Snap, the company behind Snapchat, is launching Specs Inc. later this year, spinning out its smart glasses business into its own subsidiary.
Competition is heating up in the space, with Meta continuing to introduce new versions of its AI glasses and (if rumors are true) Apple developing glasses that use AI and augmented reality. Specs will have a big head start, though, as Snap rolled out its first Spectacles glasses in 2016.
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In its announcement, Snap said that Specs products «have see-through lenses that add digital objects to the world in three dimensions, enabling natural controls with your hands and voice.» The company has differentiated these types of glasses from VR headsets that close people off from the world around them, not unlike Apple’s approach with its Vision Pro headsets, which sit at the premium end of the space, and which have not sold well.
While early Spectacles products focused on recording video and posting it to Snapchat, Snap says that Specs are focused on keeping people in the moment as a tool for social interactions and business.
«Specs feature a first-of-its-kind Intelligence System that uses its understanding of you and your world to help get things done on your behalf while protecting and respecting your privacy,» the company said. «We’re building a computer that we hope you’ll use less, because it does more for you.»
Right now, Spectacles are available not as a product you buy, but as a $99 monthly subscription service aimed at developers and creators, not general audiences. The company’s website for Spectacles is focused on getting developers to create for the platform.
«Given how hot this area is right now, it’s a smart move, and I’m certainly looking forward to seeing what the commercial product will look like later in the year,» said Ben Wood, chief analyst and CMO of CCS Insight, in a LinkedIn post about the announcement.
Wood went on to say that Spectacles won’t be alone this year in pushing out smart glasses. «I suspect we are going to see quite a few products emerging in this segment in 2026,» he said.