as a way to beat out the company's larger rivals, which includes Facebook and Instagram owner Meta. The company already sells ads on Snapchat that use AR, and also hopes to make money from hardware. Snap's glasses are clearly meant to compete with Meta, which released its latest smart glasses in partnership with Ray-Ban earlier this year. While Meta hasn't shared numbers, it keeps saying that sales of the glasses - which don't include AR but can take photos, record videos and play music - have been better than expected. News reports also suggest that Meta might unveil AR glasses at its annual developer conference next week. Snap isn't new to building smart glasses, but it's had trouble selling them. The company launched its first pair of video-recording sunglasses, called Spectacles, in 2016. The glasses initially got attention for their colorful frames and because they were sold through pop-up vending machines. But again, consumers didn't bite, and the company had to take a $40 million writedown on unsold inventory. What Works At first glance, Snap's AR Spectacles look and feel like normal sunglasses, with a black finish and rectangular frames. But they have much thicker bands and lenses to accommodate two Qualcomm chips, along with tiny projectors that place digital filters in front of a wearer's eyes. The glasses also have hand-tracking technology and augmented reality features that are powered by Snap OS, a new operating system the company designed. In addition to the glasses themselves, the package includes a lens cover, glasses case and USB charging cable. The AR Spectacles connect to your phone through the Snapchat app, so you don't need many accessories to get up and running. The frames have two physical buttons: one that lets you capture videos, and another that powers the device on and off. The glasses also include a blinking LED light that flashes whenever you're taking a photo or recording a video, as a courtesy to passersby. Other than those buttons, the glasses are controlled almost entirely by your hands. For most things you can use your hands like a computer cursor to select, drag, rotate or resize digital objects, among other actions. After an initial learning curve, I found the hand tracking technology mostly easy to use, a few hiccups notwithstanding. In a Lego game, for example, I was able to grab virtual lego bricks and stack them on top of each other using my hands. I also did boxing, played golf and walked a virtual dog. It was all genuinely fun, even if the selection was limited. The glasses were also easy to use inside or outside, because they seamlessly transition between clear lenses and tinted sunglasses. The Caveats Although the plastic-and-magnesium glasses are relatively sturdy, I found them to be bulky and heavy. They're not as cumbersome as, say, virtual reality headsets, but I still had trouble keeping them on my face. I also personally care a lot about fashion and am otherwise picky about my sunglasses, so when I first saw the clunky, geometric Spectacles, I wasn't excited to wear them. The AR Spectacles weren't actually made for people like me. Snap has made it clear that this is a beta product it's testing with developers, the folks who will ultimately design the apps that could make the glasses more compelling. It's an interesting strategy that explains some of the frustrations I had with the glasses, namely the limited content and high price point. Even for developers, the cost of the subscription still clocks in at nearly $1,200, which seems like a lot for a pair of glasses they won't actually own (and can't keep when they cancel the subscription). Even if a consumer wanted a pair, there's no way at the moment to buy the glasses outright and they're priced significantly higher than other smart glasses on the market. (Meta's glasses cost $300.) In order to use them, developers will have to apply through Snap's Lens Studio, the company's platform for making digital image filters. The Competition While there are some similar products that are available to consumers, including Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses and AI glasses from startups like Even Realities, many of them don't offer augmented reality technology. Apple Inc.'s Vision Pro headset, which also overlays digital filters onto the real world, could loosely be seen as a competitor, except it's more expensive at $3,499 and requires users to wear a large headset over their face. Snap's AR Spectacles are comparatively more affordable, but the experiences it offers aren't as distinctive. Ideally, smart glasses would look stylish enough to actually wear, but also let you listen to music, record videos and identify objects or people in real time. I just can't see them being super useful beyond that. That's where the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses have the leg up. Although they don't offer AR capabilities, they do a few practical things well, and that's their selling point. The Takeaway Snap has struggled to compete with rivals such as Meta, ByteDance Ltd.-owned TikTok and Google's YouTube, which have significantly larger advertising businesses. The company's stock is down more than 40% this year as the photo-sharing app has struggled to realize returns from its heavy investments in advertising technologies. It's an odd time to splurge on smart glasses that aren't popular with consumers yet. Especially when Snap is going up against Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses, which are much sleeker and have the pizazz that comes from partnering with a luxury eyewear brand. Not to mention, Meta has the extra cash to risk on side projects - the company's advertising business generates annual revenue of more than $130 billion, after all. With its rivals investing heavily in artificial intelligence, increasingly effective algorithmic feeds and core advertising technology, Snap's bet on pricey smart glasses that so far have had limited consumer adoption is a risky one.

