Does Anyone Actually Want Snapchat’s New AR Glasses?
Snap’s new AR glasses are powerful, expensive, and extremely noticeable. But do consumers actually want another screen attached to their bodies?
Does Anyone Actually Want Snapchat’s New AR Glasses?
Snap’s latest augmented-reality glasses promise to bring digital objects, artificial intelligence, cameras, and spatial computing directly into the wearer’s physical environment. But the central question is much simpler: Who actually wants to wear a computer on their face?
In this episode of Network Issues, media scholar Jamie Cohen and marketing strategist Destinee Day examine Snap’s newest SPECS, the history of Snapchat Spectacles, Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses, Apple Vision Pro, Microsoft HoloLens, and Silicon Valley’s ongoing attempt to make face-worn computing mainstream.
Snap’s Latest Attempt to Make Smart Glasses Happen
The conversation begins with Jamie wearing an original pair of Snapchat Spectacles—the camera glasses once sold through bright yellow vending machines.
The original Spectacles had a clear purpose: they recorded short, first-person videos designed to be shared through Snapchat. They were visually distinctive, easy to understand, and packaged in a charging case that Jamie still considers an excellent piece of product design.
They were also difficult to justify in everyday life.
Unless someone regularly participated in visually interesting activities, the glasses offered relatively few reasons to wear them. Like a GoPro, they were appealing in theory but much less useful during an ordinary day.
Snap’s new SPECS represent a much larger ambition. Rather than functioning primarily as wearable cameras, they are augmented-reality computers designed to place interactive digital experiences into the wearer’s view.
That transition raises a larger question: Is Snap responding to a genuine consumer need, or is it building the product that its founder wants the future to require?
What Are Snap SPECS?
Snap describes SPECS as a wearable computer integrated into see-through augmented-reality glasses.
Unlike traditional virtual-reality headsets, which replace the wearer’s view with a digital environment, AR glasses allow users to continue seeing the physical world while digital content appears within it.
Snap’s glasses use cameras, processors, displays, sensors, and software to understand the surrounding environment and display interactive Lenses. That requires substantially more computing power than the original camera-based Spectacles.
It also creates practical challenges involving:
Battery life
Weight
Heat
Processing speed
Display quality
Comfort
Gesture control
Social acceptability
Privacy
Price
A product can be technically impressive and still fail if consumers find it uncomfortable, embarrassing, unnecessary, or intrusive.
Why Do the New Glasses Look So Bulky?
Face-worn computers require somewhere to place processors, batteries, cameras, sensors, displays, speakers, connectivity hardware, and cooling systems.
That creates a basic design conflict. Consumers typically want glasses to be lightweight and visually unobtrusive. Powerful spatial-computing devices need enough hardware to process the wearer’s surroundings in real time.
During the episode, Jamie points to the thickness of the frames and how the glasses appear to press against Evan Spiegel’s ears. Destinee compares the design with high-fashion products that brands declare desirable even when ordinary consumers find them bizarre.
The issue is not merely whether the glasses look fashionable. Weight concentrated around the ears, nose, and temples can become uncomfortable quickly.
Any company trying to turn smart glasses into an all-day product has to solve both the technological problem and the physical one.
AR vs. VR vs. XR vs. MR
The episode breaks down several overlapping terms used in spatial computing.
What is virtual reality?
Virtual reality, or VR, places the user inside a digitally generated environment. A headset blocks or replaces the wearer’s normal view, although exterior cameras may provide a video pass-through view of the surrounding room.
What is augmented reality?
Augmented reality, or AR, places digital information or objects over a view of the physical world. Pokémon Go and Snapchat Lenses are familiar examples of AR viewed through a phone screen.
What is extended reality?
Extended reality, or XR, is often used as a broad category covering AR, VR, and related immersive technologies.
What is mixed reality?
Mixed reality, or MR, generally describes experiences in which digital objects appear anchored within physical space and can respond to the user, the room, or other objects.
The language is not always applied consistently across the technology industry. Companies frequently use these terms to position similar products in slightly different ways.
Why Meta’s Ray-Ban Partnership Works Better
Meta approached smart glasses through an existing fashion product.
Rather than asking consumers to wear an obviously experimental device, Meta partnered with Ray-Ban and EssilorLuxottica to place cameras, audio, and AI features inside recognizable frame designs. Meta has continued expanding the product line, including second-generation Ray-Ban Meta glasses and display-equipped models.
Destinee argues that this partnership solves one of the biggest barriers to wearable adoption: people already understand and want Ray-Ban glasses.
Snap’s new glasses make the technology visible. Meta’s product attempts to make it disappear inside a familiar accessory.
That aesthetic success introduces another problem. The less noticeable the camera becomes, the harder it may be for people nearby to recognize that they could be recorded.
Why Face-Worn Cameras Feel Different
A doorbell camera is attached to a visible location. A phone usually has to be deliberately raised and pointed. Smart glasses can record from the wearer’s natural point of view while appearing to function as ordinary eyewear.
That changes the social relationship between the camera, the person wearing it, and everyone around them.
