Snap bets $3.5B on AR glasses for businesses, targets post-smartphone era

Snap just put a price tag on its vision of the future, and it’s $2,195. The company behind Snapchat unveiled its Specs augmented-reality glasses at the Augmented World Expo on June 16, marking its first consumer-facing AR hardware after years of shipping prototypes exclusively to developers. CEO Evan Spiegel framed the launch as a down payment on what comes after the smartphone. Given that Snap has poured over $3.5 billion into AR eyewear development over the past twelve years, “down payment” might be underselling it. What Snap actually built The Specs glasses pack dual Qualcomm Snapdragon processors behind a 51-degree field of view, delivered through proprietary liquid crystal on silicon displays. Battery life tops out at around four hours, which is roughly enough for a cross-country flight but not a full workday. Buyers can reserve a pair with a $200 refundable deposit, with shipments scheduled to begin in fall 2026 across the US, UK, and France. Spiegel himself has acknowledged the obvious: mass consumer adoption of AR isn’t happening before the end of the decade. The hardware lives inside Specs Inc., a subsidiary Snap carved out in January 2026 specifically to give its AR divis...