Key Takeaways
- Snap plans to unveil the new AR Spectacles at its next Partner Summit event on September 17, 2024.
- To be competitive, the next generation of AR Spectacles will need to offer improved battery life and viewing angles, multiple frame styles, and the ability to function as open-ear headphones.
- Snap needs to be more clear about its plans for consumer AR hardware.
Meta isn’t the only company looking at augmented reality. Snap, the maker of the social camera app Snapchat, has been exploring how to use AR for just as long. Its most popular version is Snapchat’s lenses, which you can overlay on what you see on your phone, but the company showed its AR ambitions are even bigger in 2021 with the launch of AR Spectacles. And the next version of Snap’s AR Spectacles is coming soon.
The Verge reports that Snap plans to show off new AR Spectacles at its Partner Summit event on September 17, 2024. Snap’s first AR Spectacles were not sold to the public, but were only available to developers. Hands-on testing of the first AR glasses found shortcomings, including a narrow field of view and even shorter battery life. These new glasses should be an improvement, but if we could choose, here’s what we’d like to see from Snap’s next AR Spectacles:
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1 Snap’s new AR spectacle will come in multiple styles
Glasses are ultimately a fashion
Snap/Pocket Lint
The original Snap AR Spectacles were impressive, but not particularly stylish: Snap’s developer-only AR glasses were thick, black, and very angular, just big enough to fit over your eyes, with large temples to control how the AR lenses looked.
It’s unclear how much of a compromise AR Spectacles are, given how tricky it is to combine the optics, cameras, and battery capacity needed to achieve AR effects, but they’re certainly not as sophisticated as Snap’s previous camera glasses.
It would be nice if the company’s new glasses could return to the high-fashion look of the 3rd generation Spectacles, but Snap should at least offer multiple frame styles to choose from. Sunglasses are functional, but they’re also a fashion item, and Snap seems to believe that hardware is still the company’s future. Take inspiration from the 2nd generation Spectacles and offer multiple options.
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2 Snap’s next AR glasses need to improve battery life and viewing angle
Meaningful technical improvements needed
Snap/Pocket Lint
Making AR glasses is hard, but you know what else is hard? Getting excited about an augmented reality experience that doesn’t take up a large portion of your field of view. According to Snap’s developer documentation, the first AR Spectacles will only have a field of view of 26.3 degrees.
That’s narrow compared to the 180-plus degree field of view of natural human vision, and the 110-degree horizontal field of view of Meta’s Quest 3 VR headset. And when you consider the AR Spectacles’ battery life, which Engadget describes as “extremely limited,” it all seems like a disappointing first foray into AR.
Luckily, things might be different this time: The Verge reports that the new AR Spectacles will have improved battery life and field of view, which will hopefully make a meaningful difference to how Spectacles will be used.
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3 Snap’s next AR spectacle could double as open-ear headphones
Can you please explain where to place them when AR is off?
The best thing Meta has done for its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses is make them great Bluetooth headphones.
Not everyone will feel comfortable with a camera attached to their face and talking to the Meta AI, but most people prefer to listen to music and take calls through Bluetooth headphones. After all, Meta’s smart glasses are perfect for that.
For now, Snap’s AR Spectacles’ stereo speakers are only for the augmented reality experience, and don’t function as a microphone for conference calls or headphones for listening to podcasts on your commute. The next version should function as Bluetooth headphones that work with all of your phone’s features, or at the very least, Snap will sell a cheaper, non-AR version of Spectacles with that functionality.
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4 Snap’s AR spectacles should have a deeper connection to smartphones
Reply to messages
Snap/Pocket Lint
The main connection between Snap’s Spectacles and your smartphone, with or without AR, will show up in your Bluetooth settings and in the Snapchat app.
That simplicity makes Spectacles easy to use, but it also makes it hard to justify wearing them if you want to do anything other than look at AR images and take photos. Some of the experimental use cases AR creators have created are compelling, but more everyday uses are worthwhile too.
Ideally, the next AR Spectacles will be more tightly integrated with the rest of your phone’s functionality — maybe they’ll be able to read out or reply to notifications, but at the very least they’ll be more integrated with Snapchat itself. It would make sense to see some form of My AI, Snapchat’s chat-focused AI assistant, in the next Spectacles, but why not go further?
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5 Developers and early adopters will be able to purchase Snap’s AR Spectacles
It may be expensive, but it’s an option to consider.
All indications are that Snap will keep the new AR Spectacles limited to developers and partners, as it has in the past. A report from The Verge even suggests the company will only make 10,000 or fewer. But it would be great to see Snap go a step further. The new Snap AR Spectacles will likely be more expensive to manufacture, but rather than not offering them at all, it should offer a limited number of AR Spectacles for early adopters who want to try them out.
Snap’s original Spectacles were popular because of their scarcity — they were previously only available through specialized vending machines — and while the company has phased that out in favor of more traditional online sales, that doesn’t mean it can’t use the same idea to drive interest in a new kind of device that it’s clearly interested in.
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Snap needs a clearer plan for its AR hardware
The AR spectacle will likely remain a curiosity until the technology (or Snap’s financial situation) changes. But even if the company doesn’t plan to do anything beyond demoing the new AR spectacle, it would be nice to get some hints at the possibility of these glasses becoming a consumer product. How does Snap envision people using these glasses? And what can they be used for when you don’t want to look at Snapchat lenses all day? I really hope Snap answers some of these questions.
