What we want to see from Snapchat’s new AR Spectacles

Meta isn’t the only company with its eyes set on augmented reality. Snap, the creator of the social camera app Snapchat, has been finding ways to use AR for just as long. The most popular version of that is the Lenses on Snapchat, which can be applied over what your smartphone sees, but with the announcement of its AR Spectacles in 2021, the company showed its ambitions in AR were even bigger. And the next version of Snap’s AR Spectacles is coming soon.

The Verge reports that Snap plans on showing off its new AR Spectacles at its Partner Summit event on Sept. 17th, 2024. Snap’s first AR Spectacles weren’t sold to the public and were instead only made available to developers. Hands-on coverage of those first AR glasses found them lacking, with a narrow field of view and an even shorter battery life. These new glasses are bound to be an improvement, but if we had our pick, here’s what we’d want to see from of Snap’s next AR Spectacles.

1 Snap’s new AR Spectacles should come in more than one style

Glasses are fashion after all

Snap / Pocket-lint

The original Snap AR Spectacles were striking, but didn’t feel particularly stylish. Snap’s developer-only AR glasses were thick, black, and incredibly angular. Just big enough to cover your eyes, with large temples for controlling what AR Lenses you see.

Given how difficult it is to combine optics, cameras, and the battery capacity necessary to pull-off an AR effect, I can’t say how much of a compromise the AR Spectacles were, but they certainly didn’t seem as sleek as Snap’s earlier camera glasses.

It would be great if the company’s new glasses could return to the high-fashion look of the third-generation Spectacles, but at the very least, Snap should offer multiple styles of frame to choose from. Sunglasses are functional, but they’re also a fashion object, and it would be good to acknowledge that in hardware that Snap still seems to believe could be the future of its company. Take inspiration from the second-generation Spectacles and offer multiple options to choose from.

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2 Battery life and FOV have to improve on Snap’s next AR glasses

Meaningful technical improvements are necessary

Snap / Pocket-lint

Making AR glasses is hard, but you know what’s also hard? Getting excited about any kind of augmented reality experience that doesn’t fill the majority of your field of view. The first AR Spectacles only have a 26.3-degree FOV, according to Snap’s developer documentation.

That’s narrow compared to the over 180-degree FOV of our natural eyesight or even the 110-degree horizontal FOV of Meta’s Quest 3 VR headset. Taken with the AR Spectacles battery life, which Engadget says is “extremely limited,” and the whole thing seems like a disappointing first stab at AR.

Luckily, this go around might be different. These new AR Spectacles are supposed to come with improved battery life and field of view, The Verge reports. Hopefully, those make a meanginful difference to how it feels to use the Spectacles.

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3 Snap’s next AR Spectacles should double as open-ear headphones

Give us a reason to where them when AR is off

The best thing Meta did for the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses was make them a competent pair of Bluetooth headphones.

Not everyone is going to feel comfortable using a camera mounted on their face or talking to Meta AI, but almost everyone loves listening to music and taking calls with Bluetooth headphones. As it turns out, Meta’s smart glasses are great for that.

So far, the stereo speakers on Snap’s AR Spectacles are devoted to augmented reality experiences, not acting as a mic during conference calls or headphones for listening to podcasts on your commute. The next version should act as a pair of Bluetooth headphones for anything on your phone, or at the very least, Snap should sell a cheaper, non-AR version of the Spectacles that do.

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4 Snap’s AR Spectacles should have a deeper connection to your smartphone

Let us reply to messages

Snap / Pocket-lint

The main connection Snap’s Spectacles, AR or not, have with your smartphone is appearing in Bluetooth settings and showing up in the Snapchat app.

That simplicity keeps them easy to use, but it does make it harder to justify wearing a pair of Spectacles when you want to do anything other than see AR images and shoot photos. Some of the experimental use-cases AR creators have made are fascinating, but more mundane uses are valuable too.

The next pair of AR Spectacles would ideally have deeper ties to other features of your smartphone. Maybe they can read out notifications, or even let you reply to those notifications, but at the very least they should do more with Snapchat itself. It only seems natural that My AI, Snap’s chat-focused AI assistant on Snapchat, features in some way on the next Spectacles, but why not go further?

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5 Developers and early-adopters should be able to buy Snap’s AR Spectacles

The price tag can be high, but make it an option

All signs point to Snap keeping the new AR Spectacles limited to developers and its partners like it did before. The Verge’s report even says the company is only manufacturing 10,000 or less. But it would be great if Snap was willing to go a bit further. The new Snap AR Spectacles are likely expensive to make, but rather than not offer them at all, Snap should should sell a limited quantity of AR Spectacles for early adopters who want to try them.

Snap’s original Spectacles were popularized via scarcity. You used to only be able to buy them from dedicated vending machines. The company phased out that approach in favor of more traditional online sales, but that doesn’t mean it can’t use the same idea to generate interest in a new kind of device it clearly cares about.

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Snap needs a clearer plan for AR hardware

AR Spectacles are likely to remain a curiosity until technology (or Snap’s financial situation) changes. But even if the company doesn’t plan on doing anything beyond demoing its new AR Spectacles, it would be great if there were a sense of how these glasses could become a consumer product. How does Snap imagine people will use them? And what, if anything, can they be used for when you don’t want to look at Snapchat Lenses all day? I really hope Snap starts to answer some of those questions.