smartphones<\/a>‘ impact on mental health and advancements in AI have spawned a wave of products that aim to dethrone phones as the central gadget in daily life.<\/p>\nAmong the more successful are Meta’s Ray-Ban smartglasses, whose top model has only a small display for text and navigation prompts and lacks full augmented reality \u2014 technology that overlays digital content onto a user’s real-world view.<\/p>\n
To outshine rivals, Snap has made Specs far lighter than the \u200cVision Pro and more capable than Meta’s glasses, which \u2060have been developed with EssilorLuxottica and weigh roughly half as much as Specs.<\/p>\n
Initially available in black, Specs resemble a pair of chunky retro sunglasses with thick frames and need no external battery pack or accessories, such as a puck for hand gesture control.<\/p>\n
Through \u2060their AR lenses, they can overlay digital content onto the wearer’s view of the real world, projecting walking directions on streets, fetching AI-powered answers mid-task or letting them stream content and open a virtual whiteboard.<\/p>\n
Developers have built AR experiences ranging from an immersive Apollo 11 recreation to PuttView golf guidance, and Specs also have other smartglass features such as capturing \u200bvideo.<\/p>\n
“We \u200bwanted to build a totally new type of computer,” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel told Reuters.<\/p>\n
He \u200bsaid the company developed new technology across nearly every component, from \u200ca custom display and lens layer delivering a wide field of view to software optimized for low-power chips that extends battery life without adding bulk.<\/p>\n
Specs offer the capability of some “more expensive headsets with the wearability of smart glasses at a more accessible price point,” Spiegel said.<\/p>\n
The glasses are far cheaper than the $3,499 Vision Pro but pricier than Meta’s $379-to-$799 range, which may limit consumer adoption.<\/p>\n
“The price point is still a bit on the high end of what consumers expect from AR glasses,” said Anshel Sag, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.<\/p>\n
But he said “building full AR glasses is extremely difficult and expensive, and for Snap to be among the first is a \u200cbig deal,” noting that Specs’ operating system is “undervalued” and key to the product.<\/p>\n
Shares of Snap \u200bwere up more than 3% after the announcement.<\/p>\n
MEMORY CHIP CRUNCH IMPACT, FOCUS ON DEVELOPERS<\/p>\n
Spiegel said the memory \u200bchip cost surge “has been quite impactful” and Snap wants to offer cheaper \u200bversions in the future, though it has not disclosed how much memory Specs carry.<\/p>\n
Powered by two Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, Specs offer \u200cup to four hours of battery life and come with a \u200bcharging case that provides four additional charges. \u200bThey are expected to ship this fall in the U.S., UK and France, with wider availability tied to pre-order demand.<\/p>\n
Snap is initially focusing on developers key to building AR experiences. It said “hundreds of thousands” already use its Lens Studio and it is rolling out app-building tools through Claude Code, Codex \u200band Cursor, among other features.<\/p>\n
That could prove crucial as \u200ccompetition intensifies.<\/p>\n
Google partnered with Warby Parker late last year to launch AI-powered smartglasses, while Apple is developing a pair that could arrive as \u200bsoon as next year, according to Bloomberg News.<\/p>\n
OpenAI<\/a>, which acquired former Apple designer Jony Ive’s startup, has also considered building glasses, the Information \u200bhas reported.<\/p>\n(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh and Aditya Soni in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jaspreet Singh and Aditya Soni June 16 (Reuters) – Snap on Tuesday launched its first augmented-reality glasses…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4116,49,48,151882,80660,110404,9255,20789,61],"class_list":["post-740917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-augmented-reality","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-evan-spiegel","tag-glasses","tag-smartglasses","tag-snap","tag-specs","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}