When Snap debuted its long-awaited smart glasses, Specs, earlier this year, the reveal was not only underwhelming but a genuine disaster. The glasses — which cost a whopping $2200 and are vaguely reminiscent of scuba gear — inspired jeers online and calls for the company’s CEO, Evan Spiegel, to resign. The company’s stock subsequently nosedived.
Since then, Snap has clearly been looking for an opportunity to explain why Specs — a heavy, expensive piece of hardware that most casual consumers will probably be unable to afford — deserves to exist. This week, the company had its chance to make that argument. At an event in Los Angeles, Spiegel and other Snap executives unveiled a variety of new features and services connected to Specs.
The new updates seem clearly designed to help integrate the glasses into a broader array of digital activities and, in doing so, give Specs a clearer sense of purpose. During Wednesday’s event, Spiegel shared details about a number of the new features. After a trippy promotional video that vaguely brought to mind an ayahuasca hallucination, the CEO took the stage and began a series of live demos.
New entertainment options — Specs can now connect with HBO Max and Spotify — provide a baseline of interactive fun that smart glasses have largely lacked until now. Yet perhaps the biggest announcement was the launch of Specs Intelligence, which the company calls a new “anticipatory AI” system designed to pair not only with the company’s glasses but with user devices — including iPhones and Macs. Snap claims that this new system “builds an understanding of your goals, priorities, relationships, and routines from the apps and tools you choose to connect, helping you focus on what matters now while making progress towards your longer-term goals.” Spiegel called this system an “AI native operating system with intelligence designed around your projects” that helps users “connect the dots across Lenses,” Snap’s term for its AR camera effects, available on both phones and Specs, “so you can get things done while focusing on what matters to you.” In practice, it seems to function more like an AI productivity app that can be used with Snap’s glasses but doesn’t require them.
Snap has also announced a new program called Specs for Enterprise, which allows the device to be integrated into corporate workflows. On Wednesday, the company announced partnerships with a number of different tech companies — including Amazon, Salesforce, Nvidia, and other firms — in an effort to make the device useful to staff at those companies. What is the real-world utility of this and who is this service really for?
Apparently, the answer is IT technicians. While the actual scenarios in which Specs can be used are a little vague, a demo video shown at the event seemed to show an IT technician repairing some hardware with the help of Snap’s new glasses. Other announced features were slightly more head-scratching.
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