Snap opens pre-orders for SPECS AR glasses at $2,195.
Snap’s SPECS AR glasses ship this autumn in the US, UK and France, with a redesigned Snapchat, partner Lenses and a new AI service.
Snap has put its SPECS augmented reality glasses on pre-order at $2,195 with a $200 refundable deposit, with shipping expected to begin later this autumn in the United States, the United Kingdom and France, the company announced on 16 September.
A bundle with a new charging case that adds cellular connectivity is $2,395, sold through Verizon in the US, with Orange in France and EE in the UK to follow and their pricing still to come.
The glasses are a standalone computer with the hardware built into the frames, no puck or tether, and Snap has redesigned Snapchat for them: a snap of the fingers takes a Snap, and video calls run hands-free. Snap says the launch experiences include Lenses built with the NBA and WNBA, a Harry Potter Lens with HBO Max ahead of the series premiering this Christmas, Spotify and Tripadvisor integrations, and shopping powered by the Shopify Catalogue, where a product can be placed at full scale in a room and bought on the retailer’s own site.
SPECS Intelligence and the First Look
Alongside the glasses, Snap introduced SPECS Intelligence, an AI service that runs across iPhone, Mac and the glasses and is designed to surface information without waiting for a prompt, drawing on the apps a person chooses to connect. From 16 September anyone aged 18 or over in the US can download the SPECS app for iOS and try a preview built on Gmail and Google Calendar; the fuller experience is invitation-only on Mac through a waitlist. Snap says connected content is not used to train its models or to serve personalised ads.
A SPECS First Look opens at Westfield Century City in Los Angeles on 1 October, where people can try the glasses in person. Snap also named enterprise partners including Salesforce, Amazon Web Services and NVIDIA, and said Lens creation continues through Lens Studio.
What is still unclear
Snap has given no shipping date beyond later this autumn, no UK or French pricing for the data plans, and no figure for how many pairs it expects to sell.
What it means for brands
The consumer AR headset that matters to a social team is no longer a developer kit: it is priced, dated and on pre-order in three markets, with Snapchat redesigned for it and branded Lenses on it from day one. The brand surface Snap has named is Lens Studio, the same tool behind Snapchat Lenses today, and the partner Lenses at launch are entertainment, sport, retail and music.
This week, check whether your existing Snapchat Lenses have an owner and whether anyone on the team has opened Lens Studio this year, because that is the pipeline Snap says carries experiences onto the glasses. Then tell whoever asks that Snap has given no sales expectation, so the honest position is to watch it, not to build for it yet.
Sources
The NBK Social briefing
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