I wore Snap’s new standalone AR glasses and Snap OS – Video

Snap standalone AR glasses bring all sorts of Snapchat visuals into the real world, but they’re not made for your eyes yet. The future of AR so far seems to be in everyday glasses. I’ve been looking at things like the Apple Vision Pro Meta Quest 3. These are VR headsets that can project virtual things onto the real world by showing you a camera feed overlaid on top of it. It looks really cool, but it’s not the same as everyday glasses. And then I recently went out there to see what companies are doing. They’re making things that are like everyday glasses, but they connect to computers and phones. Snapchats, the new Snap glasses, are completely standalone, but there are subscription glasses for developers. They cost $99 a month. So definitely not meant for everyday eyes, and they have limitations. They’re big. If you look at them on my face, they’re not something I would wear every day. They’re compatible with prescription lenses, but they didn’t have my prescription for the demo. So I had to look at things a couple of steps down in prescription and things were a little bit sketchy but I’m used to the area. They also have dual Qualcomm system-on-chip processors, one on each arm. But I don’t know what type they wouldn’t tell me they’re also using if you’re into engineering costs, projector technology that then shines these little waveguides, which are rainbow colored spots on the lenses that basically project the 3D effect. These glasses only have 45 minutes of battery life, which isn’t a lot, but it could be enough for developers to explore in some test environments. As for how apps perform, the thing about these glasses that’s new compared to 2021 is that there’s a whole new operating system on top of this Snap OS and it runs multiple apps. It allows for phone connectivity and it can also do things like run a browser. I watched a YouTube video about it, you know, it has limitations, it doesn’t allow for a lot of multitasking, but it’s there. And they’re trying to make it feel more like a complete system. The viewing area is smaller than a VR headset. It’s about a 46 degree angle and it looked something like this when I looked around, almost like a phone window projected onto the real world. Nice vertically but tight horizontally to interact with Snap Os, use your hands a lot like the Apple Vision Pro or the Quest Three, I could use my hands to reach out directly or tap and pinch from a distance but it doesn’t have eye tracking. Uh But at least it has that hand tracking using the built in cameras. But I did get to see a bunch of Snap visual effects transplanted onto the real world. A painting app that let me lay different plants over objects. Furniture, recognizing things. I got to navigate a solar system using AI to recognize my voice and chat and these glasses are chat GP T compatible. They’re eventually going to work in generative AI to have conversations to pick up things in ARI, could actually have a conversation and generate little 3D emojis generated through generative AI. But I found the experience to be pretty mixed. You know, sometimes it wouldn’t actually recognize what I was saying. And other times I would create like a hamburger dinosaur. There are other apps that I’ve looked at as well, including some other partners that aren’t with this company, Niantic, who’s been looking at Air Glasses for years, has a test app of Paradise, which is a virtual pet. I tried it on my phone and on Quest Three and they have it on this one. I could walk around and look at it. So how is this different than a mixed reality headset? There are a couple of things that this does that are really unique. One, obviously, it’s smaller than Two. It works with phones. Snap already has a Snapchat app and this is not only compatible with that to set it up, but it also allows you to use phones as controllers. I was able to remotely control helicopters and AR with a phone. I was also able to use the phone as a golf putter to do some golf swings. And you can also show other people what you’re looking at. If you look at me building Lego bricks on a phone, you can see that, but it’s very similar to what you would see in mixed reality on a headset. Sometimes the performance wasn’t quite up to par and sometimes it looked fine, but it’s a developer headset. I’m really excited to see where else it goes. The other thing that this does that’s really unique is that it’s meant for outdoor use. This has auto-dimming lenses that are able to uh sort of like transition lenses, adjust and make you see virtual objects more clearly outdoors. Like my little cute virtual pet, my paradox that I kept petting. It was pretty cute. And the other thing that it does is collaboration. You can have multiple people wearing the headset and they can interact with each other on something that you see or even scan the environment. I’ve tried some interactive painting stuff. And the idea is to maybe use this in outdoor spaces, maybe a concert, maybe an art installation, maybe something educational to test where it’s possible. They could also use the cameras on board to let developers start to come up with experiences that can see what you see. But Snaps are doing this in a kind of experimental way, it seems like getting that camera access could mean that some apps will be offline. Although some of those elements of camera access will also work with Chat G BT. I find it interesting because a lot of mixed reality headsets right now are blocking camera access for developers and that means that kind of magic. Can you recognize my world? Some of that hasn’t happened yet, but Snap is trying to get there. Others will. There’s a little LED light that tells you about privacy when you’re using the cameras. But I’m curious to see how that feels in the real world and Snap is clearly trying to figure that out. What are the possibilities for that? Hopefully the glasses will become more wearable or connect to phones more easily. It’s an early look at some of the technology that’s coming and other companies are trying to make small leaps in this as well, but no one has made standalone glasses yet, other than Snap, that I can think of. And this shows exactly what is possible and where the growing pains are.