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Snap is opening the floodgates. After a few years in developer-only territory, Spectacles will be available to consumers next year, along with a name change. Known simply as Specs, they were just announced by Evan Spiegel from the AWE stage, where we’re sitting front row.
“Specs are coming next year,” he said, “in a much smaller form factor, at a fraction of the weight, with a ton more capability.”
This is a long-anticipated move. Spectacles Gen 4 launched in 2022 as Snap’s first AR glasses with a display system. Prior-model Spectacles (Gen 3 and before) were camera glasses. But Gen 4 was only available to developers – a status inherited by Gen 5, launched in September 2024.
That Gen 5 model is the baseline for consumer Specs, but in a streamlined version per Spiegel’s comment. And though we don’t know specifications (Specs’ specs), we do know that they’ll be full-featured dimensional AR in terms of scene understanding. More on that in a bit.
Beyond hardware features, use cases are a key variable. For that, Snap sent us a few examples of the apps and experiences built so far for Spectacles Gen 5. Listed below, these are examples of what we’ll likely see (or exactly what we’ll see) in next year’s consumer Specs.
- Super Travel from Gowaaa helps global travelers translate signs, menus, and receipts; and convert currencies.
- Drum Kit from Paradiddle teaches new drummers how to play by overlaying cues on a real drum set and listening to the notes.
- Pool Assist from Studio ANRK helps players make better shots in pool.
- Cookmate from Headraft finds recipes based on available ingredients and provides step-by-step cooking guidance in the kitchen.
- Wisp World from Liquid City brings you on whimsical adventures to playfully explore
the world around you.
Feedback Loop
One question from all the above is why now? Stepping back, the reason for Spectacles developer-only play was to get them into the hands of creators to jumpstart a content ecosystem. This is Snap’s playbook: With 400,000 creators, it has scaled mobile AR to the tune of 4 million lenses.
The move to go developer-only was also to learn from creators in an ongoing feedback loop. Because AR glasses are so early – in both technological development and cultural acclimation – Snap wanted to stress test them in real-world conditions and internalize ongoing design insights.
From all that, it appears that Snap is now at a stage when it has optimized Spectacles to the point that it’s ready to let them loose on the world. And of course, the other “why now” factor is AI. Its infusions with AR unlock heightened capability to sense the world and interact with it.
That can already be seen in the lenses outlined above. Spiegel likewise specified AI infusions with Snap OS today (Specs’ operating system). Those include OpenAI and Gemini integrations for multimodal AI lenses, and a new depth module for dimensional object anchoring.
“Specs understand the world around you with advanced machine learning,” said Spiegel, “bring AI assistance into three-dimensional space, enable shared games and experiences with friends, and provide a flexible and powerful workstation for browsing, streaming, and more.”
Understand & Interact
Back to device tiers, Specs could enter the market uncontested. In other words, there are few dimensional AR glasses marketed to consumers. Again, this refers to AR that understands and interacts with its surroundings, in this case via optical see-through (OST) glasses.
Most devices with that combination of attributes are enterprise-grade, such as Magic Leap 2. Meanwhile, consumer OST dimensional-AR glasses include the venerable Tilt Five, but that’s a different use case in terms of a seated UX versus Specs’ untethered mobility.
Elsewhere, we’ve seen dimensional AR in prototypes, such as Meta Orion. But those won’t be hitting the market next year. And Meta’s project Hypernova appears to be an OST device but with a simpler flat-AR display system, as opposed to dimensional and world-interactive AR.
The same appears to be the case with Xreal’s Project Aura and other Android XR endpoints. Then there’s the class of video-passthrough mixed-reality devices like Quest 3, Apple Vision Pro, and the upcoming Project Moohan. Those have dimensional AR but in a bulky VR vessel.
So here we are, at a turning point for Spectacles. We don’t know a specific date beyond sometime in 2026, but that still gives us something to latch on to. Our research arm ARtillery Intelligence has already started reworking its projections for consumer-scale Specs sales.
Specs also notably enter the market as things heat up between Meta, Google, and Apple’s next moves, which could create some “lift all boats” momentum. We’ll know more as time goes on, but for now, this is a notable move in the lifecycle of Spectacles and AR in general.
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