Snap's $2,195 Specs AR glasses get Robert Downey Jr. as their pitchman

Snap says it spent 11 years and more than $3 billion developing Specs, its augmented reality glasses. Now it has a movie star to sell them. On Oct. 20, the company announced that Robert Downey Jr. has joined the Specs business as its "honorary Chief Customer Experience Officer."

Snap says Downey will work across the Specs organization to explore new capabilities, shape new Lenses (Snap's name for apps and effects) and develop original content, and that he will also collaborate on hardware and in-person experiences.

A web series and two big TV slots

His first project is a set of short episodes that show Specs in everyday situations: setting up a workspace, practicing golf, watching a show and learning an artistic skill. They are on the Specs website and YouTube, and more are coming. The partnership made its broadcast debut on Oct. 20 during NBC's broadcast of the New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers season tip-off, and an episode of the series aired during Game 1 of the World Series on Fox on Oct. 23.

Downey's statement leans on his best-known role. "Trying is believing. Having tested practically every wearable tech that's come to market in the last 20 years, and been largely unimpressed, I was absolutely sold on SPECS within 40 seconds," he said. "In short, it delivers on the promise of AR glasses made by a certain techno optimist superhero I portrayed."

"Robert has been imagining what this technology could become for nearly twenty years, and it's an honor to work with him to bring that vision to life," said Evan Spiegel, Snap's co-founder and CEO.

He joins a roster Snap assembled when it unveiled the glasses: a campaign shot by photographer Steven Meisel with Jimmy Butler, Imogen Heap, Hoyeon, Jack Harlow and Kaia Gerber, each working with Snap on Specs experiences due this fall.

What Specs are

Specs are standalone see-through AR glasses. There is no phone tether and no battery puck. According to Snap's launch announcement, they use a liquid crystal on silicon display with a 51-degree field of view, which Snap compares to a 24-inch monitor for work or a 115-inch screen about 10 feet away for video. Electrochromic lenses tint from clear to dark in 10 seconds, and two Snapdragon processors split the work between computer vision and the apps themselves.

You control them with your hands and your voice. Snap pitches them for directions and measurements in the room around you, for AI help that can see what you see, for streaming or casting a large private screen, and for hundreds of Lenses that developers have already built. Battery life is up to four hours of mixed use, and the charging case adds four more charges, for up to 20 hours in total.

On privacy, Snap says Specs ask before accessing sensitive information, light an LED when recording, process data on the device where possible, and let you decide what gets stored, synced, shared or deleted.

Price and availability

Specs are on pre-order at specs.com for $2,195, with a $200 refundable deposit, and Snap says they will ship this fall in the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Variety reports a second model with Verizon 5G at $2,395.

That makes Specs far more expensive than the camera glasses most people know. Meta Ray-Ban Display, Meta's first glasses with a screen, launched last year at $799. Snap is betting that full AR, with apps that sit in the world instead of in a small corner of your vision, is worth the difference, and it now has a movie star to make that case on prime-time TV before the first pairs reach customers.