Snap has unveiled new AR glasses, the fifth-generation Spectacles, which are a huge improvement over the fourth generationNot that you know it, but both the fourth and fifth generation glasses are intended for developers only.
The Snap Spectacles 5 have a new design and are significantly thicker at 226 grams, nearly double the 134 grams of the 4th generation. Battery life is improved from 30 minutes to 45 minutes without external power.
The Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) micro-projectors and waveguides are what you should be looking for: they create an image with a 46° diagonal Field of View (FoV), which is a huge increase over the 26.3° FoV of the fourth generation. The image is also sharper at 37 pixels per degree, 25% more than the old one.
Snap doesn’t provide any details, but apparently there are two Qualcomm chipsets sharing the Snap OS workload, reducing power consumption and featuring titanium vapor chambers for cooling.
Snap OS and the Snap Spatial Engine promise an impressive 13 milliseconds of motion-to-photon latency. Essentially, four cameras feed the Qualcomm chips, which determine how you’ve moved your head and render virtual 3D elements over the real world you see through the glasses. And it all takes just 13 milliseconds, which should be an imperceptible delay.
Additionally, the Snap Spatial Engine is responsible for tracking your hand movements, allowing you to interact with virtual objects in your view. Snap OS also handles voice commands.
You can’t buy the Snap Spectacles 5. If you want a pair, you’ll have to Apply for the Developer Programwhich will cost $99 per month for at least a year. Yes, you have to rent these AR glasses, and the process of getting them in the first place isn’t easy, so we don’t expect consumers to have Spectacles. To be fair, Snap is pitching these purely as developer-focused devices.
But why bother? You can use these to build Lenses for Snapchat, but with smartphones, there’s only a limited experience possible. This is more of a long-term strategy for Snap, which wants to be the leader of the AR market once the AR market starts to exist.
The company has partnered with several big-name brands to create unique experiences using the updated Lens Studio and Snap OS. Lego is launching BRICKTACULAR, which lets you build virtual Lego sets with your hands and voice. Lucasfilm’s ILM Immersive promises to “connect you and your friends to the Star Wars galaxy.” Niantic is bringing Peridot and Scaniverse to the Spectacles. Wabisabi Games is launching a “capture the flag”-style game. That all sounds pretty cool, so it’s a shame that almost no one will play these games.
The Spectacles can work with your smartphone – the accompanying app can turn your phone into a game controller, for example. It also has Spectator Mode, so people without Spectacles can see what you see through their phones. You can also mirror your phone’s screen onto the glasses, and more. Again, sounds super cool, but…
Anyway, here’s the promo video for the new Snap Spectacles 5. As you can see, Snap has a very bad opinion of people who use VR headsets – perhaps it’s odd that Meta is launching its own smart glasses next week (as well as a new, cheaper Quest 3S headset).