I tried Snap’s SPECS, and AR glasses finally started making sense

There is something slightly ridiculous about putting on Snap’s SPECS for the first time. They are big, bold, and unmistakably more complicated than a regular pair of glasses. Yet, surprisingly, the moment they sit on the nose, much of that concern disappears.

I tried Snap’s latest AR glasses at the Snapdragon Summit, and despite their chunky appearance, I found them surprisingly comfortable. The nose pads are properly sized, the weight is well distributed, and even as someone who uses prescription glasses, I did not find them particularly cumbersome. They are obviously heavier than regular glasses, but they are nowhere near the experience of wearing a VR headset.

The display is where things get interesting

Snap SPECS use LCoS-based projectors and waveguides rather than OLED panels, with a 51-degree field of view and support for 16 million colours. Those numbers are useful, but what mattered more to me was how the display actually felt.

Snap says it is roughly equivalent to a 24-inch monitor for productivity or a 115-inch screen for video, and I got to test the latter claim with a short HBO Max demo. It was genuinely impressive. The image looked good, and watching content without a physical display sitting in front of me felt surprisingly natural.

The real fun, however, started when I moved beyond watching video. A jellyfish experience gently introduced me to the spatial interface, while hand tracking handled most of the interaction. Raise the left palm and the controls appear; pinch something to select it. I did have some trouble getting the glasses to recognise my pinches initially, but considering the software is still evolving, this feels like the sort of thing that can be ironed out.

From virtual paddles to a very handy cheat code

The games were where I started understanding why the 51-degree field of view matters. In table tennis, my hand effectively became the paddle. It was fun, but initially a little restrictive because the virtual table extends beyond what I can see at once. I had to move my head constantly to keep track of everything. Once I got used to that, though, it became genuinely enjoyable.

Then came mini-golf. SPECS recognised the ball on the floor, let me place a virtual hole in the real world, and drew an aiming line towards it. I hit the shot on my first attempt, which felt suspiciously like cheating. Of course, this was a controlled demo on a flat surface, so it would be silly to assume SPECS can suddenly understand every bump, slope, and texture on an actual golf course. Still, it was an excellent demonstration of what spatial AR can do.

There is still plenty to figure out

Audio comes through built-in directional open-ear speakers, and while I would have liked more volume, I was testing them in an extremely noisy event environment, so I am not ready to pass final judgment. The upside was privacy: people standing nearby could barely hear what was playing. It’s also worth mentioning that while the SPECS can be paired with a phone over Bluetooth through the companion app, the audio cannot be redirected to Bluetooth earbuds.

Battery life is another thing I could not properly test during a short demo. That said, Snap claims up to four hours of mixed use and up to 20 hours with the charging case, which definitely sounds promising.

What I came away with, however, was simple: SPECS are not just an impressive AR demo. They are an early attempt to turn glasses into a general-purpose computer. Whether Snap can make that useful enough to justify wearing a computer on the face remains the bigger question. But after spending some time with SPECS, I am definitely interested in seeing what comes next.