Snap Bets $3 B on Wearables: Consumer-Ready Smart Glasses Launch Next Year

Snap says its first mass-market smart glasses, dubbed Specs, will hit shelves in 2026, marking the company’s boldest push yet beyond Snapchat filters and into everyday hardware. CEO Evan Spiegel told the Augmented World Expo that Snap has funneled more than $3 billion into AR eyewear over the past 11 years and is now confident it can deliver a lightweight, stylish frame the average user will want to wear outside a tech conference.

Unlike the developer-only Spectacles V5 from 2024, Specs will run full augmented-reality experiences, pairing Snap’s Lens Studio effects with Niantic Spatial’s geospatial tech so wearers can drop interactive digital objects into real-world scenes. The device positions Snap in direct competition with Meta’s fast-selling Ray-Ban smart glasses and rekindles memories of Google Glass—but with a decade of AR maturity and a vibrant creator community already churning out millions of lenses.

Analysts say the move could diversify Snap’s revenue beyond a volatile ad market and tap a still-nascent wearables segment that’s projected to surge once battery life, weight, and price cross consumer comfort thresholds. With Specs slated to ship just as Meta and Apple expand their own mixed-reality ecosystems, 2026 is shaping up as a decisive year for companies betting that the next big screen sits on the bridge of your nose rather than in your pocket.