Snap has introduced new AR glasses, the fifth generation of Spectacles, which is a huge improvement over the fourth generation. What you may not know is that both the fourth and fifth generation glasses are for developers only.
The Snap Spectacles 5 have a new design and weigh 226 grams, almost double the 4th generation’s 134 grams. Battery life has been increased from 30 minutes to 45 minutes without external power.
The liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) micro-projectors and waveguides are worth noting – they produce an image with a 46° diagonal field of view (FoV), which is a huge increase from the fourth generation’s 26.3° FoV. The image is sharper with 37 pixels per degree, which is 25% more than the old one.
Snap isn’t giving away details, but apparently, there are two Qualcomm chipsets that share the workload of Snap OS. This way power consumption is low and there are titanium vapor chambers for cooling.
Snap OS and the Snap Spatial Engine promise an impressive 13 millisecond motion-to-photon latency. Basically, four cameras feed into Qualcomm chips, which detect how you move your head and render virtual 3D elements on top of the real world you see through the glasses. And all of this takes just 13 milliseconds, which should be an imperceptible delay.
Additionally, the Snap Spatial Engine is responsible for tracking your hand movements so you can interact with the virtual objects in your scene. Snap OS also handles voice commands.
You can’t buy Snap Spectacles 5. If you want a pair, you’ll have to sign up for the developer program, which comes with a $99 per month fee for at least a year. Yes, you’ll have to rent these AR glasses and the process of getting them isn’t easy in the first place, so we don’t expect any consumers to buy Spectacles. To be fair, Snap is pitching these as a purely developer-focused device.
But why bother? You can use these to develop lenses for Snapchat, but only a limited experience is possible with smartphones. This is a long-term play by Snap, which wants to be the AR market leader as soon as the AR market comes into existence.
The company has partnered with some high-profile brands to create unique experiences using the updated Lens Studio and Snap OS. LEGO is launching BRICKTACULAR, which allows you to build virtual LEGO sets with your hands and voice. ILM Immersive by Lucasfilm promises to “connect you and your friends to the Star Wars galaxy.” Niantic will bring Peridot and Scaniverse to Spectacles. Wabisabi Games is launching some “Capture the Flag” type of game. This all sounds really cool, so it’s a shame that hardly anyone will be able to play these games.
Spectacles can work with your smartphone – for example, the companion app can turn the phone into a game controller. There’s also a spectator mode, so people without spectacles can see what you’re watching through their phone. You can also mirror your phone screen onto the glasses and more. Again, this sounds pretty cool, but…
Well, here’s a promo video for the new Snap Spectacles 5. As you’ll see, Snap has a pretty poor opinion of people using VR goggles – maybe it’s crazy that Meta is going to launch its own smartglasses next week (and a new, cheaper Quest 3S goggles, too).
