The company that first popularized AR is hoping to get a leg up in a market that may or may not be out there.
What happened: Snap debuted the fifth version of Spectacles, its augmented reality glasses. A glance at the bulky design will tell you they are more about function than style — they are being sold exclusively to developers who want to design new mixed reality experiences.
- So far the company has demoed things like an interactive version of the human anatomy and generating images with voice prompts through a partnership with OpenAI.
- Experiences from Lego and Pokemon GO-maker Niantic are on the way.
Catch-up: Other companies made mixed reality announcements of their own. Meta extended its partnership with Ray-Ban to keep making wearables until at least 2030. Apple released a new operating system for the Vision Pro that probably won’t sell a ton more headsets, but smooths out a lot of the rough edges for who have already bought one.
Zoom out: The Vision Pro was meant to prime the market for future generations of hardware, but has fallen short of Apple’s sales expectations. While Meta’s Ray-Bans are performing well, they are still pretty feature-light — nothing more than a camera for the on-board AI to know what it’s looking at (though true AR displays could come to future models).
Why it matters: Mixed reality wearables haven’t taken off because there’s no “killer app” to convince people they are more than gimmicky, one-off novelties. Snap’s hope in becoming the most “developer-friendly” platform is that it could foster the idea that opens up the market.
Yes, but: With a steep price tag and not a lot of people to actually use what they create, developers might be hesitant to hop on board with Snap’s plans.
- Devs will have to pay US$1,188 to lease Spectacle for one year, then US$99 a month after that.
In Canada: Some startups are going the niche route. In April, Vancouver’s Form released Smart Swim 2, adding an AR display to swimming goggles that tracks heart rate, lap pace, and strokes per minute — and lends itself to adoption since it’s a version of something swimmers will wear anyway.