Jay Peters, The Verge (gift link):
Snap is finally launching augmented glasses for the public. Specs,
which Snap describes as “a wearable computer built into
see-through augmented reality glasses,” will cost $2,195. You can
preorder a pair of Specs now at specs.com with a $200 refundable
deposit, and Snap says they’re expected to ship “this fall” in the
US, UK, and France. […]The company says that Specs are “fully standalone, with no puck
and no tether.” (Which is perhaps a jab at Apple’s Vision Pro,
which is tethered to a separate battery pack.) They’ll be offered
in two sizes, a 47mm model weighing 132g and a 52mm model weighing
136g, and will have removable inserts that Snap says will support
“a wide range of prescriptions.”
Unlike Vision Pro, Snap is presenting Specs as eyeglasses that users will wear out and about in their daily lives. Viewed perfectly straight-on and photographed by a professional fashion photographer — as presented on the Specs website — they’re a bold look. Viewed from any other angle and captured normally, they look like goggles, not glasses. The frames look orthopedic and the lenses are not even close to clear. They make you look like you forgot to take off your goggles leaving the theater after a 3D movie — goggles that are big enough to wear over regular glasses.
Maybe Specs are useful enough to justify looking so orthopedic, but I doubt it.
