Although Snap has not yet disclosed the specific apps or features that wearers can access via their Specs, the new Specs.com site features examples of real-time translations, directions, and hands-free calls overlaid across the lenses. Unlike Snap’s OG smart glasses and Meta’s Ray-Ban AI glasses, the focus is less on content capture and more on real-time everyday assistance.
“With Specs, AI is not intelligence trapped in a chatbox,” Spiegel said in a note announcing the product. “It is intelligence that can see what you see, understand what you’re trying to do, and help you in the moment.” It comes at a time when consumers are growing wary of smartphones and their addictive applications, and paying significant money for devices and offline initiatives that help limit their screen time. But there’s little evidence to suggest that consumers will warm to a new device that brings all these applications even closer to their faces.
What else is out there?
Meta’s Ray-Ban Display AI glasses are smaller and lighter than Snap’s new specs, more closely resembling ordinary Ray-Ban glasses. Snap has also followed Meta’s lead with an LED light that indicates when the wearer is recording in the glasses’ in-built camera — a feature that wearers will likely be able to easily circumvent as they have with Meta’s, causing privacy concerns among those in the wearer’s vicinity. Snap says that its new Specs process data on-device, and that wearers will be able to control what gets stored, synced, shared, or deleted.
By including a larger AR display and more immersive features, Snap’s Specs integrate some elements of Apple’s Vision Pro headset into a much smaller product. Where Apple’s headsets impressed the market with their computing power, they’ve failed to take off among consumers, largely due to their bulky design, 650g weight, and inaccessible price. Their design also creates a significant physical barrier between the wearer and others in their surroundings — something that Snap is managing to combat by disguising its AR technology within a relatively appealing frame size.
Last month, Google revealed the first two designs of its AI smart glasses, which are due to release this fall. Combining Google’s Gemini AI model with Samsung’s hardware engineering and Gentle Monster and Warby Parker’s eyewear designs, they’re a direct rival to Meta’s Ray-Ban AI smart glasses, with in-built speakers, cameras, and microphones, so wearers can look up information, make calls, take photos, and get live translations and directions on demand. Just like Snap, both Google and Meta have pitched their smart glasses to consumers as providing everyday assistance that enables the wearer to access convenient information without taking them out of their environment.
“The race is often less about who owns the operating system and more about who owns the experiences consumers cannot imagine living without.”
Dutch MacDonald, managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group.
