Snapchat just hosted its annual Partner Summit in Los Angeles. During the summit, it made some key announcements. One such announcement was the unveiling of its fifth generation ‘Spectacles’. These are Snapchat’s take on augmented reality (AR) glasses. The new Spectacles have been exclusively designed for developers.
The Spectacles were first launched in 2016. Unlike its predecessor, the fifth-generation Spectacles can overlay more immersive digital graphics onto the physical world. Further, Snapchat has partnered with OpenAI to enable developers to build and integrate AI features into the Spectacles. Surprisingly, this time they run on custom Snap OS. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said at the company’s Partner Summit, “We are excited to see what developers create using these new tools.”
The Spectacles directly compete with Meta’s glasses. And the launch time of these glasses is also pretty interesting. Snapchat unveiled them just before Meta’s Connect event where it usually launches its hardware. These glasses are powered by two Snapdragon processors and also come with 37 pixels per degree resolution. About the field of view, it offers 46 degrees of diagonal view. Moreover, Snap claims up to 45 minutes of battery life with the fifth-generation Spectacles.
Now the issue with Spectacles is that last year Snapchat posted a $4.5 billion loss in the second quarter of 2023. Ever since the first generation Spectacles, Snapchat has struggled to find mainstream success, with earlier versions of the glasses resulting in a $40 million write-down as the inventory remained unsold inventory. According to Leo Gebbie, who is a principal analyst at CCS Insight, Snap’s AR glasses need to offer something “really impressive” to compete with Meta. He said, “Snap is functioning at a different scale than Meta.”
Coming to the prices of these glasses now. If a developer wishes to buy the Spectacles, then they have to pay a $99 monthly subscription fee, at least for a year to build AR apps using the glasses. It is uncertain if Snapchat plans on bringing these glasses to the general public, as of now, they are limited to developers.