Product1 publisher3 min readPublished
Snap opens Specs pre-orders at $2,195 with HBO Max, Shopify and a finger-snap camera
Snap's launch slate for its AR glasses is media apps, a Snapchat camera and sports drills, and the company says the anticipatory AI service it demoed also runs on iPhone and Mac. Spotify arrives after launch.
The Product Desk · Product desk
What happened
- Snap opened pre-orders for its Specs AR glasses at $2,195 with a $200 refundable deposit, and says shipping should start later this fall in the United States, United Kingdom and France.
- The rest of the announced slate is HBO Max, a Shopify 3D shopping app, an Apollo 11 educational experience, a Harry Potter tie-in and NBA and WNBA basketball drills using "visual guidance".
- A cellular charging case built with Verizon sells in a $2,395 bundle and needs its own data plan at $10 a month for Verizon customers or $20 for everyone else.
Compiled by The Product DeskSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- cost A five-person pilot on the bundle and non-Verizon data costs $13,175 before anyone bills an hour of build time, and the case and the data plan land on the budget separately from the headset.
- decision Because Snap says its AI service runs on iPhone and Mac, a buyer signing off on the glasses has to name the specific app that needs a display on the face.
- constraint Anyone testing Specs in its first weeks is testing a slate without Spotify, so a pilot that rejects the glasses on music has to be rerun once the app lands.
- exposure Connecting calendars, travel bookings and work deadlines to an anticipatory service concentrates them in one place, and a security reviewer has only Snap's statement about not collecting personal content to work from.
The one thing in the slate that needs hardware on your face is the shutter. Snap's new Snapchat app for Specs takes pictures when you snap your fingers, and handles video calls [14]. When Snap first showed the glasses in June, there was no Snapchat app at all [1][13].
Sort the rest by whether the glasses are required. HBO Max is there for watching content in the glasses [5]. Shopify is there for 3D shopping experiences, and Gizmodo's reviewer wrote of that one: "I can't imagine wanting to shop in a pair of glasses, but to each their own, I guess." [7][8] An Apollo 11 experience is pitched as educational, and a Harry Potter experience is tied to HBO's upcoming series [9][10].
The basketball app is the second item that plausibly needs a display where your eyes are. Snap partnered with the NBA and WNBA on interactive experiences that use "visual guidance" for drills and practice [11]. Gizmodo's reviewer tried the soccer version: "I got to try a similar app for soccer, and that was probably the most fun I had in my personal demo with Specs" [12].
Then there is Specs Intelligence, which Snap describes as an "anticipatory AI service" working across iPhone, Mac and the glasses [15]. You connect apps and services and it will "surface relevant information and actions" without being prompted, aggregating flight and hotel details for a trip while pinging you about a work deadline [16][17]. Snap was clear that it can be used without Specs [18]. So the software carrying most of the story is a phone and laptop product, and the $2,195 of hardware is optional on the vendor's own account [3][18]. Snap says it does not collect personal content from the apps and services you connect [19]. Gizmodo's reviewer added that "there's an inherent risk with anything that has broad access to your digital life, so do with that information what you will" [20].
Now the money. The base price is $2,195 with a $200 refundable deposit [3]. The bundle with the cellular charging case is $2,395, and that case needs its own Verizon data plan at $10 a month for Verizon customers or $20 for everyone else [21][22][23]. Twelve months of the non-Verizon plan on top of the bundle is $2,635 for one connected pair, or $13,175 for five [24][25]. A Verizon customer saves $120 over the same year [26].
Nothing has shipped, so there is no retention, usage-depth or time-to-value figure to argue over; Snap expects to start later this fall in the United States, the United Kingdom and France [4][27]. What is on the table is a price list and an app list.
Three buckets work on any launch slate, and they are worth writing down before the deposit goes in: apps that need the hardware, apps that run on the phone and laptop you already own, and apps that are not there yet. Of the seven Snap named, Spotify sits in the third bucket until after launch [6][28]. Specs Intelligence sits in the second by Snap's own statement [18]. On Snap's description, the first bucket holds two: the finger-snap shutter and the visual-guidance drills [11][14].
What to watch
- The date Spotify actually appears on Specs, since it is the one announced launch app still missing.
- Whether Snap pushes Specs Intelligence to iPhone and Mac users who never buy glasses, and what it charges them.
- Whether the $200 refundable deposits convert into shipped units when the fall window opens in the US, UK and France.