Snap launches £1,995 smart glasses a decade after disastrous first attempt

A decade after its original smart glasses lost the company tens of millions of dollars, Snapchat’s parent company is trying again. At a tech convention in California, Snap Inc chief executive Evan Spiegel unveiled the new Specs — augmented reality glasses that overlay digital elements onto the real world. They will cost £1,995 in the UK and $2,195 in the US when shipping begins this autumn. “This is the beginning of a new era in computing,” Spiegel said. That price tag puts them below Apple’s Vision Pro mixed-reality headset, which starts at $3,499, but far above Meta’s smart glasses, which start at $224. Ben Hatton, a market analyst at CCS Insight, said the cost means the technology is “unlikely to become a mainstream device any time soon”. Snap’s core audience of younger consumers “rarely have this sort of money to spend on a single gadget,” he added. A $200 refundable deposit is required to pre-order the glasses, which will ship in the US, the UK, and France. Snap says they are designed to be “wearable for everyday life”, though the battery lasts four hours on average before needing recharging. A charging case holds up to 20 hours of battery life. Unlike Meta’s Ray-Ban and Oakley models, the glasses function without needing a “tether” to a smartphone. They also differ from the Apple Vision Pro — mainly designed for indoor use with a wire to a battery pack. Hatton said this improves “wearability and mobility” but comes “at the cost of lower battery output”. “Despite the impressive features and experiences available through Specs, glasses with a 4-hour mixed-use battery life and bulky design are not going to replace the smartphone any time soon,” he said. Users can use an AI assistant for directions or questions about objects, watch videos, browse the web, play AR games, and record what they see. Smart glasses have faced privacy criticism, having been used to film women in public without consent. In February, UK data privacy watchdog the ICO wrote to Meta after reports that data workers in Kenya had to watch videos of people having sex and using the toilet filmed with Meta’s smart glasses. “Privacy has to be built in from the very beginning,” Spiegel said, adding: “Specs only work if people trust them.” A built-in light glows when the device is recording, and Snap says users control what data is stored, synced, shared, or deleted.