Important privacy questions include:
Can other people tell when recording is happening?
Can the recording indicator be covered or disabled?
Does the device identify faces, objects, places, or conversations?
Where is the data processed?
How long is it retained?
Is it used to train AI systems?
Can bystanders meaningfully avoid being recorded?
Will normalized smart glasses make continuous surveillance socially acceptable?
The design challenge is not simply making the camera less visible. A device may become more convenient for the wearer precisely because it becomes less transparent to everyone else.
Can Gesture Controls Work in Public?
AR glasses often rely on eye movement, voice commands, hand gestures, or wearable controllers.
These interactions can feel intuitive during a private demonstration. They may feel much stranger on a subway, sidewalk, in an office, or during a conversation with another person.
A user may need to reach into empty space, tap their fingers together, stare at virtual controls, or speak commands aloud. Other people cannot necessarily see the interface the wearer is responding to.
This creates what Jamie describes as a performance problem. The wearer may feel immersed in a useful interface while everyone else sees someone gesturing at objects that do not visibly exist.
For smart glasses to become mainstream, interaction must become subtle enough to work in public without isolating the user or confusing everyone nearby.
Can a Face Computer Avoid Overheating?
Spatial computers have to process cameras, displays, environmental mapping, hand tracking, audio, graphics, connectivity, and AI functions with minimal delay.
That processing generates heat.
Traditional computers have room for fans, heat sinks, and ventilation. Glasses have very little available space, and the hardware sits directly against sensitive areas of the face and head.
Apple Vision Pro addresses some of the power and processing demands through a substantially larger headset design and an external battery. Apple describes Vision Pro as a spatial computer controlled through eyes, hands, and voice.
Smart glasses have to provide enough computing power to be useful while remaining light, cool, balanced, quiet, and safe. That is an engineering problem the industry has not completely solved.
Why VR Can Feel Sweaty, Isolating and Strange
Jamie and Destinee recall working with virtual-reality headsets and how quickly users became sweaty, disoriented, or detached from the room around them.
Destinee remembers believing she had spent approximately 20 minutes in a VR experience before realizing that nearly two hours had passed.
Jamie highlights another uncomfortable part of VR: the person wearing the headset cannot necessarily see the people watching them.
The user may feel fully immersed in a coherent environment while observers see someone swinging controllers, reaching into empty space, or reacting to invisible objects. That imbalance can make the experience feel voyeuristic.
AR glasses promise to reduce that isolation by keeping the physical environment visible. Whether they actually make people more present—or simply place another interface between them and reality—is still unresolved.
Why the Original Consumer VR Wave Failed
Jamie’s academic research examines the history of early consumer virtual reality.
The first major wave of consumer VR promised immersive computing long before the hardware could consistently deliver comfortable, high-resolution experiences. Limitations included latency, motion sickness, processing power, display quality, cost, and physical discomfort.
The internet also offered a different form of digital immersion without requiring users to wear specialized equipment.
Modern VR improved many of those technical problems, but the industry still struggles with adoption. Better graphics do not automatically create a reason to wear a headset regularly.
That same lesson applies to AR glasses: technological possibility is not the same as consumer demand.
What Were Snapchat Spectacles Originally For?
The original Snapchat Spectacles extended the phone rather than attempting to replace it.
They captured circular, first-person video that could be transferred to Snapchat. The product made sense within Snapchat’s visual language of casual, immediate, personal communication.
Snap’s modern AR glasses are a much larger platform bet.
Instead of adding a new recording angle to Snapchat, Snap is asking developers and consumers to imagine a new computing environment built around interactive augmented-reality Lenses.
The question is whether Snapchat’s current users—many of whom primarily use the platform for messaging—want Snap to become a hardware ecosystem.
Are Consumers Asking for AR Glasses?
There is evidence that people want some functions currently being placed inside smart glasses.
Consumers may value:
Hands-free photography
Turn-by-turn directions
Live translation
Audio
Notifications
Accessibility assistance
Object identification
Short messages
Weather information
Contextual AI assistance
That does not necessarily mean they want a full visual social-media feed floating in front of their eyes.
Jamie suggests the eventual market may involve smaller and quieter functions: a notification in the corner of the wearer’s vision, a translated sentence, a navigation prompt, or a brief piece of contextual information.
The future of wearable technology may be less visually immersive than technology companies imagine.
The Future May Be Screenless—but Not Virtual
Destinee argues that many people are actively trying to spend less time looking at screens.
Her own smart-home devices are useful because they provide music, weather information, and lighting controls without requiring her to pick up a phone or open an app.
That points toward a different interpretation of screenless technology.
The goal may not be to replace a phone screen with a display permanently attached to the eyes. It may be to remove unnecessary visual interfaces entirely.
Wearables could become successful when they reduce technological friction without demanding more attention.
What WALL-E and Ready Player One Get Right
Science fiction frequently depicts immersive technology as an escape from an unlivable physical world.
In Ready Player One, virtual reality is compelling partly because everyday reality has deteriorated. The technology is not merely entertaining; it offers relief from an environment people no longer want to inhabit.
