Snap has spent half a decade building its first pair of AR glasses for the public, and the Specs are finally ready for fall. They cost $2,195, which is a lot of money for a pair of glasses. After spending an afternoon testing them at Snap’s offices, I’m not sure they’re ready for everyday use yet.
The Specs Are Big and Black
The Specs come in two sizes, 47mm and 52mm, and they’re built to make a statement. They’re not subtle the way Meta’s Ray-Bans are. They’re chunky because they pack a standalone computer into the frame — no phone, no external battery, no tether.
They’re heavier than my Warby Parker glasses, which I can wear all day. But they didn’t drag on my face like a full VR headset. They stayed put even when I shook my head around. I wouldn’t play basketball in them, but they’ll hold on while you walk. My ears sagged just a little, and I couldn’t tell if they’d get uncomfortable after a full four-hour battery cycle.
Playing Dominoes With a Snap Employee
The best part of wearing the Specs was playing dominoes. I sat across from a Snap employee, both of us wearing the same pair of glasses. I selected a virtual domino with a pinch and moved my hand to drop it on the table. The tile snapped down in front of us, on a real table. It was unlike anything I’ve tried in other VR headsets or smart glasses.
Hand Tracking and the Home Button
The Specs use hand-tracking tech, so you pinch and drag to resize windows or move objects like dominoes. You can even snap your fingers to take a picture in the Snapchat app. The hand-tracking was finicky, though. I often had to pinch a few times and place my hand in just the right spot to get things to work. I never quite nailed the two-part action of flipping my hand up and pressing the home button with the other hand.
You can hold up your palm to open a Control Center-like menu, status info like the time, and a home button. That setup reminds me of the ill-fated Humane Pin. Watching Lanterns on HBO Max in a moving car required shrinking the window to keep it in front of me. Playing dominoes meant constantly turning my head to see my tiles and the board.
The Narrow Field of View
The Specs have displays in both lenses, which beats Meta to shipping glasses with that feature. But the 51-degree field of view is a problem. Digital elements kept slipping out of sight during my demos, which broke the illusion that they were actually in the real world.
The AI Assistant Is Slow
Because it’s 2026, the Specs come with a dedicated AI chatbot assistant. It was slow and inconsistent in my limited testing. I asked it to show me funny cat videos on YouTube with a “Hey Specs” command, as suggested by a Snap rep. It didn’t pick up the command the first time, so I had to ask twice. Once it worked, it took about 15 seconds to pull up a YouTube page with search results.
A Private Video in Public
While watching the video, I picked a random cat collection. It played in the background while the Snap rep kept talking to me. The Specs were playing audio through the onboard speakers, but the rep standing right next to me said they couldn’t hear anything. That made me feel weird — these glasses let you watch and listen to a private video while staring somebody else straight in the eye.
These glasses theoretically let you watch and listen to a private video while staring somebody else straight in the eye.
What We Make of the Specs
Snap wants to build the next big platform, not just one app in a big store. The Specs are bold as can be, and they’re full of big ideas. But after my afternoon of testing, I’m skeptical of whether they’ll be fully ready for primetime.
The hand-tracking is finicky, the field of view is narrow, and the AI assistant is slow. The dominoes demo was fun, and the ability to share a digital experience with another person is genuinely new. But these glasses are still working out what they can actually do well.
The Specs are a step forward for AR glasses, but they’re not the finished product.
See the video the story is built around at The Verge.
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