Oh Snap! The next pair of red hot smart glasses might not come from Meta
Snap CEO Evan Siegel might have his Steve Jobs moment with the release of Specs later this year.
Snapchat's new smart glasses will reportedly use a wave guide display. | Image by Snap
Ever since we saw Google introduce "Project Glass" to the world on April 4, 2012, it has been assumed that smart glasses would be the next big thing after the iPhone. After Google messed up Google Glass by allowing bystanders to get photographed without warning, users of the device started getting called "Glassholes."
Google hoped to change the world on April 4, 2012
Google had planned to open Google Glass fitting centers throughout the U.S. and had even constructed floating barges made of shipping containers in San Francisco and Maine. Maybe Google Glass was a little ahead of its time as users would go to movie theaters and record a bootleg copy of a film making its first theatrical run, another reason to brand users "Glassholes."
As a result of the public slap to the face that Google took, the next wave of glasses weren't exactly smart. In 2016, Snap, the parent of social media site Snapchat, created Spectacles. These glasses could record up to 30 seconds of video 10 seconds at a time and they were sold for $129.99 from vending machines placed along California beaches.
Meta currently has the largest share of the global smart glasses market
Glasses without a display were the first to dominate as ABI Research says that 43% of all smart glasses being shipped do not have a display and users use AI to navigate their way around the device.
What excites you about smart glasses?
Since then, Meta has become the top seller of smart glasses and its RayBan/Oakley lines have a 45% slice of the global smart glasses pie. Meta has added a display to its top-of-the-line glasses and this is a huge game changer as it takes us all the way back to the early days of Google Glass.
Meta is going to feel some competition from Snap, which has been quietly taking its Spectacles out of the toy bin in consumers' minds and making them a legit mobile tech product. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel sat down with Founders host David Senra in the latest episode of the Founders podcast.
Snap CEO Evan Spiegel's heroes were Steve Jobs and Edwin Land
Spiegel, whose entrepreneur heroes are Steve Jobs and Polaroid inventor Edwin Land, discussed the 2026 smart glasses, which are rumored to have the shorter "Specs" name. The executive firmly believes that Snap will have an advantage by keeping some hardware development in-house.
Doing this will allow Snap to control the hardware, which Spiegel says is necessary to deliver extraordinary customer expoeriences. He adds that the intersection between the hardware and software is essential to deliver that customer experience. Sounds like words that might have come out of the mouth of Apple's late co-founder.
Spiegel stated that other companies (like Meta) put components together from various sources, which is not the best strategy for a small and lightweight product. "The Meta brand is not something that people want to put anywhere near their face," Spiegel said. Snap!
Perhaps the most exciting part of Snap's new glasses will be its Waveguide display. This type of lens will remain transparent at the same time a digital image is projected on it.
Snap will differentiate its glasses by using a waveguide display
This display will also feature higher resolution with sharper images with a wide field-of-view. Snap also developed a small projector for its new glasses, whch will be powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon XR platform.
Once released this year, Specs will face competition from Google's AI glasses, Samsung, and Meta. Apple's first smart glasses could also be released later ths year using voice (via Siri), AI, and audio for navigation.
No matter what the future of smart glasses looks like, it seems that Spiegel is sure of one thing. He wants Snapchat to be involved.
Whatever you do, don't write off Snapchat. Many don't know that the company was the first to develop the popular "Stories" platform that later became a huge feature for Instagram.
Follow us on Google News
Popular stories
Latest News
Things that are NOT allowed:
To help keep our community safe and free from spam, we apply temporary limits to newly created accounts: