Snapchat parent Snap is nearing the long-awaited reveal of Specs, its next pair of AR glasses, as the company says we should keep our eyes peeled come June 16th.
Specs Inc, the company’s new XR subsidiary, showed off a (very) brief glimpse of the device via Instagram on Friday, which notably included “06.16” at the end.
The company additionally confirmed it’s publicly revealing the device on the June 16th at Augmented World Expo (AWE), which has become a prime venue for XR announcements over the past few years. AWE goes from June 15th – 18th, taking place in Long Beach, California.
Notably, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel is also set to deliver a keynote there, titled ‘Making Computing More Human‘, making it a fairly certain we’ll hear more about the company’s expectations for its next pair of AR glasses, set to be its sixth-gen device.
The fifth-gen Specs (seen below) were released in 2024 primarily for developers, ostensibly making its sixth-gen the first from the company specifically targeted at consumers.
And while we don’t know the specs behind Specs just yet, the company says it’s emphasizing the device’s built-in AI, something that “uses its understanding of you and your world to help get things done on your behalf while protecting and respecting your privacy.”
The reveal of Specs does come amid some turbulence though. In April, Snap laid off around 1,000 employees and closed hundreds of open roles. Layoffs haven’t largely affected Specs Inc however, which was spun up in January to allow the company to form new partnerships, have more capital flexibility, and, more importantly, insulate its AR business.
This follows Snap’s acquisiton of Illumix, a spatial mapping company and developers behind Five Nights at Freddy’s AR: Special Delivery (2019), which is said to boost the company’s AR efforts.