>Every important computing platform has been defined by what people built with it. The PC became meaningful because developers built software. The web became meaningful because developers built websites. Smartphones became meaningful because developers built apps. We believe augmented reality will be no different.
At a $2195 price point, it just won't be possible to have an ecosystem. All the other platforms mentioned were orders of magnitude cheaper. That being said, I do think AR has real utility, but the price discovery will take a while
I think they're chasing the wrong dream. Most of the use cases they're proposing won't suffer much from being attached to a battery/processing puck, and in some cases being attached to a laptop. e.g. I'm not watching a movie while walking down the sidewalk. It would be nice to just sit on a comfy sofa someplace my laptop isn't and watch a movie, but not pay-an-extra-$1800 nice. especially when there are similar devices available where you could buy the device and a dedicated laptop to power it for less.
I think you need to shake up paradigms a bit in order to get true value from these glasses. You genuinely need to start viewing scene understanding abilities, frontier AI model API calls, and seamless hand tracking as core primitives that you combine thoughtfully and not new tech that you chain together hoping to land on a use case.
Now, the ecosystem and the engine so far were designed for lower stake experiences but to make the purchase of this device worthwhile for average users, they will need Vision Pro app depth of thinking and attention to detail while fitting into the far tighter software and hardware constraints.
So the key for them is to lower the skill ceiling so creatives can tap into more of the juice, which is why they've announced an Unity to Lens Studio bridge and closed loop agentic coding, while making it more attractive for seasoned developers to use their engine and push its capabilities(native c++ sdk).
It takes quite a lot, but from what I've seen over a year developing on their kit and watching their platform evolve, their strategy has sound fundamentals.
But they urgently need to tap into a broader and more diverse talent pool, like say Blender and Houdini artists, harware & robotics engineers, ML engineers, even music producers and sort of corral their attention into their platform long enough for truly novel and useful applications to emerge.
If you want both, you pay for both. If you only want movie watching, something like the XREALs will suit you better. If you want notifications in your face while your phone's in your pocket, and you want to watch that video while standing in line, then this is for you.
Congrats to the Specs team for launch. Specs have come a long way since cimagine and looksery, spectacles days. And kudos to Snap for keep pushing.
- The price is actually competitive. They want to compete with Meta's Orion. However the product is ... lacking. None of the demos actually show-cased the dual wavelength display. The current usecases are available today at Meta Rayban Display for more cheaper and more polish.
- Dual snapdragon, and i assume one is dedicated to CV alg / scene-understanding/slam, without an external puck, i wonder how the thermal performance would look like.
- Looks very ugly, C'mon. This is the same team that desigend the original spectacle? where is Evan?
- I liked the Los Angeles text on the side. well-done.
AR has yet to produce any value for anybody. Google failed, Apple failed, Meta basically built a creeper spy cam. These may be the most advanced devices to date, but hardware hasn't been the limitation for a long time. There's just no application that's more useful than just looking at your phone.
I think the biggest constraint so far has been on the computer vision side.
With a better processor, the glasses should be able to run real time 6dof object tracking, lower latency hand tracking potentially with better occlusion, and ideally OS-level subtle intent recognition since current air pinch based UI interactions will not make it into mainstream.
I'm curious though as to whether they've expanded the ONNX model compatibility. In my experience with the '24 dev kit, this was a serious blocking point in doing any serious custom CV work.
They've also announced a C++ native dev kit, as until now you could only use JS and TS withno node libraries. I think this specific update might have an outsized downstream impact on the ecosystem.
I think they're all trying to be a phone replacement, when I need them to be a smart watch replacement. Give me smart glasses and a ring that controls them. Give me simple, watch like actions, notifications, but keep them out of view.
They all want a new platform and lucrative app store, but glasses should be an accessory, like a smart watch as you noted. However, smart watches don't have lucrative app stores, so we get chonky, dorky looking faceware like this.
Out of all the possible permutations of display/sensors/processing for AR, I would like to see eyewear with just a Bluetooth-like display and camera/mic. Let me use the phone or watch for all processing. Bonus points for eye tracking and body position sensors. Make the camera tethered if you must and somehow integrate it with my clothes.
