Snap Spectacles take big step into AR with new glasses, new operating system and lots of gesture-driven mixed reality
Snapchat is taking Spectacles to the next level with an all-new version that enables augmented reality, gesture controls, experience sharing, gaming, and more.
On Tuesday, September 17, 2024, the social media company unveiled its sturdy new 8-ounce smartglasses, which look nothing like the previous Snapchat Spectacles.
Unlike previous Spectacles that let you capture your world and quickly share it with Snapchat friends, Snapchat Spectacles 5th generation transforms your world with augmented reality (AR). It does this with a mix of, at least for Snap, entirely new technologies.
First, there’s the display system, which we’ve seen before on Lumus Z-Lens glasses. It’s based on waveguides, which is the practice of taking projected images and directing them to glass lenses in front of your face.
Like the glasses we saw at CES 2023, Spectacles 5th Gen with AR will use Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) micro-projectors and something like mirrors to stretch the projected images and guide them across your field of view. Snap claims the image will look like a 100-foot screen when viewed from 10 feet away.
There are four cameras that capture spatial information and allow you to control the Snapchat Spectacles via gestures. Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel wore the new glasses onstage at the unveiling event and demonstrated the controls, which virtually reside in the palm of your hand. You control the Spectacles via pinch and pull gestures with one or both hands. A large screen behind him displayed the Spectacles feed, complete with menus and other interface graphics. It appears that the AR images did not fill the entire viewport.
The new Spectacles are powered by the new Snap OS and a pair of Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, which Snap says will split the processing duties. During the demo, Spiegel also used the glasses to capture crowd video, so it appears these glasses will retain some of their original usability.
Snap is already in the process of finding development partners, promising experiences from ILM for Star Wars Galaxy, Niantec and LEGO.
Snap says the lenses are built to let you share your AR experiences with friends who can watch on their smartphones. The lenses even have an auto-dimming feature to adjust to sunlight. In other words, they’re AR glasses And sunglasses.
As for pricing and availability, well, that’s all still up in the air. Snap is just opening up its developer program, Lens studioallowing developers to test, play with and develop for the new augmented reality platform.
The AR glasses look big (like many glasses using similar technology), and there’s no word on battery life. However, this form of AR screen technology is said to be brighter and larger, while still consuming less power.
Snap’s sudden entry into the AR smart glasses space comes as Meta prepares for Meta Connect, where we expect to at least get a taste of the company’s long-awaited AR glasses project. Will we get as much as Snap just delivered? Only time will tell.