Snap has announced its latest version of Spectacles smart glasses. These are the fourth version in their line-up but the first to come with built-in augmented reality features.
The glasses were unveiled by the CEO Evan Spiegel at the company’s annual Partner Summit event, saying they now have the ability to “realistically ground digital objects in the physical world.”
The AR display of the Spectacles was made by WaveOptics, a company now owned by Snap. Yup, that’s right. Snap, in no way, was going to let the company who made the AR display for them, slip by more now than ever, since other tech giants like Apple and Facebook are working on the same.
The deal is worth over $500 million in cash and stock, with about half paid upfront in stock. However, it will not block WaveOptics from providing its waveguides to different organizations for developing new tech for Snap.
WaveOptics makes a portion of the parts that individuals look through while wearing the glasses, like waveguides, which are similar to little windows you glance through that show the virtual images and projectors that immediate light at the waveguides. It likewise makes and sells full arrangements, called modules, which incorporate the waveguides and projectors mounted to frames.
This is Snap’s biggest acquisition to date which shows that the company in no way plans to slow down and is going to commit to wearable AR in the foreseeable future. Other companies like Google, Microsoft, and Apple have already been in the AR Glasses race for quite some time now and Snap’s deal with WaveOptics prevents it from getting into the hands of its competitor companies.