I Tried Snap's New Standalone AR Glasses Which Do Mixed Reality, AI and Work Outdoors

Nearly 20 years writing about tech, and over a decade reviewing wearable tech, VR, and AR products and apps At a hotel in New York, I stood on a terrace on a warm September day, leaning over and petting an adorable pet that wasn't there. The virtual Peridot buddy jumped around and followed me. It's much like other virtual pets I've tried on phones and even headsets such as the Meta Quest 3. This time, I saw it projected through see-through lenses that auto-dimmed like sunglasses to make sure the virtual experience was clearly seen in bright daylight. All I wore was this pair of chunky but standalone glasses: Snap's new AR Spectacles. Are these the future of something I might wear someday? If so, how long will it take until that happens? I saw plenty of viral videos earlier this year of people wearing Apple's Vision Pro headset outside, for skiing, skating, in the park... wherever. The Vision Pro and Quest 3 headsets aren't made for everyday outdoor use, but Snap's AR Spectacles are. Announced at the company's developer conference in Los Angeles, California, they're the latest iteration of Spectacles Snap's made for years. Snap first created standalone AR glasses back in 2021; I tried those out in my backyard during the pandemic. The new Spectacles are larger, but they're also more powerful. They have hand gestures like the Vision Pro and Quest 3, and also a whole Snap OS that can run a browser, launch different apps and connect with nearby phones. These Snap glasses aren't even made for everyday people. They're developer hardware that's being offered on subscription, for $99 a month as part of Snap's developer kit. That's a sign that Snap knows the world isn't ready for AR glasses yet, and neither is consumer technology. Snap is getting a foot in the door a little ahead of competitors. Companies like Meta -- and likely Google and Apple -- are trying to get to smaller AR glasses that can overcome the chunkier limitations of mixed reality VR goggles. I've seen attempts to make glasses like these, but they usually have to tether to phones, computers or external processors of some sort to work and keep the glasses small. Snap's AR Spectacles put all the processing and battery right on the glasses -- nothing else is needed. That means they could be worn easily without any extra cables, but the Spectacles in their current form are chunky and much odder than any glasses I'd ever put on my face. The frames are thick, and the lenses still have rainbow-like patches in the middle where waveguides reflect virtual images projected from side-mounted LCOS miniprojectors. The battery life is also extremely limited. At around 45 minutes, these are far from anything for all-day use. Although, like the 2021 version of Snap's AR glasses, these are still designed for developers. According to Snap's CTO and co-founder Bobby Murphy, these are exploratory devices to see how Snap's existing AR-enabled lenses on the Snapchat phone app can make a useful leap into glasses form. This is the exact same approach Snap took back in 2021 but with a boost in processing power. Onboard are twin Qualcomm processors (I wasn't told which ones) that delivered some pretty crisp, if sometimes stuttery, graphics. The glasses only have a 46-degree viewing angle, which is OK for AR glasses but much less than VR headsets. It felt like I was watching mixed reality through a tall narrow window about the dimensions of a large phone screen. One big difference between my 2021 demo and now is prescription lens inserts. I had to wear contacts last time, but snap-on lenses similar to what Meta and Apple already offer will work for these Spectacles. Unfortunately, Snap didn't have my prescription during the demo, so my AR morning was a bit fuzzy. It was good enough to see experiences. Snap's Spectacles use external cameras to track the world but add hand tracking like the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest headsets. I was able to tap virtual buttons, pet virtual creatures, paint in the air or pinch things at a distance. Snap OS has a dashboard of apps that floats in the air, plus virtual buttons that appear over my hand when I flip it over. The Spectacles do not have eye tracking, so selecting objects takes a little more effort than Apple's glance-to-select Vision Pro. Phones can connect with the glasses too, offering another way to interact. One thing that's different about Snap's approach compared to Meta or even Apple right now is it's