Snap has unveiled its next-generation Spectacles, a pair of glasses with enhanced AR capabilities But unlike the company's previous product, which could record video for Snapchat, this version puts the equivalent of a 100-inch screen in front of your eyes This is accomplished by a pair of micro-projectors inside a redesigned (but still rather bulky) frame

The frame also supports two Snapdragon processors, vapor chamber cooling, and four cameras with hand tracking technology In a nutshell, Snap is in a bit of an arms race with Meta to see which company can enter the smart glasses market first

But there is a pretty big price to pay for these Snapchat Spectacles

Instead, Snap is offering developers an eyebrow-raising subscription price of $99 per month for at least 12 months Put another way, it costs $1,188 per year to access and develop this tool Apparently, Snap's hope is that this enthusiasm will be rewarded with third-party apps and features that consumers can use when Snap again develops AR glasses for the public

“Our goal is to empower and inspire a community of developers and AR enthusiasts,” Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap, told The Verge

This is not a new approach; the company used the same trick with Spectacles last year

I won't be wearing them myself anytime soon, but if you're interested, the glasses run on Snap's own OS platform, support voice commands, and are advertised to have a battery life of 45 minutes

There are several new features this time around Hand tracking utilizes several infrared sensors for pinch and pull gestures This can be implemented in games or reference apps (think 3D interactive representations of the human body or car engine) Similarly, Snap has an extended field of view, which is useful if, for example, one wants to display several browser windows in the space in front of one's eyes

If Snapchat succeeds in attracting development talent, the company could create a market leader that could outperform glasses like the Xreal Air 2 and Viture Pro But the real competition for Snap is closer to home [Both Snapchat and Facebook want users to use their platforms for everything they do at all times, so their respective parent companies are trying to move the experience from the phone to the face

Snap unveiled its fifth-generation Spectacles this week at its annual Partner Summit in Los Angeles, and Meta is not far behind The company will likely unveil its long-rumored Orion AR glasses at next month's Meta Connect event The new glasses are said to have a wider field of view than last year's Ray-Ban version and deeper integration of the Meta AI assistant

Earlier this year, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth described the Meta Orion AR glasses as “some of the most advanced technology on the planet in that space”

That's an exaggeration

Meanwhile, if you're trying to decide if AR glasses are right for you, take a look at what happened when our writer wore AR glasses for a year and recorded his memories