Snap unveils select $2,195 AR glasses, Spiegel’s bet on the post smartphone

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel is betting consumers are so tired of looking at smartphone screens that they’ll be willing to pay more than $2,000 for augmented reality glasses that bring digital visuals into users’ field of vision.

“Nearly 20 years since the introduction of the iPhone, people are ready to think differently about computing,” Spiegel said in an interview with CNBC.

On Tuesday, the Snap founder released Specs, his first AR device aimed at the general public instead of developers. At $2,195 with a $200 refundable deposit, the specs are more than 15 times the price of Snap’s $130-camera-only Spectacles released in 2016 and they weren’t pretty.

“Features represent a way to use computing together in a shared experience in the real world, looking up through optical lenses beyond a bright screen,” Spiegel said. The device is expected to ship later this year in the US, UK and France.

It is an emerging market but already has financial competitors. Meta Reality Labs has found success with its Ray-Ban Meta sunglasses in partnership with it EssilorLuxotticaafter the company struggled to find a large audience for its Quest-branded virtual reality headset. And in May, Google showed off its upcoming AI-powered glasses, which are being developed with Samsung and eyewear makers Warby Parker and Gentle Monster, with an emphasis on sound.

Spiegel dismissed audio-only smart glasses, describing them as “very simple glasses that don’t do much.”

“They’re like a phone accessory or an open headphone,” Spiegel said.

But Meta and Google have built dominant digital ad businesses that generate enough revenue to allow companies to test expensive hardware efforts. Snap, by contrast, has struggled to please Wall Street, losing money every year it’s been a public company.

In January, Snap created a subsidiary called Specs Inc. to include improvements to its AR glasses.

“We have been clear to investors since we founded the company that we will manage the business for the long term and serve our community and our customers,” said Spiegel. “I think this is an important step for investors in the sense that they’re going to see a lot of progress that they haven’t seen before, but it’s really just another step.”

Snap shares were down nearly 4% in midday trading after the company announced the specs.

Much of Spiegel’s confidence is based on his belief that there is life after smartphones.

Many people are “actually questioning their relationship with screens,” Spiegel said, citing factors such as “the neck pain they’ve experienced from looking at a small phone screen” or the feeling that they’re missing out on everyday moments.

The early days of smart glasses showed promise while VR remained a niche category. Apple’s The Vision Pro, which starts at $3,500, didn’t become the iPhone maker’s next killer product despite heavy investment and a heavy marketing push, and Meta scaled back its VR ambitions this year, turning its Horizon Worlds VR platform into a Roblox-like mobile app.

Spiegel said “there are definitely more developers coming from the VR space or looking for another opportunity in augmented reality.”

Compared to what’s on the market, Spiegel called the Specs the most capable, most intuitive and most affordable space computer available today.”

But with inflation eating away at consumer confidence, high-priced electronics may be hard to sell for now.

“This is like a very bad time for any company to launch any kind of flagship product,” said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager at IDC. For Snap, he added, “there’s also the fact that their core audience has always skewed younger, and typically that audience can’t spend a lot of money.”

The new Specs AR glasses are lighter and feature a larger display than the previous developer-focused version of Spectacles. They offer about four hours of battery life and Bluetooth connectivity. Developers will also be able to create agent-like AI experiences on the device using a preview feature that includes Anthropic Claude code, OpenAI’s Codex and Cursor coding tools.

Regarding potential child safety concerns with Specs, Spiegel said the company plans to release later this year “parenting tools to make it easier to share Specs with your child with a limited set of Lenses,” which are AR effects, and some features “on the operating system side.”

Spiegel, a father of four boys, said he was testing Specs at home with his family.

“Instead of kids staring at one player on a small screen, you can run around and play laser tag, you can learn about dinosaurs, you can build Legos,” Spiegel said. “It’s really nice to be able to play on the computer, because it’s something you can share.”

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