I hadn’t expected to be doing augmented reality push-ups in the middle of the mall. Yet there I was, wearing bulky Snap Specs while facing the ground.
The Lens (what Snap calls apps on its augmented reality headset ) is called Thirty Ups. It is in Halloween mode now, so when I look down, a virtual cartoon Jack-o’-lantern sits right next to where I’m supposed to start working out. I’m not trying to get jacked right now, but my goal is to see if these gigantic smart glasses will fall off when I’m staring straight down and moving up and down.
I get into position and start my workout. When I go down and back up, a little virtual circle on the ground below me starts counting up. I don’t get to 30 push-ups. I’m surrounded by people, many of whom are now staring at me, and it feels too hot outside to keep going without feeling gross. I get in 12 reps before giving up. The glasses only count 11 because it tells me I “skipped” one. Great.
The nearby Snap representative is thrilled. “You’re the first person who’s tried that one,” he says. I’m also pleasantly surprised. These glasses seem huge, but they stayed on my face just fine.
Snap announced its Specs in June. They cost $2,195 and will start to ship in the coming weeks. It took a few months for Snap to share what actual features would be available on the glasses
WIRED’s Julian Chokkattu and I both tried out Snap’s Specs last week. He got a dedicated demo with the company. I was offered one, too, but instead I happened to stumble upon the Specs First Look demo at the Westfield Century City shopping center in Los Angeles. The space has been here for just a couple of weeks.
It was a warm Sunday afternoon, and a steady stream of people came through the mall’s demo zone. Snap reps handed out Specs to anyone curious enough to register and hang out. Kids were running around, and the glasses looked especially large on their faces. When people left the demo, they got a free cup of ice cream with a small, Specs-shaped chocolate cookie.
The Specs had a dozen or so Lenses available for testing. Aside from the push-ups, the Specs let you finger paint in midair, see navigation directions overlaid on the real world, or engage with the physical environment by drawing on a notepad or analyzing text in a print book. They also have some sporty features, like one that allegedly helps with golf and another through a partnership with the NBA that guides you through shooting hoops.
You may have noticed that the glasses look pretty chunky. That’s true, but I was pleasantly surprised by how lightweight they felt and how well they stayed put. (The glasses come in two sizes, so if the small is too tight, try the larger model.) Another surprise was how well the virtual digital elements held up in bright light. I made a point of walking into direct sunlight to test out the screen. With the brightness turned all the way up, the onscreen elements were still visible. The glasses had automatically switched into “sunglasses mode” and dimmed to block the sun. The Snap rep said the lenses protect the eyes from UV rays at all times.
The problem, though, is that Snap is really trying to make the case that these glasses—or at least future, smaller iterations—are the holy grail of consumer tech. But I still don’t care to wear them in public. Walking around with the AR elements on can be distracting. Even if you turn it all off, the waveguides on the lenses still have a rainbow shimmer in your vision as you move. I wouldn’t want to wear these while driving or even walking when I really need to see where I'm going. At one point in the demo, I had to dodge a kid wearing a pair of Specs who was wildly swinging punches at something on the screen only he could see.
Most of the device features are controlled with your hands, like pinching two fingers together to open a lens or move something around. You can play Beat Saber-esque games by moving your hands around. But the controls can be finicky, and I found myself clawing at the air repeatedly to move or open something. Chokkattu tried writing in Google Docs—a demo showing the Specs as a computer you can work with anywhere—but the connected Bluetooth keyboard had a severe input lag, making typing a chore.
It also feels odd that some Specs features really just feel like advertising. A Harry Potter spell-casting experience is a fun idea, but really it just comes across as an ad for the upcoming HBO show . The Specs also have a shopping feature which lets you browse stores online. It’s a reminder that one day your augmented vision will be bombarded with pop-up ads.
I have a hard time imagining who these glasses are for. Given the price, it’s clearly aimed at developers and early adopters. But I tried the developer version of the Specs in 2024. The new glasses are much more comfortable and slightly less chonky, but the software hasn't changed much since then. Snap has shown off the same finger painting demo every time I’ve tried them, and every time it works until it doesn’t. The Specs are interesting but lack a killer feature, and Meta and Xreal both have more polished mixed-reality glasses that cost less. That’s going to make Specs a hard sell.
“We see consumer adoption as a process—the hardware, software, available experiences and price all need to develop together,” a Snap representative wrote in a statement to WIRED. “Specs bring computing into the world without pulling you out of it.”
For now, Snap’s most compelling pitch might be the free ice cream.
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