Snapchat Spectacles: New Features, Top Lenses, and the Future of Next-Gen AR Glasses

In the world of technology, time brings growth—and Snapchat’s Spectacles are no exception. With new developments, updates, and expansions, there’s plenty to discuss about how the device has evolved. Join us as we explore the opportunities unlocked by the 5th-generation Snapchat Spectacles, featuring insights from AR creators Jeetesh Singh and Max van Leeuwen, who over the last few months gained hands-on experience with the device.

Snapchat Spectacles Latest Updates

When the new Spectacles first came out in September 2024, their standout feature was not just the seamless blending of the physical and digital worlds but also their direct integration with Snapchat—one of the largest social media platforms. The addition of “Spectator Mode” transformed them into a shared experience, emphasizing community, interaction, and relationship-building without disconnecting users from the real world.

Since launch, the Snap team has introduced multiple technical updates to enhance the device’s capabilities, making AR experiences even more seamless, engaging, and high-quality.

Some of the key updates include:

➡️ Spectacles Sync Kit: Now updated with a new TypeScript package, simplifying the creation of shared AR experiences.

➡️ Lens Studio Enhancements: A real-time Connected Lens monitor allows for easier debugging of multiplayer AR experiences.

➡️ Capture Upgrades: Spectacles captures now feature a Lens info end card and improved capture settings.

➡️ Guided Mode: Simplifies Lens demos by locking Spectacles into a single experience.

➡️ Hand Input API: Now tracks hand velocity more accurately, enhancing interactions such as throwing and poking, with reduced jitter and improved pinch detection.

➡️ Improved Connectivity: Captive portal support makes internet access at hotels and events easier.

➡️ Developer Resources: A new Git repository with sample projects provides developers with fresh inspiration and tools.

➡️ Enhanced Motion-to-Photon Latency: Ensures smoother AR experiences.

Celebrating 6th months of the new Snapchat Spectacles on the market, Snap posted an exclusive interview with the CEO, Evan Spiegel, and Spectacles developer, Aidan Wolf, sharing their thoughts on the AR Glasses, and announce new platform features like:

➡️ Leaderboards: Easily add a leaderboard to your Lenses for friendly competition.
➡️ AR Keyboard: New system keyboard with full and numeric layouts for smooth text input.
➡️ Hand Tracking: Three new features—phone detection, grab gesture, and improved typing accuracy.
➡️ Lens Unlock: Open Lens links directly from Snapchat, iMessage, or Google Messages.

See the full article and interview here.

Jeetesh Singh

Technically, building for Spectacles felt like unlocking a new layer of creative freedom. Instead of being restricted to a 2D screen, I was designing interactions in real 3D space, where players could move naturally.

One of the biggest challenges was fine-tuning enemy interactions—figuring out how they should behave, how attacks should land, what animations would make them feel more alive, how difficulty levels should scale, how the game should reset, and ensuring the overall experience remained smooth. Each of these elements played a crucial role in making the gameplay feel immersive and rewarding

When it comes to Augmented Reality, usually the first thing that comes to mind is entertainment. While this is partially true, with AR offering hundreds of opportunities for fun, playful–often gamified experiences—there’s also a practical feature of the technology, especially when it comes to Snap’s Spectacles.

The AR Glasses introduce a potential to make our life and moving through it easier and more exciting: they help us cook in real time, guide us through exercise, or create learning opportunities, enhanced with interactive visuals and aids.

The potential of Snapchat Spectacles

Snapchat Spectacles creates exciting opportunities for AR Creators, providing a platform to experiment with immersive, hands-free experiences that seamlessly blend digital and physical realities. The device enables creators to push the boundaries of interactive storytelling, gaming, and utility-based AR, unlocking new creative possibilities beyond mobile screens.

To support innovation, Snapchat continues to invest in its creator community through initiatives like the Lens Creator funding program.

🏆 COMING SOON: Spectacles Community Challenges

Now, together with Snapchat, we’re excited to introduce Spectacles Community Challenges! 🥳 Starting April 1st, Spectacles developers will be able to win cash prizes for creating or updating Lenses, judged on engagement, technical excellence, and quality.

