Snap launches new Spectacles for AR developers

Snap's fifth-generation Spectacles have a sharper, more immersive display. They're faster to use. They weigh less than their predecessor and last longer on a charge.

Those are exactly the improvements you'd expect from a product line that's technically eight years old. But the market for Spectacles (and augmented reality glasses in general) remains as nascent as ever.

Snap has an idea to change that: developers. These new Spectacles, announced Tuesday at Snap’s annual Partner Summit in Los Angeles, won’t be sold. Instead, Snap is repeating its strategy for the latest version of Spectacles in 2021 and distributing them to people who make augmented reality lenses for Snapchat. This time, though, there’s an additional hurdle: You have to request access through Lens Studio, the company’s desktop tool for creating augmented reality software, and pay $1,188 to rent a pair for at least a year. (After a year, the subscription drops to $99 a month.)

Yes, Snap is asking developers to pay $1,188 to build software for hardware without a user base. Still, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel thinks the interest will be there.

“Our goal is to really empower and inspire the developer and AR enthusiast communities,” he tells me. “This is really an invitation and hopefully an inspiration to create.”

Without the vibrant developer ecosystem Snap wants to create, my demo of the new Spectacles looked a lot like the one for the latest Spectacles from 2021. One lens showed flowers growing where you point your hands, while another showed the anatomy of a human body in 3D space. I could open a browser and load this same website in a floating window.

While the Spectacles’ hardware has improved, the software is still pretty basic for a standalone device. In this case, it’s obvious that Snap is hoping developers will help it find compelling use cases. Overall, everything I experienced was in line with what I’ve come to expect from AR hardware demos over the years: lightweight, gimmicky apps that show off the hardware, but aren’t experiences I’d return to in my free time.

There were a few new apps to try out, like Snap’s OpenAI-powered chatbot, My ai, though I didn’t have much time to test it out. A new augmented reality lens I tried out used OpenAI’s technology to generate 3D animations based on voice prompts. There was notably little integration between the OS and Snapchat, aside from displaying Bitmojis for account profiles. (You can apparently call someone who uses Snapchat through the glasses, but that wasn’t part of my demo.)

The first thing you notice when you put on the new Spectacles is the improved display quality and interface. Colors are more vibrant and the resolution is higher. The Snap OS that powers the glasses has been completely revamped and looks much more polished, though it's still basic. The primary way to navigate the Spectacles is through hand tracking and voice control, which sometimes felt inherently slow, but never dragged out in a way that felt like a glitch.

Snap claims this model features a 46-degree field of view (up from 26.3 degrees on the previous version), and that its waveguide displays show 37 pixels per degree — a measurement Snap believes is the correct way to gauge augmented reality display quality, which is about 25 percent richer than before. The glasses’ physical lenses automatically tint when you look in direct sunlight, allowing you to see what’s being projected onto your surroundings while you’re outdoors.

During my demo, the field of view was noticeably wider than before, but still nowhere near what you’d expect from looking through a regular pair of glasses. More disconcertingly, Snap’s own demos emphasized this fact: One golf simulator I tried was limited to a frustratingly small area of ​​the real world around me. Ultimately, this limited field of view makes augmented reality considerably less engaging than the real world — which, in turn, makes strapping a 124-gram pair of smart glasses to your face feel unnecessary.

Snap has invested heavily in improving Spectacles' hardware. There are two liquid crystal and silicon projectors on either side of the frame that direct graphics to custom waveguides. Two custom Qualcomm Snapdragon processors distribute power and heat across the frames, aided by a vapor chamber in each temple. And two infrared sensors track hand movements to control the glasses with Minority Report-Pinch and pull style gestures.

The fourth-generation Spectacles from 2021 overheated several times during my testing, but this latest version didn’t crash once, even when I used them outdoors during a record-breaking heat wave in Los Angeles. Snap says battery life has improved from about 30 to 45 minutes on a single charge. A USB-C cable is included, allowing for continuous power when plugged into the temple of the glasses.

While Snap has vague ideas about what Spectacles should be used for, it’s clearly leaving most potential use cases to developers. “We’re trying to be the most developer-friendly platform in the world,” says Spiegel, who adds that he doesn’t think Spectacles will be a significant business until later in the decade. (Snap won’t disclose how many pairs of Spectacles it’s making, but my sources estimate the number will be somewhere in the region of 10,000.)

Snap launched the first pair of Spectacles in 2016. Since then, major players, notably Meta, have signaled that they are making AR glasses as well. Apple is working on them separately from Vision Pro, and Google is developing AR glasses with Magic Leap and Samsung. When I ask Spiegel about the growing competition, he simply replies, “Sorry, and who among them has AR glasses?”

It’s a point it won’t be able to repeat for much longer. Meta will show off its prototype augmented reality glasses, code-named Orion, at its Connect conference next week. (Like Spectacles, they won’t be sold commercially.) In the meantime, Meta has had early success with its smart glasses partnership with Ray-Ban. On Tuesday, it announced a new 10-year deal to make smart glasses with Ray-Ban’s parent company, eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica.

Ultimately, I'm skeptical as to why developers would want to build software for Spectacles right now, given the lack of a market and the cost of gaining access to a pair. Still, Spiegel believes many of them are excited by the promise of augmented reality glasses and will want to help shape that future.

“I think it’s the same reason developers were so excited about the first desktop computers or the first smartphones,” he says. “I think this is a group of visionary technologists who are very excited about what the future holds.”

Spiegel may be right. Augmented reality glasses may be the future, and Spectacles may be well positioned to become the next major computing platform, even with competition mounting. But there's still a lot of work to be done to make Snap's vision a reality.