Snap is about to ship augmented reality glasses — and they cost a fortune

Snap is finally launching augmented glasses to the public. The specs, which Snap describes as “a wearable computer built into transparent augmented reality glasses,” will cost $2,195. You can pre-order a pair of specs now at specifications.com With a $200 refundable deposit, Snap says it’s expected to ship “this fall” in the US, UK and France.

This is a big moment for Snap: The company made a big foray into smart glasses with its Original Glasses In 2016And the company was Toil far In non-public AR releases of Spectacles over the past few years. CEO Evan Spiegel promised that the company would launch augmented reality glasses for consumers In 2026 And even turned its smart glasses team into Separate works.

The company says the specs are “completely standalone, with no dial or tether.” (Which is probably a knock on Apple’s Vision Pro, which is linked to a separate battery pack.) It will be offered in two sizes, a 47mm model that weighs 132 grams and a 52mm model that weighs 136 grams, and will have removable inserts that Snap says will support a “wide range of prescriptions.”

You probably won’t mistake the Specs, with their wide, bold frames, for any of the Meta smart glasses — Snap has clearly chosen a design that they want to stand out. (It’s not my style – I don’t think I could pull off the ‘snow goggles, but fashionable look’ – although maybe Jony Ive They might like that.) They have visible light and infrared cameras, and while recording specs, a small LED strip in the middle of the glasses will glow.

Both lenses will be able to show you the content Snape says Its display system is powered by a “proprietary liquid crystal silicon technology” that provides a 51-degree field of view and can display 16 million colors. Snap says the lenses can also go from clear to tinted in 10 seconds.

The specs have two Snapdragon processors on board, and while Snap doesn’t specify which one exactly, the company says one is focused on “computer vision” while the other is focused on powering AR Lenses. “Together, they enable fast hand tracking, low latency, and responsive interactions that help digital content feel relevant in the real world,” Snap says.

You can also expect up to four hours of battery life per charge, which Snap says takes into account things like “audio and video playback, AI assistance, Bluetooth notifications, and more.” The specifications come with a charging case that Snap says will provide four additional charges for a total of 20 hours of battery. During his keynote at the AWE 2026 conference, CEO Evan Spiegel pointed out that you can charge the specs using a cable that attaches magnetically to the side of the glasses — and if you connect the other side of that cable to something like a phone, computer, or gaming console, you can stream content from those devices and display it on your specs.

The specs might be interesting, but we haven’t tried it ourselves yet, so we can’t guarantee what it’s like when you actually use it day in and day out. And we don’t know how the specs actually hold up as a product that falls in between something like Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, which It was a hitAnd Vision Pro, Which did.

Nowadays, there are a lot more smart glasses than there were when Snap Spectacles first launched. The new specifications are launched a year after the Meta smart glasses With one offeralthough Meta has not publicly launched the AR glasses yet despite showing off a model Not sold in 2024. As my colleague Victoria Song recently wrote, Most smart glasses still don’t make senseNot to mention the problem that is growing privacy Fears About smart glasses. Despite all this, Snap is moving forward with the specs, so we’ll see how well they fare when they finally become available.

Update, June 16: Details about the charging cable have been added.

Correction, June 16: Meta has not publicly launched the AR glasses yet.