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When I tried a prototype of Snap’s Specs at CES in Las Vegas earlier this year, the experience left something to be desired. The company’s AR glasses — which the company calls a “new kind of computer” — were heavy (they weighed around 8 ounces) and fit rather uncomfortably on my face. The device was also hot, and made my face feel tingly — a common side-effect of smart glasses where massive computing is happening under the hood.
Fast forward to late October, when I met back up with the Snap team at a Four Seasons in downtown San Francisco. By this time, the company had debuted Specs publicly during an event with CEO Evan Spiegel, and pre-orders of the company’s long-gestating headset were already underway.
What I can say is this: Specs has improved the form factor significantly since my first brush with the device. The glasses now weigh nearly half of what the previous version did, slimming down to 132 grams, or approximately 4.6 ounces. They were quite comfortable and, during the hour-ish that I demo-ed the device, it did not heat up like the previous version had.
Specs now comes in two sizes — 47mm and 52mm. The purpose here is purely to accommodate different head sizes, ensuring the glasses fit snugly on whoever’s face happens to be wearing them. They also now come equipped with spring hinges, which make the device more flexible and comfortable.
However, if the body of the device has improved greatly, its soul is still a work-in-progress. The glasses can be fun — but they also still seem to lack a dedicated purpose, and one struggles to imagine how, specifically, this expensive head gear ($2,200 a pop) would prove useful in a daily capacity. When I asked Snap staff what the device was really for — fun and games or productivity — the answer was vague. The device attempts to be a bunch of things at once and, in the process, ends up feeling a little rudderless.
I have racked my brain to come up with some daily use-cases for Specs. Some of the things I came up with were:
By contrast, here are some of the areas I’m still not totally sold on as Specs use-cases:
Specs is impressive for how the Snap team has managed to integrate a variety of user experiences into one unified device. There are a lot of impressive achievements here — specifically the spatial synching tech that allows two users to see the same thing simultaneously — that, with some further development, could be deployed towards some really interesting use cases.
The bottom line is that Snap’s device can continue to grow and transform as the company iterates. It’s an interesting product that — like a lot of its peers — doesn’t necessarily seem to have a clear purpose but, in time, could become many things.
What the device currently offers, however, may not be compelling enough to encourage people to shell out the cash that Snap is asking for.
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