Off course, this would mean less lock-in for everybody and we can't have that.
It takes time for older paradigms to be plodded through. I think the community is still sort of dizzy / dazzled from the novelty of the medium, and perhaps to some extent kept back by VR thinking and object/static 3d model type thinking.
As developers and users' Overton windows shifts, and they begin to think of these glasses as something totally normal and even quite boring, they might develop the orientation of mind necessary to hone in on use cases that properly _fit_ what this medium can offer.
It took me a year of confusion and throwing darts in the void before I finally began to see what this form of computing might represent. And that gain of clarity happened _thanks_ to deeply synergetic advancements in AI model capabilities and more recently with agentic coding which freed up the bandwidth to operate on higher level interaction and geometric primitives.
AR in isolation is nearly useless, but in conjunction with other domains and the environment it begins to make sense.
In my opinion, the ideal environment to nurture AR development looks a lot like Bret Victor's Seeing spaces. A lab, tools, devices, surfaces, combined with spontaneous, open-ended, and somewhat continual interaction and learning.
https://worrydream.com/SeeingSpaces/
The way forward is minimalistic smart hardware, like Meta's Raybans, until battery, optics and compute allow us truly miniaturized AR heasets. For now the price is too high and the utility too narrow to matter.
>Every important computing platform has been defined by what people built with it. The PC became meaningful because developers built software. The web became meaningful because developers built websites. Smartphones became meaningful because developers built apps. We believe augmented reality will be no different.
At a $2195 price point, it just won't be possible to have an ecosystem. All the other platforms mentioned were orders of magnitude cheaper. That being said, I do think AR has real utility, but the price discovery will take a while
Early PCs were VERY expensive at the time.
Apple II is easy 5 figures today
A few tech specs for those who don't want to read through the announcement:
* 51 degree field of view. Stated as being like you're working at a 24" monitor.
* 4 hours of mixed-use battery life with the case holding another 20 hours
* 132/136 grams depending on size
* Supports prescription lenses, easily interchangeable/swappable
Priced at $2195 w/ $200 deposit, arrival expected in Fall.
I think they're chasing the wrong dream. Most of the use cases they're proposing won't suffer much from being attached to a battery/processing puck, and in some cases being attached to a laptop. e.g. I'm not watching a movie while walking down the sidewalk. It would be nice to just sit on a comfy sofa someplace my laptop isn't and watch a movie, but not pay-an-extra-$1800 nice. especially when there are similar devices available where you could buy the device and a dedicated laptop to power it for less.
I think you need to shake up paradigms a bit in order to get true value from these glasses. You genuinely need to start viewing scene understanding abilities, frontier AI model API calls, and seamless hand tracking as core primitives that you combine thoughtfully and not new tech that you chain together hoping to land on a use case.
Now, the ecosystem and the engine so far were designed for lower stake experiences but to make the purchase of this device worthwhile for average users, they will need Vision Pro app depth of thinking and attention to detail while fitting into the far tighter software and hardware constraints.
So the key for them is to lower the skill ceiling so creatives can tap into more of the juice, which is why they've announced an Unity to Lens Studio bridge and closed loop agentic coding, while making it more attractive for seasoned developers to use their engine and push its capabilities(native c++ sdk).
It takes quite a lot, but from what I've seen over a year developing on their kit and watching their platform evolve, their strategy has sound fundamentals. But they urgently need to tap into a broader and more diverse talent pool, like say Blender and Houdini artists, harware & robotics engineers, ML engineers, even music producers and sort of corral their attention into their platform long enough for truly novel and useful applications to emerge.
If you want both, you pay for both. If you only want movie watching, something like the XREALs will suit you better. If you want notifications in your face while your phone's in your pocket, and you want to watch that video while standing in line, then this is for you.
> Today, SPECS are available for pre-order at SPECS.COM for $2,195, with a $200 refundable deposit.
Dayum.
I do buy into the AR glasses future. They’re insanely cool tech. Meta makes a great one.