That distinction matters.
If virtual worlds become more desirable than physical life, the success of the technology may represent a failure somewhere else. The broader goal should not be to create a digital environment so consuming that users abandon reality.
The technology should improve everyday life without requiring everyday life to become unbearable first.
Why Destinee Wanted Apple Vision Pro to Work
Destinee explains that Apple Vision Pro appealed to her as a remote worker.
The promise of an unlimited virtual workspace—with multiple displays positioned anywhere in the room—could offer a real benefit. Apple markets Vision Pro around an expansive spatial canvas for work, entertainment, and communication. (Apple)
But that benefit competes with the physical burden of wearing the device.
A virtual office is less appealing when the headset is heavy, hot, tiring, or uncomfortable enough to require frequent breaks. Consumers should not need to strengthen their necks like racing drivers simply to complete ordinary computer work.
The use case may be compelling while the form factor remains impractical.
AI Avatars and the Uncanny Valley
Face-worn computers also complicate video communication.
A headset covers the user’s face, which means an ordinary front-facing camera cannot simply show them during a call. The system may instead generate a digital representation or avatar.
That representation can resemble the user without feeling completely real.
Small differences in eye movement, facial expression, skin texture, timing, and speech synchronization can push an avatar into the uncanny valley: recognizable enough to seem human but artificial enough to feel unsettling.
A technology designed to make remote communication more immersive can therefore make the person feel less present.
Are Smart Glasses the Future?
Some form of wearable computing is likely to become more important.
Smartwatches, fitness rings, hearing devices, health sensors, and connected glasses already demonstrate demand for technology that moves beyond the phone.
The unresolved question is what form succeeds.
The winning product may not be the most immersive or technologically ambitious. It may be the device that:
Looks normal
Feels comfortable
Lasts all day
Offers a few clearly useful functions
Protects bystander privacy
Requires minimal visual attention
Does not isolate the wearer
Works without becoming another addictive feed
The future may involve information that appears only when needed, rather than a permanent computer screen filling the user’s vision.
Key Takeaways
Snap’s new SPECS are augmented-reality computers, not simply updated recording glasses.
Powerful face-worn computers face major challenges involving heat, weight, battery life, price, comfort, and social acceptance.
Meta’s partnership with Ray-Ban works because the technology is embedded in a familiar fashion product.
Making cameras look less noticeable may increase privacy and surveillance concerns.
AR overlays digital information onto physical space, while VR places the user inside a primarily digital environment.
Consumers may want specific hands-free tools without wanting a full social-media platform attached to their faces.
The most successful wearable technology may reduce screen time instead of creating another screen.
A technically impressive product still needs a clear audience, purpose, and everyday use case.
Questions Answered in This Episode
What are Snapchat Spectacles?
The original Snapchat Spectacles were camera glasses that recorded short first-person videos for Snapchat. Snap’s newer SPECS are see-through augmented-reality glasses designed to run interactive digital Lenses.
How are smart glasses different from VR headsets?
Smart glasses generally allow the wearer to see the physical environment while receiving audio, camera, AI, or visual features. VR headsets primarily replace the user’s normal view with a digital environment.
What is the difference between AR and VR?
AR adds digital information to a view of the real world. VR immerses the user in a digitally generated environment.
Why are AR glasses so bulky?
They need room for processors, batteries, cameras, sensors, displays, speakers, connectivity hardware, and thermal management.
Why are Meta Ray-Ban glasses more socially acceptable?
They use recognizable Ray-Ban frame styles and make the technology less visually prominent. That improves wearability but can also make the camera harder for bystanders to notice.
Are smart glasses a privacy risk?
They can be. Face-worn cameras may record from the wearer’s point of view without the clear visual cues associated with holding up a phone or using a conventional camera.
Will smart glasses replace smartphones?
Possibly in some limited functions, but current products still face significant technical, social, and ergonomic barriers. A more likely near-term outcome is that wearables complement phones rather than completely replacing them.
Who are Snap’s new AR glasses for?
Snap is positioning SPECS as a consumer spatial-computing platform supported by developers and augmented-reality Lenses. Whether Snapchat’s existing messaging audience wants that platform remains an open question.
Episode Chapters
00:00 — Destinee asks Jamie to explain his appearance
Jamie begins the episode wearing an unmistakable piece of Snapchat history.
00:04 — Jamie reveals his original Snapchat Spectacles
The hosts revisit the camera glasses they bought from Snap’s famous vending machine.
00:18 — Why the original Spectacles were cool but mostly useless
Jamie compares them with GoPros: desirable until ordinary life provides very little to record.
00:45 — Evan Spiegel’s new AR glasses enter the conversation
Snap’s updated SPECS represent a much larger spatial-computing bet.
01:20 — Futuristic design or expensive-looking mistake?
The hosts assess whether the glasses look innovative, fashionable, or ridiculous.
01:30 — Smart glasses and bizarre luxury fashion
Destinee compares the launch strategy with fashion houses declaring strange products desirable.
02:04 — Are the glasses too heavy for everyday use?
Jamie examines the thick frames and visible pressure around the ears.
