Snapchat is taking its Spectacles game to the next level with a complete reinvention that allows for augmented reality, gesture control, experience sharing, gaming, and more.
On Tuesday, September 17, 2024, the social media company unveiled its new, rugged 226-gram smart glasses, which look nothing like previous Snapchat Spectacles.
Unlike previous Spectacles that let you quickly capture and share your world with Snapchat friends, the fifth generation of Snapchat Spectacles alters your world with augmented reality (AR). It does so with a combination of, at least on Snap, all new technologies.
First, there's the display system, which we've seen before in the Lumus Z-Lens glasses. It's based on waveguides, which take projected images and guide them towards glass lenses in front of your face.
Much like the glasses we saw at CES 2023, the Spectacles 5th Gen with AR use liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) microprojectors and something like mirrors to stretch projected images and guide them around the field of view. Snap claims the image will look like a 100-foot screen when viewed from 10 feet away.
There are four cameras used to capture spatial information and allow you to control Snapchat's Spectacles using gestures. Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel wore the new glasses onstage during the unveiling event and showed off the controls, which practically sit in the palm of your hand. You'll control the Spectacles using pinch-and-pull gestures with one or both hands. A large screen behind him showed the Spectacles feed, which included menus and other interface graphics. It appears the augmented reality images didn't fill the entire viewport.
The new Spectacles are powered by Snap’s new operating system and a pair of Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, which Snap says will split up processing duties. During the demo, Spiegel also used the glasses to record a video of the crowd, so it seems these glasses will retain some of their original utility.
Snap is already looking for developer partners and promises experiences from ILM for Star Wars Galaxy, Niantec and LEGO.
Snap says the lenses are designed to share your augmented reality experiences with friends who can view them on their smartphones. The lenses even auto-dim to adjust to sunlight. In other words, they're augmented reality glasses. and sunglasses.
As for pricing and availability, none of that is set in stone. Snap is just opening up its developer program, Lens Studio, which will allow developers to test, play around with and develop for the new augmented reality platform.
The AR glasses appear large (like many that use similar technology) and there is no information on battery life. However, this form of AR display technology is reported to be brighter and larger, while still using less power.
Snap’s sudden entry into the augmented reality smart glasses space comes at a time when Meta is gearing up for Meta Connect, where we hope to get at least a glimpse of the company’s long-awaited augmented reality glasses project. Will we get as much as Snap just offered? Time will tell.