Over $20,000 will be awarded monthly across 10 projects, including new, updated, and open-source Lenses. Developers can submit unlimited entries, but each must meet Lens Explorer standards and cannot be actively funded by the Lens Fund. The first challenge opens on April 1, with winners announced on the 15th of each following month.

These initiatives not only help AR developers grow their skills but also pave the way for groundbreaking new experiences designed specifically for wearable AR.

See the full article and interview here.

Jeetesh Singh

Spectacles represent a significant leap in how we experience AR—not as something we look at on a screen but as something that seamlessly blends into our surroundings. Unlike mobile AR, where interactions are constrained by touch and a limited field of view, Spectacles allow for hands-free, intuitive experiences that feel natural and immersive.

This shift unlocks immense creative potential, not just for developers but for everyday users. Imagine walking into a kitchen and having an AR interface guide you through a recipe step by step, or looking at a broken gadget and instantly seeing repair instructions overlaid in real-time. Whether it’s gaming, learning, shopping or creative expression, AR wearables open up new ways to interact with digital content in real space, making technology feel more like a helpful companion rather than a distraction.

Explore the Spectacles Lens Selection #2

1. Calories Counter

The Calories Counter AR Lens simplifies tracking healthy eating habits anytime, anywhere. Designed for Snapchat’s Spectacles, this intuitive and user-friendly tool offers two ways to log meals: users can manually enter their food intake or scan their meals using the AR glasses for an instant calorie summary. By integrating cutting-edge technology, this experience transforms calorie counting into a seamless and engaging part of daily life, making healthy eating both practical and enjoyable.

2. Jelly Beans

Max van Leeuwen

Jelly Beans is a goofy experiment in procedural mesh generation on the Spectacles. The user draws a shape in the air, and that is transformed into geometry in real-time. These ‘jelly beans’ have eyes, hands, mouths and hats – which are emoji (randomly selected)!

This makes each jelly bean a unique creature, flying around and looking at you. Occasionally flipping you off, because they’re kind of rude.

I came up with the idea together with Aidan Wolf! He always has fantastic little characters like these in his games.

Building this setup was quite a challenge. Getting a bit technical: I used the MeshBuilder API, which converts an array of vertex positions, normals and UVs into a mesh. Then those meshes are given some basic ‘intelligence’: flying around and not colliding. And sometimes turning around to look at you.

Even though this demo is a bit silly, it shows the potential of using the Spectacles for creative applications: 3D modeling, sculpting, and other tools that help you create!

3. Speed And Stopwatch

Whether you’re striving to beat your personal record or improve your stamina, this Lens is the perfect companion for joggers. It overlays your surroundings with a simple yet informative interface that displays your speed and tracks time in real-time. With AR glasses as the only requirement, there’s no need to carry extra devices, offering a more comfortable and convenient running experience.

4. Sign of Doom by Jeetesh Singh

Jeetesh Singh

Sign of Doom started as an experiment but quickly evolved into a full-fledged AR game that truly leverages the power of Spectacles. When I first started building for Snap Spectacles, I realized that many interactions were still borrowing from mobile-first thinking—pinch, tap, drag. But Spectacles offer a completely hands-free, spatial experience, and I wanted to create something that fully embraced that freedom. My goal was to develop a gesture-based interaction that felt natural, intuitive, and engaging—something that couldn’t be replicated on a traditional screen.

I drew inspiration from one of my favorite anime characters, Tien Shinhan from Dragon Ball Z, who uses a powerful hand sign to unleash his attacks. The idea of using hand gestures as a form of control immediately clicked with me. However, I had to ensure the interaction was fluid and easy to learn. Unlike a game where you tap buttons on a screen, AR games require interactions that seamlessly extend the real world. While exploring ideas, I also considered including a voice trigger for attacks, but that would have complicated the experience! Even saying something as simple as ‘Ha’ to trigger each shot would have been hilarious while taking down multiple enemies. So, I decided to keep the experience fast-paced and purely focused on gestures.