02:31 — Why computers worn on the face need substantial power
Displays, cameras, processors, sensors, and AI functions all create battery and heat challenges.
02:58 — Apple Vision Pro and external batteries
The hosts compare Snap’s approach with Apple’s larger spatial-computing system.
03:30 — Is Snap missing the anti-AI and anti-surveillance moment?
The timing of the launch clashes with growing discomfort around cameras, AI, and platform power.
04:38 — A closer look at Snap’s new SPECS
The hosts examine the lenses, frame design, and visible computing hardware.
05:17 — AR, VR, XR and MR explained
Jamie breaks down the overlapping vocabulary of immersive technology.
06:30 — Meta Ray-Bans, AI cameras and recognition concerns
More discreet glasses may be easier to wear—and harder for other people to identify as cameras.
07:00 — What the original Spectacles recorded
Jamie shares first-person footage captured while visiting Mount Vesuvius.
07:45 — Gesture controls in public
Using spatial interfaces may make perfect sense to the wearer while looking bizarre to everyone else.
08:11 — Processing in real time without overheating
The conversation turns to thermal management and the risks of placing powerful computers against the head.
08:36 — Why VR makes people sweaty and disconnected
The hosts revisit their experience working with immersive headsets.
09:23 — The voyeur problem of watching someone use VR
The person inside the headset cannot necessarily see the audience observing them.
10:01 — Why Meta’s Ray-Ban partnership worked
Familiar fashion design made the technology easier to accept.
10:39 — Cameras, smart glasses and the creep factor
Convenience for the wearer can create discomfort for everyone nearby.
11:20 — The Snapchat vending-machine Spectacles story
Jamie recalls buying the original glasses from Snap’s limited vending-machine launch.
12:28 — Are Snapchat users asking for AR glasses?
The hosts question whether Snap’s core audience wants a spatial-computing platform.
12:40 — Snapchat as a messaging app
Snap may be building a hardware ecosystem for an audience primarily using its software to chat.
13:00 — Why the first consumer VR wave failed
Jamie explains the technical and cultural limits of early virtual reality.
14:00 — VR was originally about expanding the mind
The technology began as a way to experience art, media, and digital environments differently.
15:07 — What is the actual purpose?
Destinee returns to the most important product question.
15:26 — Wearable technology may be the future—but not like this
Jamie predicts smaller, less intrusive, context-specific interfaces.
16:33 — WALL-E, screen fatigue and screenless living
People increasingly want technology that demands less visual attention.
17:15 — Ready Player One only works when real life is hell
Immersive escape becomes attractive when physical reality has already failed.
17:49 — Why the launch timing feels strange
The product arrives during rising skepticism toward AI, surveillance, and constant connectivity.
18:50 — Why Destinee wanted Apple Vision Pro to succeed
An unlimited virtual office could be valuable for remote work.
19:16 — Nobody wants to train their neck to use a computer
Physical comfort may matter more than the promise of infinite screens.
19:48 — FaceTime avatars and the uncanny valley
Face-covering headsets replace ordinary video with digital representations.
20:17 — What Snapchat filters reveal about Spectacles
Snap’s original glasses extended the phone instead of trying to replace it.
20:38 — Final verdict on Evan Spiegel’s new glasses
The technology may have potential. The design remains a much harder sell.
About the Hosts
Jamie Cohen
Jamie Cohen is a media scholar, professor, writer, and expert on internet culture, virtual reality, digital media, online platforms, and media literacy.
Visit Jamie:jamesncohen.com
Destinee Day
Destinee Day is a marketing strategist and the founder of Rudy & Company. Her work focuses on communications, branding, digital strategy, content, and the relationship between technology and everyday consumer behavior.
Visit Destinee:rudyandcompany.com
Continue the Conversation
Would you wear augmented-reality glasses every day? What would they have to do better than your phone—and how obvious should the camera be to everyone around you?
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Destinee (00:01.22)
Jamie, I think we need to start today by you explaining yourself and your appearance.
Jamie Cohen (00:07.872)
You don't like my personal video record recorder on my face glasses? You don't like these? I think they're kinda cool. Yeah, that's it.
Destinee (00:14.125)
I was with you when you bought them. I also bought some, but I would I think maybe the youth might call this old tech at this point.
Jamie Cohen (00:24.374)
yeah, this is this is old tech. This is this was, I think could have been cool if I led a lifestyle where this was worth owning. This is kind of like GoPro users. You know, it's like you you want to own one so bad, but there's just so many use cases for it until there is no more use case. And the fact is that like as a 40-something, I probably shouldn't be using Snapchat anyway. So these are Snapchat spectacles, the originals, the OG.
vending machine spectacles. This is, I think, version two. and I think I wanted to talk about this today because Evan Spiegel has decided to debut what I can only assume is version stupid of the the most recent iteration of AR goggles, as far as I can tell, where he's wearing a computational device on his face, but still called specs. This is the original term for these things. They were specs. And now he's saying that again. And yes, there is.
