GoKawiilEarlier this year, I went to a play in New York where all the actors were prerecorded volumetric 3D ghosts. The experience -- called An Ark -- ran on years-old Magic Leap 2 glasses tethered to my seat, and didn't work with my eye prescription.
It doesn't have to be that difficult. A new generation of smart glasses is on the way that might help.
Case in point: Snap Specs, arriving this fall for $2,195. They're big, chunky glasses that promise to blend virtual content into the real world without needing a phone, with decent battery life and a design that may work better with prescription fits.
Odds are you won't be buying a pair of $2,000-plus AR glasses for everyday life. However, I have a funny feeling that Snap's Specs could end up in art museums, theme parks and pop-up experiences where people can try them out. And Snap could end up with a head start on companies including Meta, Samsung and even Apple, all of which have ambitions in this area, too.
"For the first time in a wearable pair of glasses, computing's leaving these little rectangles [phones], and it's going to be in the world with you," Snap's CEO Evan Spiegel told me in a conversation about Snap's announcement Tuesday at the Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California.
A lot of big tech companies are selling smart glasses, including Meta and, starting this year, Samsung and Google. But most either have simple heads-up displays for phone notifications or no displays at all. I haven't tried Snap's latest Specs yet -- according to Spiegel, demos will be available later this year.
But I've tried the company's developer-focused AR Spectacles several times over the last few years, and they float 3D experiences into a room much like Magic Leap and Microsoft Hololens headsets did in years past, with hand tracking to control experiences like with the Apple Vision Pro, Samsung Galaxy XR or Meta Quest headsets.
While these look big, they also don't look as bizarre as the Snap developer Spectacles I've worn before. Snap
How big are Snap's Specs?
You might think $2,000 is an absurd price for glasses, which tend to cost anywhere from $300 to $800. But it's right in the range of high-end mixed reality headsets such as the Samsung Galaxy XR ($1,900) and Apple Vision Pro ($3,500). Unlike those headsets -- or smart glasses from Google and Meta -- Spiegel thinks Snap's Specs can go it on their own, with a bespoke OS and no need for a phone.
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