Snapchat
Social
Snapchat's AR glasses ambitions get another shot as smart eyewear heats up
The camera company says the future of the app isn't on your phone at all.
Snap has always called itself a camera company, and it has been trying to put that camera on your face for years. With smart glasses suddenly a crowded category, its long-running bet on augmented reality eyewear is getting a fresh look.
The pitch is that the playful lenses Snapchat users already know, the dog ears and face swaps and world effects, can move from the phone screen into the world in front of you. Snap has the creative tools and the developer community to build them.
A crowded race
Snap is no longer early. Larger tech companies are shipping glasses of their own, with deeper pockets for hardware. Snap's advantage is culture: a generation that grew up making and sending lenses.
Hardware is where many social companies have stumbled. If Snap gets this right, Snapchat's next chapter may not happen on a phone. If it does not, the glasses join a long list of good ideas that arrived before people wanted them.