Recently, Snap introduced its lightweight pair of Spectacles, the soon-to-be latest version of its emerging AR smart glasses portfolio, with a planned 2026 launch.
Spectacles’ new lightweight product joins an increasingly deep pool of AR smart glasses as giants like Samsung and Google enter the 2025 market, alongside Meta’s current market lead with its AR Lite smart glasses.
However, the market and its leaders are still emerging. As competition arises, further participation from Snap and its dedicated developer community may prove fruitful.
Evan Spiegel, co-founder and CEO of Snap Inc added:
We believe the time is right for a revolution in computing that naturally integrates our digital experiences with the physical world, and we can’t wait to publicly launch our new Specs next year. We couldn’t be more excited about the extraordinary progress in artificial intelligence and augmented reality that is enabling new, human-centered computing experiences. We believe Specs are the most advanced personal computer in the world, and we can’t wait for you to see for yourself.
As Snap launches its latest smart glasses product, the firm celebrates that its Snapchat+ subscription tier for early and exclusive features has reached over 15 million.
This success led to the launch of Lens+, an additional subscription for accessing Snap Lenses and AR experiences.
Lens+ experiences include AI video Lenses and games, with Snpa noting the upcoming release of tools for Lens creators to build and monetise content on the ecosystem.
AR/VR Device Shipments to Experience Strong Rebound
This news follows the International Data Corporation (IDC) detailing a “strong rebound” in headset purchases in its Worldwide Quarterly Augmented and Virtual Reality Headset Tracker.
Ramon T. Llamas, Research Director with IDC’s AR/VR team, noted that “the worldwide AR/VR headset market is reaching a critical tipping point.”
The report revealed that in the most recent quarter, the AR/VR headset market experienced a year-over-year growth of 18.1%, with Meta leading the charge by capturing 50.8% of the market share.
XREAL ranked as the second-largest player, partly due to its sales of smart glasses. Additionally, Viture, another smart glasses vendor, enjoyed an impressive year-over-year growth of 268.4%, while TCL achieved a growth rate of 91.6%. Notably, the IDC pointed out that Apple did not reach the top rankings this quarter, highlighting a trend toward optical see-through glasses.
This means that Snap’s educated dive into the consumer AR smart glasses market may come at a crucial time.
Can Snap Lead in AR Smart Glasses?
Recently, Shahnanigans Founder Shahwali Shayan spoke exclusively to XR Today to discuss how Snap is helping to drive the AR developer community.
Shayan explained that Snap is “leading that conversation because while they have things like Spectacles, and because it’s still within a developer community and there are not many of them, some of the experiences that they’re creating are absolutely just mind-boggling.”
Shayan added:
The best way that a company can really do this is to hand out [smart glasses] to developers and let them figure out how they want to shape the world of the future.
Snap’s future could shine bright as the AR smart glasses market grows with excitement. Alongside Meta, Google, XREAL, and others, the coming years may be a turning point in AR device adoption and understanding.