Mr. Spiegel himself, who turned down the three billion smartly to avoid Meta's takeover, and has decided to diverge. It's almost like watching an alternate universe diverge, and you get to see the outcome of the alternate universe as it comes out, because it does seem to me that poor Evan does not have friends who tell him that that looks pretty stupid.
Destinee (01:46.198)
Bef when you sent me this picture and before we started recording, I told you that this reminds me of when, you know, very luxurious design houses, fashion design houses come out with some crazy bonker stuff, and tell you that this is cool and you should wanna wear it, and then they hawk it to the Kardashians and parade them around like, see if they're wearing it, you need to wear it. And meanwhile you're like, I don't wanna look
like you know I come from a different planet. So yeah, I don't think that Mr. Spiegel has friends. Why is the end of it so thick? I'm assuming there's a lot of computing happening in there and that's how they've hidden it, but like my God
Jamie Cohen (02:26.657)
Yeah it
Jamie Cohen (02:32.877)
That's it seems they're one, it looks like they're heavy. look at his ear folded over. so it's crushing his ear, which by the way will be painful after like 15 minutes. So you could tell that wherever he's wearing this isn't long enough wear for him to actually understand that that hurts. Like me I'm I'm fairly sensitive to just the stems on glasses, no less like the weight on the the the the ears.
Destinee (02:37.496)
Yes.
Jamie Cohen (02:56.011)
And your cartilage does take pain like that. It's not exactly a comfort device, but I do think that the it's a computer. I think what he's trying to do is something akin to Apple's spatial computing device. The the what are they called? The Vision Pro. Yeah, I should know the answer to that. But the Vision Pro is a computer on your face, which carries an external battery pack behind you off a wire. Same as these. This the version that Evan Spiegel has debuted as his new versions of AR specs has a battery pack as well.
Destinee (03:10.179)
The Vision Pro?
Jamie Cohen (03:25.365)
Because computing on your face is intensive. It's a computer. It's like wearing a cell phone on your face that's spread out. the lenses, as you could probably see from that image, are flat. They're not curved. They're designed as computer monitors, similar to the way you'd your eyes would be distant to a VR set of goggles. So VR goggles has two tiny little monitors and then it has a convex lens, right? Convex. that makes it look like you're
surrounding your eyes. It creates like this immersive experience. So it's basically like looking through two small telescopes at two tiny monitors. And what's fascinating, we're going to talk a little bit about the tech about this, because I think there's been these notes coming from the VC industry, the venture capitalists that are like, Evan Spiegel's on the right track and this is the the path of things. And then there's the other side which is like this looks stupid and no one will buy it. So and it's also like missing there's a third part here which is like
We're already in the discussion of this thing about like being very anti AI, very anti surveillance, very anti slop. And it looks like Evan just kind of missed the boat and like popped out his slop AI surveillance device just after that. So his timing isn't exactly correct either. I don't I don't know. I don't I don't know what Snapchat's doing. I don't as somebody who hasn't used it since and I could see my thing since twenty nineteen. I'm not exact exactly clear on
what what market they're still working in. I do know that as of my last research, Snapchat was the dominant social media product for young people. but I do not know the stats of today. So I do know it's still used. It still has a a fairly big body, but it's mostly used as a chat app now. It's mostly used as a communication device more than a Instagram like device.
And those things are hideous.
Destinee (05:12.555)
They're absolutely terrible. Here, let's make it bigger so the people can really see.
Jamie Cohen (05:18.989)
Look at his ear.
Like I guess just nobody
Destinee (05:22.605)
I'm distracted by the mirror nature of the glasses.
Jamie Cohen (05:26.773)
Yeah. Okay. So those are a technology similar to like when you see a picture that changes, parallax style, like so you could see you know, like the two pictures are filtered. It's so he could see through and see a monitor same time. which is will probably give headaches. Okay. So it's different than Vision Pro. So let's let's talk about the difference between his product and AR product or
Destinee (05:42.105)
Got it.
Jamie Cohen (05:51.384)
That and the holo lens. So let me let me just share the holo lens so you can see the difference of the holo lens here. this is me being my coolest. Yes, the cool look how tiny and cool that computer is on your head. That's the Microsoft HoloLens, which was a very heavy device, but it actually didn't rest on your ears. It rested above your head. So it actually was nicer and more comfortable. and that was considered an XR or an MR device.
Destinee (06:01.775)
Hmm, yes.
Jamie Cohen (06:20.641)
And just to know the difference of MR or XR, virtual reality means that it's opaque. You cannot see through it. you can only experience the two monitors. So when you see through it, you need to use something called pass-through. That means it puts cameras on the front end and it creates a video of the front to transmit. Then there is AR, which is translucent or transparent use of technology. So that's Pokemon Go, which is interactive on the screen.
In the screen ecology environment, but not actually in the physical environment. So you can't touch the Pokemon. You can't mess with them. they are what they are. Then there is XR, which is extended reality, which is more similar to the HoloLens. So it allows you to see Pokemon Go, but actually touch them with your hands in real space because it's watching you. and then there is MR, mixed reality, which is the true outcome of all this, which is the mix of ARVR and MR.
