After years of developing augmented reality glasses and experiments that were previously limited to developers, Snap Inc. is nearing the testing of its biggest bet in the wearables market with Specs glasses, which it unveiled last June with a starting price of $2,195.
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The company presents the glasses as a standalone computer integrated into a glasses frame, capable of displaying digital elements overlaying the real world and interacting with them via sound and hand gestures.
From Snapchat to a computing platform
Snap's bet goes beyond developing a more advanced version of the Spectacles camera glasses that made them famous. Specs was designed to be a standalone computing device that did not require a phone, an external processing unit, or a connection cable.
The company says it has invested for more than a decade in augmented reality technologies, including operating systems, displays, optics and computer vision, and has registered more than 7,000 patents related to this field.
The glasses include two Snapdragon processors, one for computer vision and the other for running augmented reality applications and experiences known as Lenses. They also rely on transparent light-guided display technology, with a 51-degree field of view and the ability to display 16 million colors.
Snap says the response time between user movement and the appearance of the image is 7 milliseconds, with the aim of making virtual elements appear to be fixed in the surrounding environment.
A large screen that never leaves the field of view
The basic idea is to transform the user's field of vision into a personal screen into which windows and digital elements can be placed. The glasses can display entertainment content, open a browser, stream the computer screen, create a virtual workspace, as well as applications for navigation, translation, education, fitness, and games.
The hand-tracking technology allows users to move digital objects using gestures like pinching and swiping, and they can use voice commands to interact with the smart assistant. Snap is also developing shared experiences that allow multiple users to view and interact with digital objects in the same environment, aiming to transform augmented reality from a solitary experience into a social space.
But practical experiments published after the glasses were unveiled reveal that the idea still faces limitations. A test conducted by The Verge indicated that gesture tracking was not always accurate, that seeing digital elements becomes more difficult in sunlight, and that the 51-degree field of view causes some virtual elements to go out of view when the head is moved.
Snap puts artificial intelligence at the heart of the Speaks experience. Instead of the voice assistant being just an interface for executing commands, the company aims to make it capable of understanding the context surrounding the user and helping him while he is in the real world.
This September, the company announced Specs Intelligence, a proactive AI service designed to work across Specs, along with iPhones and Macs, and revealed partnerships with Nvidia, Amazon Web Services and Salesforce to bring AI capabilities to glasses, particularly in work environments.
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