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Snapchat’s parent company, Snap Inc., has unveiled its new augmented reality (AR) smart glasses, a decade after its original hardware push resulted in significant financial losses.

Unveiled by chief executive Evan Spiegel at the Augmented World Expo in California, the eyewear, named SPECS, represents a strategic move toward standalone wearable technology. Priced at £1,995 in the UK and $2,195 in the US, pre-orders have opened with a $200 refundable deposit ahead of shipping this autumn.

SPECS feature see-through lenses powered by an AI assistant and dual Snapdragon processors, allowing users to play AR games, get directions, watch videos, and overlay digital elements onto the physical world. Built-in privacy features, including a glowing outer LED indicator light, have been integrated to alert bystanders when the device is recording.

Standalone alternative 

The price tag positions Snap’s hardware between existing competitors. While SPECS are cheaper than Apple’s home-focused Vision Pro headset ($3,499), they cost substantially more than Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, which start at $224.

However, Snap aims to differentiate itself through mobility and standalone functionality. Unlike Meta’s current audio-centric glasses, SPECS feature integrated, transparent AR displays. Crucially, they function independently, requiring no tether to a smartphone or a wired connection to an external battery pack, as is the case with Apple’s headset.

Market analysts note that the premium price point may limit adoption among Snap’s core demographic of younger consumers. There are also hardware trade-offs with an untethered design limiting battery life to an average of four hours on a single charge (though an included charging case provides up to 20 hours of total power).

The launch represents an effort to move past historical manufacturing challenges. Snap’s initial 2016 foray into wearables, the camera-equipped Spectacles, resulted in a $40 million (£30 million) write-down due to excess inventory and cancelled orders. While subsequent iterations in 2018 and 2019 failed to gain mainstream traction, Spiegel frames the new standalone SPECS as the foundation for future iterations.

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