Snap’s SPECS Put Capable Augmented Reality Into a Pair of Glasses You Can Actually Buy

Snap started taking preorders today for its first consumer augmented reality glasses. Called SPECS, the new hardware carries a $2,195 price tag and ships this fall in the United States, United Kingdom, and France. The company built these as a standalone wearable computer that overlays digital content onto the real world without requiring any extra battery pack, wristband, or tethered device.

Wide, bold frames provide the visual tone. There are two sizes: 47 millimeters (132 grams) and 52 millimeters (136 grams). Both make use of the Swiss TR90 polymer, which is lightweight and durable. People who require vision correction can slide removable prescription inserts into place. The overall design is bulky rather than trying to disappear, as with typical sunglasses. Visible cameras are located on the front and sides, and when recording begins, a little LED bar lights up in the center.

The display system uses proprietary liquid crystal on silicon microdisplays in conjunction with a modified waveguide. Content appears in a 51-degree field of vision with 16 million colors. Snap-tuned the optics allow a floating window to feel around the size of a 24-inch desktop monitor or expand to the equivalent of a 115-inch screen when viewed from about ten feet away. A particular electrochromic coating allows the glasses to transition from clear to colored in around 10 seconds. Motion-to-photon latency is set at 7 milliseconds, preventing virtual objects from swimming around as you tilt your head.

Two Snapdragon processors divide the workload. One does computer vision tasks such as understanding the room, tracking hands, and mapping surfaces. The other manages the actual AR experiences. This segmentation allows for rapid gesture responses while keeping most processing on the device itself. A full charge for the glasses provides up to four hours of mixed use, including video playing, AI help, Lens experiences, and Bluetooth notifications. The bundled charging case stores enough power for four further charges, increasing the overall runtime to 20 hours before anything needs to be plugged into a socket.

A magnetic cable links to the side of the frames, allowing you to charge or stream material from a nearby phone, laptop, or console. You don’t need a companion app to get started. The cameras provide hand tracking and location awareness, allowing digital pieces to sit organically on tables, walls, and in open space. Lens Studio, Snap’s long-running AR creation platform, has already generated hundreds of pre-built experiences. Developers have devised tools for measuring rooms without using tape, displaying step-by-step instructions exactly where you work, watching private video screens, working on shared 3D models, and even launching multiplayer games when two SPECS users make eye contact.

Contextual AI is crucial to many different types of interactions. The system can identify items or scenarios in front of you and provide relevant assistance without requiring you to pull out your phone or enter anything. Social features focus on being present with those around you rather than dragging them into a full-fledged virtual environment. Snap has often stated that they want to bring technology into the real world, not a wholly virtual one. There are some significant privacy precautions built in, like a visible recording light and user options for determining what data is saved or shared. The majority of the heavy lifting occurs on the glasses themselves, a design choice that the company claims is all about developing trust from the start.

To preorder for $2,195, you must pay a $200 deposit, which can be done at specs.com. These glasses fall halfway between the ultra lightweight smart glasses that only give you a small notification and the more full-fledged mixed reality headsets that attempt to completely take you into a different world. The custom lenses, dual processors, and the fact that they were designed to be worn for hours on end all contribute to the high cost of these devices.