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After losing $40 million on a failed attempt to launch a pair of video-recording sunglasses almost a decade ago, and several follow-up iterations failing to catch on either, Snapchat parent company Snap is doubling down with an extremely expensive pair of augmented reality glasses it’s calling Specs.
The glasses, which were unveiled during a presentation on Tuesday, come with a hefty price tag of $2,195 and happen to be unfathomably colossal as well, a questionable design choice that invited plenty of mockery online.
During a subsequent tech convention in California, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel sported a pair of the oversized goggles, which feature a cartoonishly large frame with reflective lenses that seemingly do little to obscure the fact that people wearing them are being bombarded with visual information.
Evan Spiegel showing off the new Specs AR glasses to the public for the first time. pic.twitter.com/pCYBLU9xxH — Nathie @ AWE (@NathieVR) June 16, 2026
“I can feel the headache and ear pain by just looking at these,” one user tweeted.
“Looks like 3D glasses at an IMAX theater,” another argued.
“Who the hell designed this monstrosity?” another wrote.
Investors were equally unimpressed, with Snap shares plunging nearly 30 percent following Tuesday’s announcement, a brutal reality check for the struggling social media platform.
Snap is advertising the goggles as a way to “help people connect more deeply with one another,” with Spiegel heralding the “beginning of a new era in computing.” The Specs can show directions or answer questions about what the wearer is looking at, an already-familiar playbook.
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