Snap Gets Closer To Releasing New Ai Glasses After Years-long Hiatus

In Brief

Snap has announced a caller business betwixt its AR-glasses focused subsidiary, Specs, and chipmaker Qualcomm, arsenic nan institution revs up for nan merchandise of its wearable later this year.

The Snapchat creator has been teasing nan merchandise of nan glasses—dubbed Spectacles, aliases simply Specs—for a agelong clip and, earlier this year, it spun disconnected a caller company to specifically attraction connected nan business venture. In February, nan institution abruptly parted ways pinch Scott Myers, its SVP of Specs, complete a reported “blow-up” betwixt himself and Snap CEO Evan Spiegel.

The recently announced business pinch Qualcomm shows signs of life for nan project. Specs will be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR platforms, which are its systems-on-a-chip designed to powerfulness augmented and virtual reality devices, a property merchandise states.

The 2 companies will develop “on-device AI, cutting-edge graphics, and precocious multiuser integer experiences” arsenic portion of a multi-year strategical agreement, a property merchandise claims.

“Our activity pinch Qualcomm provides a beardown instauration for nan early of Specs, bringing developers and consumers precocious exertion and capacity that pushes nan boundaries of what’s possible,” Spiegel said.

The saga of Specs has been a agelong one. Snap primitively began processing nan merchandise complete a decade ago. The past consumer-facing type of nan glasses was released successful 2019. Since 2024, nan glasses person been a developer-only product—giving Snap nan opportunity to activity connected seeding caller kinds of programs that nan institution hopes will tie users to it upon launch.

Subscribe for nan industry’s biggest tech news