Snap Specs Make a Play for Your Augmented Reality Attention - DTNS 5355

Tom Merritt (0:08)

This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, September 17th, 2026 We tell you what you need to know, give each other important context and help each other understand.

Sarah Lane (0:18)

Today, Dr. Niki is telling us why fly brains have taken over the Internet and Snap has AR specs they want you to spend checks notes to grand on.

Tom Merritt (0:27)

Well, I think the fly brains are cheaper. I'm Tom Merritt.

Sarah Lane (0:30)

And I'm Sarah Lane.

Tom Merritt (0:31)

Let's start with what you need to know with that big story.

Snap launched its augmented reality glasses called specs. Now, they've had spectacles in the past. These are different. They're augmented reality. They have displays in them. And you might have heard of them when they teased them at Augmented World Expo back in June. But we got a whole lot more details now. There are two sizes, 47 millimeter and 52 millimeter, basically small and large. There is a 51 degree field of view, which is a bigger field of view than we expected. About 132 grams, which is heavy, about twice as heavy as Meta's display frames. But several of the reviewers said they were nicely balanced, so they didn't feel that heavy. They do not need to be connected to another device. So they are untethered. You don't have to have them connected by Bluetooth or a wire or anything else. But those frames are thick because you got to have all the processing in there and you got to have the battery.

Snap says you'll probably get about four hours of what they call mixed usage. That's both video and audio playback. Two built-in displays, one for each lens. They have a gesture control system so you can bring up the interface by looking at your palm. What was that Amazon show where they had everything in their palm? It's not quite like that. You just look at your palm to activate the interface. And then you can use hand tracking for selection. So you point to move the cursor, pinch your thumb to select. They work with a Wi-Fi connection, but there are another option, which I'll get to in a minute.

If you are wondering what they're good for, here are some of the use cases. Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap, said that these are for intermittent use. You're not supposed to wear these all day. So these are a device, not a replacement for your glasses. But you can play AR games with other spec users. The one they demonstrated was Domino's. I assume they'll have more variety of those in the future.

You can use it as a virtual big screen display, just like you would with a tethered version like X-Reel.

Specifically, they have YouTube and HBO Max supported in the specs web browser. You can use it for navigation, so giving you directions as you're walking around, so it's pointing where you need to go. They also say there is a measuring tool, there's a virtual whiteboard that multiple specs users could collaborate on. Shopify has an integration where you can preview furniture in your home. Spotify will be coming after the release of the glasses. You won't have that at launch, but eventually, they'll be able to listen to Spotify. And live translation is a nice one. They say there's around 60 languages it can do. There's also the Specs Intelligence Platform, which you can use in Specs. It's the smart assistant, but it's not required. You can actually download this without buying the glasses. The Specs Intelligence Platform can answer questions and surface information based on what is in view, if you're using it on the glasses, but it's also available on Mac and iOS. And then you can connect it to your messages, your Gmail, your Slack, et cetera.

Sarah Lane (3:34)

Yeah.

Dr. Niki (3:35)

Use case is- It's an agent.

Tom Merritt (3:36)

It's an agent, yeah.

You can ask it to, what are the things I need to know before my meeting? Or what are my travel plans for a trip? It can also separate family and work stuff and know by your context, whether, you know, where you are, what you're doing, which one it's supposed to be telling you about. And if it's on the glasses, you activate it with the command, hey specs.

The version that you can download right now lets you see insights. It does not give you the proactive suggestions. If you want the proactive suggestions, that will come with the invite only full early access version. And that is going to come to the Mac. You can go sign up on the wait list for that right now. Who's going to pay the price for these? Because they're a couple thousand dollars. Enterprises, that's who. Salesforce has been using them in the field. They say they're working with NVIDIA to bring its agents to the glasses to help workers understand surroundings. They want to use NVIDIA's open platforms for that. CNBC reported a partnership with AWS, probably more for the hosting of it. But they want to sell these to companies. There is a pop-up store coming to LA, where you'll be able to try them on if you're in Los Angeles. You can pre-order them right now for $2,195, and then they'll ship sometime later this year in France, the UK and the US. One other option, though, if you're like, well, how good are they if I have to tether them to my phone for Wi-Fi, or use Wi-Fi in my house and only use them in my house. For an extra couple hundred bucks, $2,395, you get a case. And the case includes Verizon connectivity, which you will have to pay an extra fee for for a plan. That case can also recharge your specs up to four times. You're still tethering it. I guess you're just tethering it to the case, so you don't have to think about it. You don't have to use another plan. These things are expensive, though.