My favorite part of wearing the Specs, Snap\u2019s new augmented reality glasses, was playing dominoes. Sitting across the table from a Snap employee wearing the same pair of chunky glasses, I could select a virtual domino with a pinch and then move my hand to drop it in place, watching the tile snap down in front of us on a real table. It was unlike anything I\u2019ve tried in other VR headsets or smart glasses \u2014 the ability to sit with another person and have a shared digital experience.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Snap really believes in AR glasses. The company has spent more than half a decade developing the technology, producing two generations of glasses that only ever shipped to a small number of developers. The company seems to want to untether itself from the limitations of being just one app in a big store and instead pioneer the next great platform.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Now, Snap is nearly ready to launch its first pair of AR glasses for consumers, the Specs, sometime this fall. That suggests Snap thinks these meet its vision well enough for regular people to enjoy using the $2,195 glasses. They\u2019re certainly full of big ideas. But after an afternoon of testing at Snap\u2019s offices this week, I\u2019m skeptical of whether they\u2019ll be fully ready for primetime.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Photo: Naohmi Monroe \/ The Verge<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The Specs are big, black, bold glasses that come in two lens sizes, 47mm and 52mm. Part of why they\u2019re so bold is almost certainly to make a statement \u2014 there\u2019s no mistaking these for a regular pair of glasses, like you might with Meta\u2019s Ray-Bans. (They\u2019re a little too conspicuous for me personally; my glasses style is squarely \u201cElder Millennial Who Shops At Warby Parker.\u201d) But they\u2019re also so chunky because they house all the hardware necessary to let the Specs function as a standalone computer, meaning they don\u2019t need to be tethered to a phone, compute puck, or external battery.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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They may be chunky, but the Specs aren\u2019t quite as heavy as they look. They\u2019re heavier than my Warby Parker glasses, of course, which I can comfortably wear for most of the day. But the Specs didn\u2019t drag on my face like a full-on VR headset. The Specs felt sturdy, too: I shook my head around and they didn\u2019t fall off or even really slip. I wouldn\u2019t suggest playing pickup basketball in these, but they\u2019ll stay on your face while walking around. They made my ears sag just a little, though. And I wasn\u2019t able to use the Specs enough to tell you if they\u2019d start to feel uncomfortable over the course of a full four-hour battery cycle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Actually using the Specs is kind of like using a hybrid of smart glasses and a VR headset. In front of your eyes, you can see menus, app windows, and elements of whatever app (\u201clens\u201d) you\u2019re using, like the digital dominoes. Those elements appear over whatever you\u2019re looking at with your eyes through the lenses of the glasses, which have waveguide displays that can show \u201c16 million colors\u201d and \u201csharp, high-resolution visuals\u201d (Snap hasn\u2019t specified the exact resolution).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Thanks to hand-tracking tech in the Specs, you can pinch and drag to manipulate parts of the interface, such as resizing a window or moving a domino onto the game board, and Snap says you can even snap your fingers to take a picture in the Specs\u2019 Snapchat app. Clever. You can also have windows follow along as you move your head, in case you want to keep a window in your vision no matter where you\u2019re looking. You can access a home button, a Control Center-like menu, and status information like the time by holding up your palm in a setup that reminds me of the ill-fated Humane Pin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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In my limited testing, it was all rather finicky. I often had to pinch a few times or make sure my hand was placed in just<\/em> the right spot to get something to work the way it should. I never quite nailed the two-part action of flipping my hand up and then using my other hand to press the home button. While standing in the sun, it was much harder to see the augmented reality graphics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Snap has beaten competitors like Meta to shipping a pair of glasses with displays in both lenses, letting it deliver a true AR effect and not just another flat screen. But by putting the AR display dead center in your vision, the Specs\u2019 51-degree field of view becomes a major limitation. It meant that digital elements kept slipping out of sight during my demos, which ruined the illusion that they were actually in the real world. While watching Lanterns<\/em> on HBO Max in a browser in a moving car, I had to shrink the window to make it easier to see in front of me. While playing dominoes, I had to keep physically turning my head to see my dominoes and the playing board and back again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Because it\u2019s 2026, the Specs also have a dedicated AI chatbot assistant, but in my limited experience it was slow and inconsistent. With a \u201cHey Specs\u201d command, I asked it to show me funny cat videos on YouTube, as suggested by a Snap rep. I had to ask it twice because it didn\u2019t pick up the command the first time. When the command worked, it then took about 15 seconds for the Specs to pull up a YouTube page with search results for funny cat videos.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Watching that video also revealed to me a bizarre social interaction that people will have to come to grips with if AR glasses gain any sort of traction. On that YouTube page, I picked some random cat video collection, and it played in the background while the Snap rep kept talking to me. Even though the Specs were playing audio through the onboard speakers, the Snap rep standing right next to me said they couldn\u2019t hear anything. That made me feel weird \u2014 these glasses theoretically let you watch and listen to a private video while staring somebody else straight in the eye. Even when I wasn\u2019t watching the video, I found myself constantly distracted from the in-person conversations I was having during the demo because my eyes were caught up with what they were looking at while my hands were focused on arcane gestures for tasks that only I could see. I didn\u2019t feel very present.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Like Meta glasses, which are currently grappling with a \u201cpervert\u201d glasses reputation, the Specs also let you take photos and record video. They too have a privacy indicator light, and it\u2019s arguably more prominent than Meta\u2019s take: Instead of a light that\u2019s off to the side, the Specs\u2019 light is right in the center of the glasses. But I don\u2019t know if, given the growing pushback against Meta\u2019s glasses, a blinking light is enough to deter concerns about potential unwanted recording.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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That bar in the middle<\/em> is the privacy indicator light.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In 2024, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel told The Verge<\/em> that there is an opportunity for computers to evolve to \u201csupport the ways that humans have long interacted socially by looking at each other eye to eye with much more natural interaction.\u201d Today, Snap has a simpler message: It says that its vision with Specs is to \u201cmake computing more human.\u201d But even in my controlled demos, I found that Specs were actually more<\/em> computer than other hardware; the glasses are unmissable on my head, and the digital content that only I could see was getting in the way of me interacting with the other people in the room.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Still, these headsets are coming. Meta is working on a pair, Google has a new glasses initiative, OpenAI has reportedly considered smart glasses, and Apple is apparently planning to announce Ray-Ban Meta-like smart glasses next year (and it\u2019s worth noting that former Apple CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly praised AR in the past). It\u2019s clear they all see the next frontier as glasses with tech like cameras and screens that sit on your head. Specs will be the first real test of what AR glasses can be. But even after Snap\u2019s years of work, they still might be coming out too soon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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