interconnected with phones. I tried several demos where I used a nearby phone to control AR experiences on the glasses. I used a phone like a remote to fly an AR helicopter around the room, using on-screen buttons for controls. I also held a phone like a golf club and swung to tee off in an AR golf course that looked like it was half-teleporting into the hotel room I was in. Snap's Snapchat phone app will manage the glasses and also allow anyone else to connect and view the AR experiences I'm seeing on the glasses. According to Snap, the longer-term goal is to have phones using Snapchat interact with these glasses. "We definitely think there's a lot of open space to continue to explore that connection between phones and Spectacles," Snap's Murphy says to me. In the short term, the glasses are only made to work with other AR Spectacles wearers, and probably with good reason: Phone OSes don't play well with AR glasses yet. Both Apple and Google haven't made moves to make headsets and glasses feel truly integrated, and until they do, other companies are facing a compatibility bottleneck unless they use dedicated phone apps or, like Xreal, build their own custom phone-like hardware. Even then, the connectivity isn't ideal. Snap already has a deep range of AR tools on its Snapchat phone app, from world-scanning collaborative experiences to location-specific AR. Snap's AR chops have improved since 2021, and these new glasses could take advantage of that. One thing I tried was collaborative painting. I used my fingers to draw in the air while one of Snap's team drew alongside me, wearing another pair of Spectacles. The glasses can recognize another nearby wearer and share an experience or even collaborate to scan a room with the four onboard cameras into a mesh for mixed reality. Connecting in the hotel room wasn't always instant, but that glasses-to-glasses collaboration is a big part of the pitch here. Snap aims to have multiplayer experiences with groups happen in outdoor areas, maybe even museums or art shows, to test out how well these can work for live immersive activations. A Lego brick-building experience was simple, but it showed possibilities if a bunch of people could make a site-specific sculpture together. These glasses, made to be worn outdoors, have auto-dimming lenses similar to the tech on Magic Leap 2. The Magic Leap 2 has a large external clip-on processor. Some of the early partners Snap is working with include Niantic -- best known for Pokémon Go and a company that's also been exploring a future of outdoor AR glasses for years. Another partner, ILM Immersive, already made Star Wars and Marvel experiences on VR and mixed reality headsets. Snap's also partnering with OpenAI, a move that hardly seems surprising for 2024. This spring, a wave of camera-equipped AI wearables, including Meta's Ray-Bans and the Humane AI Pin, tried to show promises of "multimodal" generative AI that could access cameras and audio inputs together for assistance or for generative AI creative apps. Mixed reality headsets like the Meta Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro haven't tapped into camera-enabled AI yet because camera permissions have been more locked down for developers. Snap's opening up its camera access more: OpenAI hook-ins can use the glasses' cameras and microphones for generative AI lens apps similar to what's available now on Snapchat's phone app. (Snap's also enabling camera access for AR apps, but online access is locked down for those apps, while camera access is open online for OpenAI connections). "Where people may want to use external services, we'll exercise more caution and control and work potentially with developers or third-party service providers to build those kinds of safeguards," Murphy says. On the Snapchat phone app, there already are generative AI tools that use the camera. We may finally see some of these make the move to glasses now, too. I tried generating some 3D emoji using Snap's generative AI, as well as navigating an educational solar system lens app that took my requests using my voice. I found responses during my demos were laggy, and the glasses didn't always understand what I was saying (although that was potentially the connection in the hotel room, or something else). Snap's opening up of camera access to AI-infused AR feels a step ahead of where Meta and Apple are currently. That could change soon, though: Meta is imminently expected to showcase new AI and AR updates, while Apple could introduce Apple Intelligence features on Vision Pro next year.

