Snap Inc. announced it will launch a “lightweight, immersible” consumer line of AR smart glasses called “Specs” in 2006 (breaking from its “Spectacles” branding). Announcing the sixth-generation of its glasses at the Augmented World Expo conference this week, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said the eyewear offers “an ultra-powerful wearable computer integrated into a lightweight pair of glasses with see-thru lenses.” Spiegel explained the glasses will be untethered, which suggests they may be powered by the new Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1+ Gen 1 chip, also announced at AWE. Coming a decade after Snap’s first attempt at consumer AR glasses, Specs leverage a $3 billion investment in 11 years of R&D.

Now the concept is better timed, with advances in AI and mobile processing, Spiegel said, touting “no bulky headset, no puck, no tether, no phone required. They’re fully standalone, lightweight, immersive AR glasses, powered by Snapdragon, with an operating system built from the ground up for augmented reality.”

“Snap’s Specs will feature many of the same augmented reality and artificial intelligence capabilities that are available on the company’s developer-facing smart glasses, the Spectacles 5,” TechCrunch reports, noting that the consumer version will be “smaller and lighter — ideally making them more innocuous to wear in public than their extremely large predecessors” (pictured above).

“Specs understand the world around you,” using advanced machine learning and AI assistance to three dimensional space. The smart glasses will “provide a flexible and powerful workstation for browsing, streaming, and more,” Spiegel said in his AWE keynote, embedded for replay and summarized in a news release,

In 2016 Snap tried to sell consumer Spectacles smart glasses, which failed. “While Snap was ahead of its time then, the company now faces fierce competition in the AR glasses market from giants like Meta and Google,” TechCrunch reports. “Meta reportedly plans to unveil glasses with a built-in screen, codenamed ‘Hypernova,’ later in 2025,” while “Google recently announced partnerships with Warby Parker, Samsung, and other companies to develop its Android XR smart glasses.”

Snap hopes the Snap OS developer ecosystem enabled by the professional use Spectacles will provide a content edge in the augmented reality race, noting that the millions of AR experiences, called Lenses, that have been created for Snapchat will also work on the new Specs.

The consumer-facing Specs will run a version of the same Snap OS used for Specacles and Snapchat, CNBC notes, adding that in addition to OpenAI’s ChatGPT developers will also be able to use Google Gemini for the new glasses (which suggests Specs will also be compatible with Android XR).

Related:
Snap Finally Launching AR Glasses to the Public in 2026, Tom’s Guide, 6/10/25
Goodbye, Spectacles – Reimagined Snap Specs Set to Launch in 2026, TechRadar, 6/10/25
Snap AR Glasses 2026: New Lightweight Specs with More Powerful Upgrades Coming, Tech Times, 6/10/25