New AR-Enabled Spectacles by Snapchat in the Works

The fourth iteration of spectacles planned to be fully AR-enabled

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AR-Enabled Spectacles by Snapchat
Augmented RealityInsights

Published: April 12, 2021

Sandra Radlovački

Sandra Radlovački

Snapchat is developing a new, fully AR-enabled version of its Spectacles smart glasses, a major advance for the product and Snapchat broader plans with augmented reality, as reported by The Information.

The developers of the popular messaging app are currently working on a more advanced version of Spectacles that will include in-lens AR displays.

According to The Information:

“Unlike past models of Snap’s smart glasses though, this version of the product is not meant for the consumer market but is instead aimed at developers and creators. Those groups are already the creative force behind many of the wildly popular AR effects on the Snapchat app for mobile phones, known as lenses. Snap likely hopes the developers will come up with software experiences that can work on the new device, which could be offered to a wider group of customers at some point in the future”

Snapchat will be focusing on expanding its pool of development resources externally which comes as no surprise as past development of AR tools and camera-enabled glasses faced various delays in the past.

With no confirmation from Snap-on the record, the inside sources tell Snapchat’s AR plans to align with the broader industry development of advanced AR tools.

Two software giants, Facebook and Apple made their intentions clear on AR. Both companies will be launching AR-enabled glasses sometime in the future and as early as 2021, with Facebook announcing its first iteration being available to the public by the end of this year. The glasses won’t be fully AR-enables as of yet, though smart glasses will have a built-in camera.

This has already been done by Snapchat, however, a risky venture of developing a full AR device seems too costly, with Snap’s Spectacles project decelerating since the launch of the product in 2016.

Despite obstacles, Snapchat has continued working on Spectacles, introducing the latest ‘Spectacles 3’ with a new camera capacity and 3D capture tools to provide more capacity for the device.

While there’s still a long way to go before the AR end goal, Snapchat has filed various patents around such, going towards building a fully AR-enabled device.

Snapchat will need to stay in touch with the current trends and what competitors in the AR market are doing, however, Snap could still win out against others with an established hardware delivery process and rich experience in the DTC market.

 

 

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