Technology

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Snap’s long-awaited AR glasses, Specs, didn’t have the best debut.

The company’s stock hasn’t been on the healthiest trajectory lately. It’s dropped 30% over the past year. Following Specs’ launch, it sank more than 5% — falling from $5.86 a share on Tuesday to a low of $4.83 on Wednesday morning. As of this writing, the stock still hasn’t recovered the position it held prior to the announcement.

The big concern surrounding Snap’s new smart glasses — which the company has been working on for over a decade — is the cost: The company maintains they will retail at nearly $2,200 apiece.

It’s worthy of note that Snap’s core user demographic — teenagers — are not typically equipped with that kind of pocket change, leading onlookers to question the profitability path for the new product.

Snap’s CEO, Evan Spiegel, did an interview with CNBC on Tuesday (during which he sported the new glasses) and, when questioned about the hefty price, responded: “The most important way to think of Specs is as a computer, and so they’re comparably priced to other high-end computers or high-end laptops.”

Spiegel further justified the cost by saying that Specs occupies a unique space in the AR market between glasses like Meta’s Ray-Bans — which cost a lot less but provide significantly less compute power — and bulkier headsets like the Apple Vision Pro, which are powerful but very expensive.

Spiegel said his product was both “highly wearable but also incredibly capable for immersive computing.”

Man wears largest sunglasses, thinks you may want to crush your ears for 2100 also

It's so funny to watch all of these tech companies try to make Google glass again like the concept didn't fall flat on its face a decade ago.

Only a small handful of people are interested in the idea, and the general public hates them.

Whoa! They look like a very long line of obviously bad decisions. Unwearable. Not even ironically ugly. Like a CEO designed it himself surrounded by a vacuum of yes men.

Look how out of touch we are with ordinary people but it's ok because you have also never heard of us.

Who is Snap?

I don't even get why companies are still pushing smart glasses. There's no legitimate use for them on the consumer market. There's already legislation being put into place to restrict what they can do because people immediately started using them for criminal activity. They're just an obnoxious annoyance to everyone who isn't wearing them 99% of the time.

They look fucking stupid. It looks like when my toddler wears my sunnies, but even worse.

Getting over the aesthetics hurdle is going to be so difficult for AR glasses.

Everyone keeps saying VR isn’t what people want, they want AR glasses.

But then the first AR glasses are not exceptionally thin and small. So it’s revealed that people were saying they actually wanted something seemingly impossible instead.

I have faith that the industry could get to “small enough” eventually. But I don’t know if the market will give them the runway they need to get there. Anyone paying attention knows what they are showing is a major improvement on previous AR devices in size and weight. But your average person looks at it and laughs at how big it is.

I wonder if the industry has the fortitude to keep pressing forward. Because if AR glasses did work as people dream they can, in the form factor they expect, then everyone will want them. Even if we have to set up strict laws around them.

I remember when Snapchat first tried to make glasses that would've been tied to Snapchat - and not much else.

From what I remember, they looked utterly ridiculous: bright yellow thick frames, almost circular lenses and a big camera right between them that could take pictures and automatically add them to your snap story.

It didn't gain the traction I think they were wanting at the time.