XR at the same time, which is you could touch the digital objects as they appear in real life. You could draw pictures, you can you wear them all the time, would be an MR device. why he's doing AR or why he's calling them augmented, maybe assisted. I don't know why he's using the A term for this, because it's extremely accurate. And it's like it's again like in the age of like us being mad at like Mark Zuckerberg's failed, well, he's they're still winning. They're they're life cameras, which is this same exact product.
Except Mark Zuckerberg's has much more high-end technology of face recognition and assisted technologies. What I mean by assisted is that Zuckerberg's lenses have v AI in them and allow it to transmit to your ears what you're seeing. So you could actually like it could interpret reality pretty well. Where these were just cameras. And I'm just gonna show an example of what that recording looked like. It would record a 360 video. This is me on top of Vesuvius, and which is kind of neat because it worked in this very
gravity-based way, so you can kind of see everything I'm seeing, which is like me. You know, this is me the one or two times in my life where it was worth wearing a POV camera. It was cool. But otherwise, I just don't have a use case for it. So so it is neat to see that like he decided to bring out these tech here. But now here's where the complication comes in. Will it work? and what I mean by that is
Jamie Cohen (08:42.761)
If he's creating an AR environment, meaning gesture controls, right? Does it have enough restricted abilities to make you not look like a weirdo when you're like using it on a subway and like, you know, reaching out? Yeah, full zombie mode, like typing in space, or like God forbid you're like doing like something that can be misinterpreted. So it doesn't have that. Second.
our recording tech capabilities good enough that it could process things in real time without catching on fire. Okay. Now that's really important. That was the thing that Apple
Destinee (09:18.467)
Hmm. Especially when it's attached to your head.
Jamie Cohen (09:23.125)
Mm-hmm. And that big and bulky. That was a big thing that Apple had to deal with because wearing a computer on your head meant there was two chips. They had the computer chip and they had the Vision Pro chip. So it's two computers simultaneously working. And it was mostly exhaust going up to make sure that it was like the heat wouldn't cook you. Because you and I have both we both worked with these. We both own these things, but we both worked with VR. And remember how sweaty you'd get when you put the mask on?
Destinee (09:46.55)
my gosh, yes. Yes. But like I also it was very easy to zone out in the VR. There was one time I was using your VR in the Rick and Morty scenario and I thought it had been twenty minutes and it was like two hours. And I was like, whoa, time time was a very different concept, but you could usually tell by how sweaty you would get.
Jamie Cohen (09:54.614)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Jamie Cohen (10:01.654)
Yeah.
Jamie Cohen (10:09.931)
Yeah. What was that game I loved? It was like robot mayhem or something. I don't remember. I used to show up early to work and like you'd just tear robots apart and throw Like, but I couldn't I was so embarrassed. There was always this. So there's always this weirdness about VR that I always felt di uncomfortable with. One was that like the user, let's say you're in the mask or like a student's in the mask, they don't know I'm watching them. There's like this weird voyeur experience to it, which is like they don't know who how many people are watching them be ridiculous, tearing a robot's head off and throwing it.
Destinee (10:15.415)
Right.
Jamie Cohen (10:39.317)
And me standing behind them, like they don't know where I am. We had several students, remember they got hit? Like they would swing it like a kid, we get hit in the face. Like, so there was like you have to create the safe space of it. We had a tiny office, so it was tough as first part. But it also like grossed me out with that weird like style of performance. So now, like you now the Vision Pro itself was like this extra thing where you it was mostly meant for computing. You sit down and you compute and you can like do it, but it was more of like this like.
Destinee (10:43.823)
Exactly.
Jamie Cohen (11:06.135)
personal experience. And now this thing looks like it's supposed to be fashion. And I love the point you make, which is like the market sometimes pushes these things out. So it's like, here's what cool looks like. And it's like the question then becomes, can I rock this? Like am I not cool or is this just ugly? Like I don't know.
Destinee (11:20.783)
Well.
Well, and think about it, right? That's how I think that's why the new meta glasses are successful because they partnered with Ray-Ban. Who doesn't have like who hasn't owned a pair of Ray Bans of some style? You know, like s or in that, you know, people it may not be Ray Bans, but it's like inspired by a Ray Ban design. I think that's why they're successful and people think that's a little bit more low key. Like you can obviously still see there's a camera there.
Jamie Cohen (11:31.371)
Yes. Mm-hmm. Right.
I own I own red bands. Mm-hmm.
Destinee (11:53.284)
But I think that's that's how they're selling so much of it. I have no idea how this man plans to sell this product because it looks it makes you look like you're a clown.
Jamie Cohen (12:03.317)
That's also yeah, it's not it is it's not just clowny clown work. It does look like clown glasses. It really does, but it's not just that. Like you're right, s the problem I think with meta, the criticism is that the c glasses do look cool. That is the criticism, because those glasses are too cool and like the coolness of it makes them look almost invisible. These glasses as I couldn't really rock these every single day 'cause they look ridiculous, but at least they didn't look cool enough.