Easily beats the "screen extension" monitors you see at every coworking friendly cafe.
This but cut out a hole for the camera and <$50 https://www.skmproducts.com/product/original-tv-hat/ :^)
> The Original TV Hat works with portable media players, smartphones, Microsoft Zune, Apple iPhone, iPod touch and iPod nano.
See? It's possible to support older tech
Looks promising!
Congrats to the Specs team for launch. Specs have come a long way since cimagine and looksery, spectacles days. And kudos to Snap for keep pushing.
- The price is actually competitive. They want to compete with Meta's Orion. However the product is ... lacking. None of the demos actually show-cased the dual wavelength display. The current usecases are available today at Meta Rayban Display for more cheaper and more polish.
- Dual snapdragon, and i assume one is dedicated to CV alg / scene-understanding/slam, without an external puck, i wonder how the thermal performance would look like.
- Looks very ugly, C'mon. This is the same team that desigend the original spectacle? where is Evan?
- I liked the Los Angeles text on the side. well-done.
AR has yet to produce any value for anybody. Google failed, Apple failed, Meta basically built a creeper spy cam. These may be the most advanced devices to date, but hardware hasn't been the limitation for a long time. There's just no application that's more useful than just looking at your phone.
I think the biggest constraint so far has been on the computer vision side. With a better processor, the glasses should be able to run real time 6dof object tracking, lower latency hand tracking potentially with better occlusion, and ideally OS-level subtle intent recognition since current air pinch based UI interactions will not make it into mainstream. I'm curious though as to whether they've expanded the ONNX model compatibility. In my experience with the '24 dev kit, this was a serious blocking point in doing any serious custom CV work.
They've also announced a C++ native dev kit, as until now you could only use JS and TS withno node libraries. I think this specific update might have an outsized downstream impact on the ecosystem.
I think they're all trying to be a phone replacement, when I need them to be a smart watch replacement. Give me smart glasses and a ring that controls them. Give me simple, watch like actions, notifications, but keep them out of view.
They all want a new platform and lucrative app store, but glasses should be an accessory, like a smart watch as you noted. However, smart watches don't have lucrative app stores, so we get chonky, dorky looking faceware like this.
This actually might work.
they are expensive enough that they might be useful
Out of all the possible permutations of display/sensors/processing for AR, I would like to see eyewear with just a Bluetooth-like display and camera/mic. Let me use the phone or watch for all processing. Bonus points for eye tracking and body position sensors. Make the camera tethered if you must and somehow integrate it with my clothes.
Off course, this would mean less lock-in for everybody and we can't have that.
lol
Gotta love that no matter how much the hardware advances, the optimistic, advertised abilities of AR have significantly reduced over time.
4 hours of use. To what, do turn by turn navigation? Play that stupid game that's just an escape room but poorly implemented?
Is that really all you offer?
It takes time for older paradigms to be plodded through. I think the community is still sort of dizzy / dazzled from the novelty of the medium, and perhaps to some extent kept back by VR thinking and object/static 3d model type thinking. As developers and users' Overton windows shifts, and they begin to think of these glasses as something totally normal and even quite boring, they might develop the orientation of mind necessary to hone in on use cases that properly _fit_ what this medium can offer.
It took me a year of confusion and throwing darts in the void before I finally began to see what this form of computing might represent. And that gain of clarity happened _thanks_ to deeply synergetic advancements in AI model capabilities and more recently with agentic coding which freed up the bandwidth to operate on higher level interaction and geometric primitives.
AR in isolation is nearly useless, but in conjunction with other domains and the environment it begins to make sense.
In my opinion, the ideal environment to nurture AR development looks a lot like Bret Victor's Seeing spaces. A lab, tools, devices, surfaces, combined with spontaneous, open-ended, and somewhat continual interaction and learning. https://worrydream.com/SeeingSpaces/
The way forward is minimalistic smart hardware, like Meta's Raybans, until battery, optics and compute allow us truly miniaturized AR heasets. For now the price is too high and the utility too narrow to matter.