Google · Apple · Meta · France · BBC Technology
Snap unveils £1,995 smart glasses after previous flops
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Snapchat's parent company has announced it is releasing new smart glasses, a decade after its original pair lost the company tens of millions of dollars.
Key facts
- In 2017 the company revealed losses of $40m (£30m at the time) due to "excess inventory" of the glasses and cancelled orders
- That makes them cheaper than Apple's Vision Pro mixed-reality headset and its $3,499 starting price, but far more than Meta's smart glasses, which start at $224
- In 2016 it launched Spectacles, camera-equipped sunglasses which cost £129 and could record short video clips of up to 10 seconds
- A $200 refundable deposit is needed to pre-order the glasses, which will ship in the US, the UK, and France
Summary
The new augmented reality (AR) glasses, called Specs, will allow users to see digital elements overlaid onto the world. That makes them cheaper than Apple's Vision Pro mixed-reality headset and its $3,499 starting price, but far more than Meta's smart glasses, which start at $224. Evan Spiegel, co-founder and chief executive of Snap Inc, said the glasses marked the "beginning of a new era in computing". Ben Hatton, a market analyst at FDM CCS Insight, said the price tag meant the technology was "unlikely to become a mainstream device any time soon".