Snap finally debuts its long awaited AR glasses, Specs, and, oof, they aren’t cheap

At a spatial AI convention in Long Beach on Tuesday, Snap finally unveiled Specs, its long-awaited consumer smart glasses, and at $2,195, they don’t come cheap. Specs will be available for preorder on June 16th, with a $200 refundable deposit, and are expected to ship this fall in the US, the UK, and France. The price is well above most Meta Ray-Bans (which can run as low as $350), though still far below the Apple Vision Pro’s $3,500 starting price. Either way, it’s steep enough to put Specs out of reach for most everyday consumers. For over a decade now, Snap has been working on this device. Despite this, the last time the company released a consumer-facing version of the glasses was in 2019 — its latest iterations have been developer only. Earlier this year, Snap spun off a new company to focus exclusively on bringing the product to market. Now the glasses are finally here. So what stands out on first impression? Visually, Specs looks like a fairly normal pair of glasses — albeit a slightly bulkier, goggle-like pair. That extra bulk comes down to a key design choice: unlike some competitors, all of the computing takes place on the actual device, and it conveniently lacks a puck or tether. Specs runs on two Snapdragon processors, and it comes with up to four hours of continuous battery life, plus a charging case that extends that to 20 hours total. …