That you could walk around and take somebody's identity without their permission. This looks like cameras. Okay. One was this one's the spatial lens, this side, and one is the camera lens. And when you pressed it, a little ring would show up. You could hack that, of course, like with all the technologies. But that at least dissuaded you from being the creepers that I think a lot of Meta Ray Ban wearers would wear because you can't really tell. Whereas Spiegel's lenses, the specs, these literally names again, same names, the specs of the 2026 10 years.
Ten years ago, you and I went to New York City. I think it was cold out, and we waited in line for a vending machine. And you had to slide $130 into the sl the vending machine and this this wonderful yellow container came out holding which is also it's a battery charger. I think for still, I still think in product design terms, this is still a great product design. Okay, because like this thing would sit and get seated in the in the bucket here and like
charge you know it was like how cool is that that you could charge your glasses in its case everything came with it a little robust container like it was it was good these this spatial computing idea too is like a a a coffee table piece when somebody comes over and sees your vision pro it's like something you have to like show showcase and somewhere in between is this hardware that Spiegel's designing and what I I'm my whole
wonderment of this is that
Jamie Cohen (14:00.162)
What's the market? If he's a Snapchat guy, right? So is Snapchat are Snapchat users aching for an AR device? Are they aching for this machinery? I don't know who's asked for this.
Destinee (14:12.013)
I feel like every Snapchat user I know uses it right? It's it's everyone I know that uses it, Snapchat, uses it as a messaging platform. They send each other messages all the day. Like that's that's it.
Jamie Cohen (14:27.884)
Mm-hmm.
Jamie Cohen (14:31.411)
It is actually Snapchat from what I know, because I'm no longer using it, but from what I understand, it is a pro-social environment. It means that people actually enjoy using it as messaging. Like that that's good, it's a good space. The other thing too is like, does Spiegel have the technology and and engineers to make it so it functions without getting sick? Like one of the biggest problems with VR and AR, and I think you know this, but like for those of you listening, I my dissertation is on the history of the original consumer virtual reality, nineteen eighty seven to nineteen ninety-three, which failed.
And didn't re-emerge until 2011 when this hyper chud how Hawaiian shirt wearing sociopath decided to reinvent it. and I don't mean that lightly. I mean he literally runs a company that makes drones to kill people. he when he re-resurrected it as the Oculus, that was like a new iteration of an old technology. It was a tech technology that had died. And the reason it died isn't what people think. It wasn't about the technological shortfalls, which I'll talk about in a second. It was the fact the internet came out. And so the internet
Is immersive experience. You don't need to wear it on your face if you have it. So that first iteration was really about the extension of here's I think a good point that that needs to be brought up, which is that people today, whenever they use VR, forget its original intention. VR's original intention was mind expansion. It was to basically see art and technology in a new way that no one else could access via two-dimensional screens. You want an immersive experience. The downside is the technology in the 1990s didn't match what you could do with technology today.
VR glasses, today you don't get sick in them. Well, most don't. I I still do. But that's because they have differential. when you drive a car, you know, when you turn like left, the center, the wheel inside is going to turn slower than the wheel outside because the wheel outside has to catch up to the turn. Otherwise you'll hear like old cars. Whenever they turn, they make that noise because one wheel is not doing it. Differential makes it so that when you turn your head left, one eye s adapts to the other eye's movement so that you're not getting sick.
So there's a ton of technology that has to go in just to make the monitors, the teeny tiny little monitors, work so you don't throw up or stop using it. Because VR as a technology is immersive. And so they want you in it as long as possible. So anything that distracts you from the in part makes it unwearable. And so we obviously have the failure of the metaverse, the failure of Zuckerberg's Oculus systems, the failure of you name the VR flavor and it just didn't work out. It's amazing.
Jamie Cohen (16:58.369)
Then 2026 we get another iteration of it. And so I don't know whether or not that iteration is gonna make people feel ill, whether or not the graphics will work, how high resolution it is. Like it just seems like they're trying to make I again it's like we started. I just don't think he has the right friends.
Destinee (17:16.707)
I also I'm back on I don't understand the purpose. I don't understand to your point, did their users want this? How are there I d I don't know what it's for. I don't know the the why other than it seems like they're just trying to compete with, you know, Meta and possibly Apple sometimes, you know.
Jamie Cohen (17:38.764)
Maybe I think so I think there is a market for AR. I I truly believe there is. I think that the future of tech is wearables. I think that we're going to move much toward a a quantization version of ourselves. I mean, I wear a Apple Watch, a lot of people wear aura rings, you know, it's like they're quantizing their experiences through their biometrics. But I also think there's a desire to take the phone out of the clunky shape and move it towards something that's like a little bit more seamless with reality.
And one of the easiest ways to do that is wear it on your face, you know, 'cause then you could just see the cr the phone. So I think the future's there. I just think we're like a decade from it. But I also think the use case of it is gonna be smaller than we expect. I think it's gonna be like people looking in the corner for like what's the current weather? Or like, what's the email that I just got? Or like looking around the edges to see like updates more than like or maybe chats that you could talk back to or like explain. But like I think nobody's gonna be like sitting there like zoning out and doing their Snapchat feed, like
in front of their eyes. I just don't I don't see that as a use case. I see a lot of car accidents. I don't see that I don't see that as a as a viable thing. And I it's really bad for business when your your clientele, you know, dies. So that's not good.
