Tech
I Tried Snap Specs: Really Big, but Also Like Nothing Else Out There
Out in a courtyard at Snap’s Santa Monica, California, headquarters, I’m kicking a soccer ball around. I’m terrible at sports. But a glowing arrow stretching across the ground points me to a flashing target I’m supposed to dribble the ball to. I get there and get pointed somewhere else. I’m playing a virtual soccer game, but the ball is real. And the big Spec glasses I’m wearing are making it happen.
When Snap announced its $2,195 augmented reality glasses back in June at the Augmented World Expo conference in Long Beach, California, everyone mocked them. Absurdly large, crazy expensive. I was waiting to try them first, and now I have, for about an hour. I don’t think they’re all-day glasses, and neither does Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, whom I spoke with after my demos. “I’d still think of them today as a computer, and it’s going to be more session-based,” he tells me. “Almost like a pair of reading glasses you put on to get something done. But I don’t think we’re far away from lighter, less expensive and far more capable versions.”
I don’t think I’d want to use them all the time in my everyday life. But damn, I want to go to a museum or theme park or theater experience that uses them.
While most of the smart glasses that exist right now either serve up just audio and cameras and maybe a basic head-up 2D display, Snap Specs are more like a portable mixed reality device, something like a very pared-down Meta Quest but with see-through lenses. It’s another evolution of AR headsets going all the way back to Magic Leap and Microsoft HoloLens, but unlike those, Snap’s got all the pieces to fit into one arguably reasonably sized set of glasses.
Are these doorways to smaller glasses? A toolkit for AI? A way for Snap to try to get ahead of Apple, Google, Samsung and Meta while it can? Yes, possibly, but they also feel like the best-functioning prototype of an AR glasses idea that still isn’t mainstream for anyone yet. Snap’s also announced a charging case that doubles as a cellular hotspot with Verizon service in the US, a way to try to make this work standalone without a phone, that costs an extra $200 in a bundle with the glasses.
In my time with Specs, I felt like I was back in familiar AR experiences… but in the best current glasses-like form possible, given where tech is at. Which ends up being a state of existence unlike everyday glasses at all.
Big, chunky, fine to wear, not normal glasses
First, the fit: Are the Snap Specs uncomfortable? Weirdly, no, not for a half hour at least. The very thick arms sort of rested against my temples, with a bit of pressure that didn’t bother me. My ears bent down a bit, but not in a way I noticed (till I felt them). The 4.7- to 4.8-ounce (132- to 136-gram) frames (depending on the size you get) are much heavier than other smart glasses, but they balance the weight well on the side of my head, though I sometimes felt them slipping down my nose.
But these are clearly not normal glasses, in any sense. Not just the design, which pushes at the very edges of “big eyewear.” The lenses are rainbowed because of their waveguide layer that shows 3D projections in AR. Unlike Meta’s Ray-Ban Displays, which hide most of the waveguide, these have a notable sheen.
Also, they don’t use standard installed prescription lenses. Instead, there are lens inserts that, well, snap in. Honestly, I prefer this. That makes the glasses look even chunkier, but it also means that if Snap were to use these devices at a theme park, a museum or some public space, demoing them would be a lot easier. I use snap-in lenses for VR headsets all the time. And finally, Snap at least makes inserts that go up to -8, which is basically where my heavy nearsightedness is at.
Displays that are fine, but not always great
Specs have a limited field of view, far more limited than that of VR headsets (or even Xreal’s upcoming Aura pair of tethered AR glasses). It’s better than Snap’s previous Spectacles, and kind of close to or better than my memories of Magic Leap 2. The portrait-style vertical viewing area is tall but not that wide.
It’s wide enough, at least, to watch YouTube video highlights of the Jets-Titans game in a browser, which I call up by saying “Hey Snap” and asking the onboard AI. The display is bright enough indoors, but semi-transparent and ghostly like all AR glasses, and it can get washed out in bright light. That’s why these glasses also have transition lenses that become sunglasses outdoors.
