By Adam Levine
Not too long ago, augmented reality was the hot topic in tech circles, and the metaverse was the next big thing. But a series of product disappointments and overly ambitious promises have left AR in the dust. To quote Gartner's famous hype cycle, we've very much gone from the "peak of inflated expectations" to the "trough of disillusionment."
It isn't the end of AR's story, though. Someday, something will replace the touchscreen smartphone as people's primary device, just as smartphones pushed PCs aside. This past week, a group of AR devotees gathered at the AWE USA conference in Long Beach, Calif. Everyone there is betting that augmented-reality glasses will eventually come out on top.
I happen to agree with them and would love to have such a device, but the conference showcased how far we have to go. While the software is getting more impressive, the hardware will require multiple breakthroughs before these things are ready for a mass market.
AWE sponsors included Meta Platforms, Alphabet's Google, and Nvidia, but the headline sponsor and star of the show was Snapchat parent Snap and the launch of its new Specs AR glasses, at an eye-watering price point of $2,195.
No company has made as focused a bet on AR as Snap. The relatively small social network has been working toward AR glasses for more than a decade, a passion of co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel. It's building "a computer you can wear, see through, and use in the moment," he said in his Tuesday keynote address. "A computer that understands the world around you instead of pulling you out of it."
It has been a tough ride, though. Snap shares are down 93% over the past five years, and they fell 17% in the two days after the Specs announcement.
AR glasses let users see the world around them, overlaid with three-dimensional graphics, a fusion of the real and digital worlds. Ultimately, the hardware and software will come together so that everything that can be done on a smartphone can be done on these glasses. The idea is that computing will be ambient but unobtrusive, there when you need it, but not when you don't. The user remains anchored in the real world instead of buried in a smartphone screen.
This has become known as "spatial computing." Artificial intelligence will also play a big role, taking conversational spoken commands and turning them into action.
When Snap's Specs ship this fall, they'll be the most advanced glasses of their type, but they'll also exemplify all of AR's current shortcomings. Specs get four hours of battery life, not nearly enough to be a main computer. And that's unlikely to matter because at 132 grams and up, they're more than three times as heavy as my glasses; these aren't something people will want to wear all day. Finally, the digital-display quality is still rough and remains a small portion of the lens.
Beyond these compromises, Specs don't yet pass the most important test for a face computer, which is that it should look good on your face. Specs represent a big improvement over Snap's previous models, but they're still too big and clumsy. Pictures of Spiegel walking the convention floor wearing them were widely mocked on social media on Tuesday.
All that, for two grand.
For the category to be successful, AR glasses need to be less bulky, do more, put fashion first, and be cheaper. There will need to be breakthroughs in batteries, chips, and display lenses -- the most important parts. It will probably take many years.
Meta is also invested heavily in the space through collaborations with Ray-Ban and Oakley. The $799 Meta Ray-Ban Display is less ambitious than Specs, though Meta has an internal prototype that is more on the Specs level. Meta's products are housed in its Reality Labs segment, which has delivered an operating loss of nearly $90 billion on $12 billion in sales, spanning more than six years.
Under CEO Tim Cook, Apple has also invested in AR, culminating in the 2024 release of the Vision Pro, its $3,499 AR headset. The Vision Pro is big, bulky, uncomfortable, and expensive. But it also runs impressive software called VisionOS, which is a good look at what's possible with AR once hardware catches up to its software.
Apple's greatest advantage may be its deep well of apps and developers, an ecosystem Snap and Meta can't match. Some of the Vision Pro's apps are made specially to take advantage of spatial computing, and, except for those that opted out, every iPad app is available on the platform. Vision Pro is a real computer that can do real work, at least for the two hours of battery life that you get with an external battery pack.
Cook is soon to be succeeded by John Ternus, whose AR strategy is unclear.
Meanwhile, the same battle that took place in smartphones is likely to repeat itself with smart glasses. Qualcomm is once again making chips for non-Apple devices. Samsung Electronics is building the glasses itself. And Google would like its software to power it all, backed by Android's huge roster of existing apps.
Meta and Snap have more Apple-like ambitions, in which they control both the hardware and software. Neither have much to show for the efforts so far, but the story is far from done.
Write to Adam Levine at adam.levine@barrons.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 19, 2026 21:32 ET (01:32 GMT)
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