Snap Is Trying to Make Computers Fun Again

Today, Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, one of the most popular social-media apps for teenage users, is announcing a new computer that you wear directly on your face. The latest in its Spectacles line of smart glasses, which the company has been working on for about a decade, shows you interactive imagery through its lenses, placing plants or imaginary pets or even a golf-putting range into the real world around you. So-called augmented reality (or AR) is nothing new, and neither is wearable tech. Meta makes a pair of smart glasses in partnership with Ray-Ban, and claims they're so popular that the company can't make them fast enough. Amazon sells an Alexa-infused version of the famous Carrera frames, which make you look like a mob boss with access to an AI assistant (Alexa, where's the best place to hide a body?). Apple launched its Vision Pro headset -- which includes an AR mode, along with a fully immersive virtual-reality one -- last year. And who could forget Google Glass? Consumers have sometimes been cool on the face computers, if not outright hostile toward them, but tech companies just can't seem to quit the idea. From that perspective, it makes sense that Snap's new Spectacles are more a demonstration of intent than an actual product: They're targeted to developers who will apply and pay $99 a month to use them. But this is also, arguably, what makes them interesting. In an interview last week, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel told me that he sees smart glasses as an opportunity to "reshape what a computer is, to make it something that actually keeps us grounded in the real world rather than behind a screen." The company hasn't accomplished this so far, of course, but the new Spectacles -- and all those other smart glasses and AR headsets -- are not being released into a void. They're arriving at a moment when people are feeling pretty turned off by phones. People are angsty about how much time they spend looking down at small screens rather than engaging with the world around them. Parents are concerned that phones are driving a teen mental-health crisis. Smartphone sales have slowed, and even the latest iPhone isn't doing great. Companies are trying to get people excited about technology again, by pitching all sorts of new hardware ideas that break the bounds of that rectangular screen, such as lapel pins or glorified walkie-talkies that work with AI assistants. I had this moment in mind as I wore the new Spectacles earlier this month, batting colorful digital blobs away while Paramore's "Misery Business" played in the background. Among all the new glasses options, the Spectacles are distinct. They are oriented less toward utility -- say, asking Alexa to set a timer -- and more toward fun. In doing so, they offer a very specific formulation for the future of computing: that it should be amusing and connective. "If we look at the history of computers, they've actually always kept us indoors, taken us away from people that we love," Spiegel told me. Growing up, he explained, he loved computers, but he had to go to the computer lab to use them, which meant forgoing the opportunity to hang out with friends during recess. He thinks smart glasses are an opportunity to reinvent screens by integrating computers more naturally into one's life. But Spectacles are still far from perfect. For starters, they are notably heavy. When I tried the glasses, they got warm to the touch after use, despite Snap's assurances that it had invested in a state-of-the-art cooling system. They support up to 45 minutes of continuous usage, which isn't very long. They reminded me of snorkeling goggles. You absolutely could not wear them in daily life without someone asking you what exactly you've got on your head. Their lenses can be dimmed to look like sunglasses, or made clear so people can still see your eyes. The glasses are controlled by your hands, held out in front of you. You pinch your index finger and your thumb together to "click." (The onboarding process involves practicing by popping bubbles floating a few feet from your face.) Mostly, they're fun. Snapchat is famously popular with young people, and the glasses feel like a piece of hardware designed for this audience -- closer to a Nintendo Switch than a Google Glass. In one game developed in partnership with Lego, you can project virtual bricks onto your kitchen table and move them around to build different creations. Ask it for an additional small blue brick, and one appears before you. In collaboration with Niantic, the company behind Pokémon Go, Snap is also launching a game called Peridot Beyond that lets you care for virtual pets. Perhaps most important, at least when it comes to Spiegel's bigger vision, the Spectacles can sync together, so that multiple people can see the same digital creations at once. In one experience, called Imagine Together, users can shout words to create cartoons that then appear in little bubbles on the screen. "Imagine a fox!" you might say, and then a small fox appears, floating in a bubble in midair between you and your friend. Read: The Apple Vision Pro is spectacular and sad Spiegel, who has four children, dreams that someday he'll see his kids playing together in augmented reality. I asked him what he might say to parents who would be nervous about their children adding an additional level of computing into their daily life. (Parents are already plenty concerned about screen time as is, without the screens being barely an inch from their teens' faces.) What would he say to the parents who just want their kids to go outside? Spiegel countered that he is a go-outside-and-play parent himself -- but argued that the glasses could make playing together outside more fun. At times, I found the Spectacles genuinely amusing, in a way the current Meta and Alexa glasses aren't. And yet, they still don't feel essential. Any device that's hoping to disrupt the smartphone will have to be extremely good. Whether smart glasses are indeed the future of computing will depend on whether someone can make a pair that's useful in day-to-day life. Spectacles aren't there yet; they're more novelty than utility. But the philosophical argument they make is a provocative one, even if it's just that right now -- an argument. Like the imaginary pet I saw while wearing them, it technically exists, but just barely.