I tried them outside and found the experience usable. But the resolution and the clarity are steps below what sharper micro OLED displays in glasses and headsets can do.
A familiar set of experiences (for me)
I tried Snap’s developer Spectacles a bunch of times in the past, which showed a whole augmented reality OS that works with hand tracking and launches “Lens” apps, some 2D, some full 3D, that can map into the real world. A lot of those were back here, because Specs supports all the independent lenses and creator stuff that Snap’s been building out for a while. But I only got to try a handful of the new Specs during my demo.
I browsed YouTube in a window I called up, resizing the floating window as big as I could and pushing it back and forth with a cursor I’d control with my hands outstretched and pinching to tap. Some apps let you “touch” things directly or pinch them, but most involve aiming your outstretched hand and controlling an air cursor like a Jedi. When windows got far away or small, it became a little hard to aim and tap at times, but looking at your open palm brings up a button dashboard for recentering things, bringing up the home screen, or turning AI on or off. Windows can follow you if you want, as you walk around.
I even wore Specs in a car: One demo put me in an SUV circling the parking lot while I kept watching Jets-Titans plays, testing how the built-in travel mode handled stability in motion. Pretty well, actually. The display stayed pinned and didn’t drift, and I didn’t get carsick. I enjoyed my Jets win while I could.
I tried connected experiences, one of Snap’s more intriguing features, sitting across from a Snap team member wearing a pair. We looked at each other to begin a shared session, and launched a dominoes game that was apparently co-developed with one of Snap’s celebrity ambassadors, NBA star Jimmy Butler.
It was pretty basic: We laid virtual dominoes out one by one on the table in front of us, seeing the shared layout together. We could have just used real dominoes instead. But this idea, with other games I didn’t try – laser tag-like arena battles, virtual table tennis, or even larger group experiences that could support up to 30 people, according to Spiegel – could open some fascinating ideas. I like that these connect simply by looking at someone else wearing them.
I tried a navigation app that hovered a 3D map in front of me, showing me how to walk to Santa Monica College. I shrank the layout down to a smaller directional arrow pointing the way.
And I tried working on Specs, launching Google Docs with a paired Bluetooth keyboard. That definitely wasn’t a great experience, mainly because of keyboard input lag in my session. But could you try to make this a portable work device? Snap is trying to prove it out.
I also tried live translation with a Snap employee who spoke Italian to me while I saw captions in English pop up in front of me – something I’ve done on other smart glasses, from Even Realities G2 to Meta Ray-Ban Displays to Google and Samsung’s upcoming glasses.
The most promising thing to me was kicking around a soccer ball outdoors using an app called Football Trainer. The training aspect wasn’t perfect, and I sometimes worried I’d try to finesse the ball to the virtual target and trip over myself in the process. But, I noticed that the glowing overlays had no occlusion, or a way of letting the ball or my legs look properly positioned over the graphics, something that exists on devices like Apple Vision Pro. Instead, the graphics overlapped the ball and my legs.
But that real-world overlay showed me possibilities. I’ve tried Snap Specs with demos of overlaid virtual pets before, and tried theme park-like augmented reality experiences with other companies using hardware like the Quest 3 (DreamPark’s Mario Kart-like driving experience, where I rode a motorized unicorn along a virtual road). Snap Specs could do things like this if location-based experiences were built to support it. I saw an AR play in New York that used an older Magic Leap 2 to project virtual actors in front of a real audience. Snap Specs could do it better.
AI ambitions with an agent called Snap Intelligence, too
Snap’s also betting hard on AI, to no one’s surprise. A newly announced agentic app called Snap Intelligence promises to work with Macs and iPhones and on Snap Specs glasses, tapping into your connected apps and information and providing recommendations and actions to help run your life.