Destinee (18:51.501)
Right. Well, and I think at one point my fear with AR and VR and all of that was that we're we were gonna end up being like the humans in WALL-E, right? but anymore, the more young people I talk to, the more people our age that I talk to, people are trying to be away from their screens. They're trying to live a screenless life. So in some ways I do I really do agree with you. Like I think just like the
Jamie Cohen (19:01.214)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Jamie Cohen (19:10.219)
Yes.
Destinee (19:21.507)
the s listening devices that I have in my house right now. I use them to play music and I use them to ask what the weather's gonna be like. Those are the those are the two main uses for those things. It's got I've got a sound system throughout the house that I talk to. they turn on and off my lights every night. That's I tell them to do that. I just don't see a world like you said where we're zoned zoning out. It's not ready player one yet. You know, I don't think we're there.
Jamie Cohen (19:38.317)
Mm-hmm.
Jamie Cohen (19:49.902)
And if we get there, that's really bad. The missing part of the Ready Player One discourse was like they they needed the goggles because they lived in hell. Like there was no IRL didn't exist at that point for them. They hit they literally lived in hell. And therefore, the only escape was in the virtual real it was in the virtual world. So if you're in a point where you mandate virtual worlds, it's bit it's your IRL experiences are just dried up. That's over.
Destinee (19:52.481)
Yeah.
Destinee (19:59.536)
Right.
Jamie Cohen (20:15.861)
So yeah, there's this is when the when somebody today in twenty twenty six, especially somebody who is a smart enough innovator and somebody who has created a platform that really did it does attract the right audience and stays true to it to to jump into this space is a question not just about his desire to leap into an a known unknown, but also like what does it say about an industry? And I think that is something that's confusing because like again
the launch time is just so odd for this thing to come out. So it's just something to think about. But I again I have to repeat, I do think there is a market for video producers or graphic designers to get into AR graphics. You know, start selling them to immerse places where you can kind of create translucence overlays, digital objects that need use in real space. But I just think that like more computing on your face again, like heats up like I'm just assuming like this
You're like using this, flipping through your Snapchat, keeping your streak up, and all of a you're like, Wow, my head's really hot and then poof or something. I don't know. It's I guess we'll see what happens in the next few iterations, but good luck, Evan, you know.
Destinee (21:20.341)
Destinee (21:28.153)
Well that was that was my I wanted the Apple Vision Pro so badly because I wanted to work. I wanted to have the multiple screens. Like when they showed that, I was like, my gosh, that would make parts of my life so easier that I could I work from home, I work remote. So to put on a headset and then be in a virtual office and have as many screens as I want and manipulate things in space like Iron Man did with Jarvis. That's the dream.
Jamie Cohen (21:34.177)
Me too.
Jamie Cohen (21:55.021)
Mm-hmm. Me too.
Destinee (21:57.252)
But I don't want it to come at the expense of my head and neck where I it could catch on fire or it's so heavy that I have to train like an F1 driver to wear the thing I need to do work. Like I just that's not the world I wanna live in.
Jamie Cohen (22:01.613)
Mm-hmm.
Jamie Cohen (22:13.663)
I know. And there was the additional part of it too. The I did a talk on this, which was like the the Vision Pro gave us kind of a very odd version of you remember its technique of FaceTime was built into it. And the FaceTime was kind of creepy because you weren't actually talking to somebody else's face, you're talking to their hologram because you couldn't you c it's on your face, it's not projecting your face, it's it's projecting your hologram to somebody else. what?
Destinee (22:32.921)
Yes.
Destinee (22:38.209)
It's like those Hey Gen videos. It's like those Hey Jen AI videos. Like it was new but it someone's wrong.
Jamie Cohen (22:42.997)
Yeah, yeah.
Right. Something's uncanny about it. So it's you, it's your avatars, your humunculus, homunculus. It's your mini you, but it is not you. and again, this comes back to like if you're wearing your camera on your face, you can't take a selfie. And a big part of the idea of Snapchat was the externalization of the technology to do it. exactly, the filters. The big change was the AR filters. That's why again, this is like coming back to like what filter are we using? And really, again, the reason for these lenses, the the great
Destinee (23:04.121)
Filtered.
Jamie Cohen (23:14.773)
reason that these things existed was because it was an addition to the phone technology. It wasn't the phone technology. And I guess we'll just see. We'll see. Good luck, Evan. You know, we'll see what comes from this. But it's ugly.
Destinee (23:26.991)
Ugh, yes. Good luck. Get better friends. Okay, well, thank you for joining us today on network issues. like, share, subscribe, and do all the follows on the platforms.
Jamie Cohen (23:33.173)
Yeah.
Jamie Cohen (23:45.783)
And live a life where you need spectacles.
Destinee (23:48.665)
False.
Jamie Cohen (23:54.456)
That was that was my biggest problem.