Snap CEO Evan Spiegel Bets on $2,195 AR Glasses as Smartphone Alternative

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel is betting consumers are so tired of looking at smartphone screens that they'll be willing to pay over $2,000 for augmented reality glasses that bring digital visuals into a user's field of vision.

"Almost 20 years since the launch of the iPhone, people are ready to think about computing differently," Spiegel said in an interview with CNBC.

On Tuesday, the Snap co-founder debuted Specs, his company's first AR device geared towards the broader public instead of developers. At $2,195 with a $200 refundable deposit, Specs are more than 15 times the price of Snap's $130 camera-only Spectacles that debuted in 2016 and never became a hit.

"Specs really represents a way to use computing together in shared experiences in the real world, looking up through see-through lenses rather than at an opaque screen," Spiegel said. The device is expected to ship later this year in the U.S., U.K. and France.

It's a nascent market but one already featuring more well-capitalized competitors. Meta's Reality Labs has found some success with its Ray-Ban Meta glasses in partnership with EssilorLuxottica , after the company struggled to find a mass audience for its Quest-branded VR headsets. And in May, Google showed off its upcoming AI-powered glasses, being developed with Samsung and eyewear makers Warby Parker and Gentle Monster, with an emphasis on audio.

Spiegel dismissed audio-only smart glasses, characterizing them as "very lightweight glasses that really don't do much."

"They're kind of like a phone accessory or an open-ear headphone," Spiegel said.

But Meta and Google have built dominant digital ad businesses that generate enough cash to allow the companies to experiment with costly hardware efforts. Snap, by contrast, has struggled to impress Wall Street, losing money every year that it's been a public company.

In January, Snap created a subsidiary dubbed Specs Inc. to house the development of its AR glasses.

"We've been really clear with investors since we founded the company that we're going to manage the business for the long term and really in service of our community and our customers," Spiegel said. "I think this is an important step for investors in the sense that they'll see a lot of progress that they haven't yet seen before, but it really is just another step."

Much of Spiegel's confidence rests on his view that there's life after smartphones.

More people are "actually questioning their relationships with screens," Spiegel said, citing factors like the "neck pain they got from staring down into a small phone screen" or the feeling that they're missing out on everyday moments.

The early days of smart glasses have shown promise while VR remained a niche category. Apple's Vision Pro, which starts at $3,500, hasn't become the iPhone makers' next killer product despite hefty investment and a big marketing push, and Meta has downsized its VR ambitions this year, converting its Horizon Worlds VR platform into a Roblox-like mobile app.

Spiegel said "there's certainly a lot of developers who are coming from the VR space or looking for more opportunity in augmented reality."

Compared to what's on the market, Spiegel called Specs the most capable, most aware and most accessible spatial computer that's available today."

But with rising inflation eating away at consumer confidence, high-priced electronics could be a tough sell at the moment.

"This is like the worst time for any company to be launching any kind of premium product," said Jitesh Ubrani, a research manager for IDC. For Snap, he added, "there's also the fact that their core audience has always skewed young, and typically that audience can't afford to spend a lot."

The new Specs AR glasses are lighter and contain a larger display than the previous developer-focused version of Spectacles. They offer nearly four hours of battery life and Bluetooth connectivity. Developers will also be able to create AI agent-like experiences for the device using a preview feature that integrates with Anthropic's Claude Code, OpenAI's Codex, and Cursor's coding tools.

Regarding potential child-safety concerns with Specs, Spiegel said the company plans to release later this year parenting "tools to make it easier to share the Specs with your teenager with a more limited set of Lenses," which are AR effects, as well as certain features "on the operating system side."

Spiegel, a father of four boys, said he's been testing Specs at home with his family.

"Rather than having kids staring down at a single player on a little screen, you can run around and play laser tag, you can learn about dinosaurs, you can build Legos," Spiegel said. "It's really, really fun to be able to play with see-through computing, because it's something that you can share."

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