A huge part of refining the experience came from my alpha testers, who are part of the XDG Community—my little cousin Aditya and my friends Aadarsh and Unnati. They were the first to try the game, and their feedback was invaluable. They pointed out how the game needed more depth—suggesting different enemy types, varying difficulty levels, and ways to make the attacks more satisfying. I sat with my cousin, sketching out enemy concepts, and one of the strongest enemies in the game actually came from his wildest and most absurd idea! Aadarsh, in particular, had strong ideas for the UI design. Since I’m not a regular gamer, I initially lacked direction in designing an engaging interface. We worked together to craft a UI that wasn’t just functional but truly enhanced the gameplay. This real-world testing was crucial because designing for AR glasses is entirely different from designing for a phone; you have to consider how users move, react, and interact in a fully immersive space.

I used the GenAI Suite in Lens Studio 5 to create 3D models for the initial MVP in a matter of minutes! I also used GenAI QnA in Lens Studio to assist in writing blocks of code, making the development process much smoother. While I experimented with AI tools for concept generation and early 3D models based on our sketches, I ultimately decided to model everything from scratch in Blender to ensure the assets matched my vision perfectly.

5. Pixel Frame

With the Pixel Frame Lens for Snapchat Spectacles, users can transform any landscape into a magical painting, straight out of a children’s book. The experience captures the view behind the user and generates a dynamic painting that appears right before their eyes. Users can interact with the artwork, reshape it, and move it around, connecting the real world with digital art.

6. Chess

As timeless as it is, the chess game constantly gatherers new generations of players, and the only thing that changes is the medium we use to play it. Now, with the development of Snapchat Spectacles, users can use the device to play 3D chess models in real life outside the smartphone’s screen, without needing to carry their own set of boards and figures everywhere they go.

7. Side Quest

The Side Quest Lens for Snapchat Spectacles is the best way to make our daily chores feel more rewarding. The user can easily customize their to-do list with what seems like the most boring activities, and after they complete each task, they gain higher scores. With the list displayed right before their eyes while wearing the device, forgetting tasks becomes nearly impossible. Each completed chore—whether making the bed or doing laundry—feels like levelling up in a game, turning everyday routines into engaging quests.

8. Pokémon TCG

The Pokémon Trading Card Game has been a phenomenon for years—first as physical collectibles and now as a mobile game, evolving with technology. While the app offers a convenient way for younger generations to enjoy the game, it lacks the tangible excitement of trading and playing with friends in real life.

With Snapchat Spectacles, users can bridge the gap between digital and physical play. They can trade cards virtually, discover new sets, and even scan their physical cards to battle against an AI—all without losing the real-world connection that makes collecting so special.

9. Lissom Language Learning Tool

Beyond entertainment, AR Lenses for Snapchat Spectacles have the potential to transform the way we learn. With the Language Learning Tool, lessons appear right before the user’s eyes—no additional devices or materials needed, making the experience more engaging and interactive. This digital approach keeps learners focused for longer while seamlessly integrating into daily life. Users can multitask effortlessly, whether cleaning, exercising, or handling other chores, as lessons move with them in real-time. It’s a convenient and versatile way to fit learning into even the busiest schedules.

10. Rune Wars

Rune Wars, the first-ever multiplayer game for Snapchat Spectacles, will get the attention of each gamer with a love for technological innovations. Through the Lens, users can battle their fellow players, bringing the magic from the screen of their smartphones to real-life spaces. 3D elements, created in the smallest details to represent users’ scores, powers, and attacks are integrated into the users’ surroundings, encouraging them to move and exercise while creating an entertaining, innovative experience to share with their friends.

Snapchat Spectacles are continuously evolving, unlocking new creative possibilities for both developers and everyday users. With regular updates and advancements in AR technology, the device is becoming an increasingly powerful tool for immersive, real-world experiences. The growing community of AR creators is pushing the boundaries of interactive storytelling, gaming, and practical applications, expanding the potential of hands-free, spatial computing.

As Snapchat enhances Spectacles with improved performance and new features, the device is shaping the future of AR by blending digital content with the real world. Whether for entertainment, education, fitness, or everyday convenience, Spectacles are paving the way for the digital future.