The idea sounds like Meta’s recently launched AI agent Muse, which is likely to extend to Meta’s glasses hardware more expansively at next week’s Meta Connect conference. Snap’s getting ahead of that likely news here, but I wasn’t able to demo Snap Intelligence at all during my Specs briefing in Santa Monica. That’s all coming later this fall, per Snap, to time with the glasses launch.
“It actually installs on your Mac, so it can use your Mac for you,” Spiegel says to me about Snap Intelligence. “It can also log into services for you without accessing your credentials, because it can just use your keychain.” But he also promises the agent won’t act without your knowledge: “It just doesn’t do anything until you say it’s OK. It won’t change anything or send anything, or anything like that, until you say OK.”
Spiegel is bullish on lots of AI tools working in Specs beyond the company’s own Intelligence agent, from AI-infused AR experiences to running platforms like ChatGPT or agentic systems on the glasses. Snap’s also pushing promises of business partnerships for Specs with Amazon and Nvidia, among others, exploring how the chunky glasses could be worn in either offices or factory floors. Would they be safe and reliable enough to use? It’s unknown yet. But there aren’t any other current AR glasses with full world-tracking 3D and hand tracking in the size and form of Specs yet. Spiegel sees it as “get that big screen experience if you want it, but ultimately, hopefully, get the computer out of the way and just supervise agents who are getting things done on your behalf.”
Privacy plans: Maybe being big and obvious is better?
Snap isn’t trying to hide what Specs are, something Spiegel seemed to celebrate as we chatted. Unlike Meta’s glasses, which can seem so normal that you wouldn’t notice the cameras in the corners, Specs are very much not standard-looking eyewear. Aas Spiegel said to me, you’d know if someone was wearing them. Will that help address growing privacy concerns on smart glasses that are increasing every month?
Recording photos and video clips, including captures that show your augmented-reality experiences overlaid, is done by pressing a side button on the glasses, which then lights up a big LED light. There’s also a clever new snapping gesture for taking photos, which is appropriately on-brand…and again a clearly visible gesture, although one people might not know was a photo-taking trigger.
Spiegel reflected on Snap’s own history of camera glasses, which extends way further back than Meta’s. He tried to make Snap’s Spectacles glasses look unique, even strange, to celebrate their distinct style…and also broadcast that they were different. It made me wonder if smart glasses should all be doing this, in the spirit of the at-the-time odd-looking, long-stemmed first-gen AirPods.
Too ambitious, maybe, but these would be perfect for demos
Snap’s going for it all with these Specs, but I have concerns for sure. Battery life (promised as “up to four hours”), which I didn’t get to truly test during quick demos where I swapped pairs of Specs for different experiences. A not-perfect display. 3D experiences that sometimes looked good, sometimes a step below what a higher-powered VR headset could do. And would any of this really replace a phone at all? I doubt it.
But Snap is aiming to host demos for Specs at a new LA flagship store this fall, something I hope will expand to other locations. And installations and experiences. I’d gladly buy a ticket to a fun event where these Specs were used for a collective immersive experience, but I wouldn’t be compelled to buy a pair. Demos and experiences feel like the next step, and these Specs finally feel ready to be worn. Not all the time, but at least for a while.
Specs seem like part of a new wave of odd VR/AR devices pushing beyond their previous categories, trying to be more or to connect to other systems and services: Valve’s Steam Frame, Xreal Aura and Snap Specs. Specs are the closest living relative to the Meta Orion AR prototype glasses I demoed two years ago, but they’re still full of question marks. And yet, they’re also likely to be a place to prototype AR and AI ideas in outdoor spaces.
I want to see what else they can do, but that’ll have to wait until a review later in the fall. In the meantime, I appreciate they’re trying something no other hardware is doing yet…but also, there’s a reason others haven’t succeeded yet. Size and compromises to get to AR glasses are still a big challenge, but Snap’s Specs are the closest I’ve seen to making it work. It’s far from perfect, but it’s a start.
Editors’ note: Scott Stein’s travel costs were covered by Snap. The judgments and opinions of CNET are our own.
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