The CEO of SnapChat and Spectacles AR Glasses is in awe to highlight the latest developments in AR at Awe 2025 in June. As SNAP aims to strengthen its foothold in the XR industry, there will be a prominent placement in the event schedule.
SNAP may be one of the only companies offering the completely standalone AR glasses you can get today, but the company is still considered an outsider within the broader XR community.
That’s because SNAP approaches AR’s ambitions from a different angle than other major players in the space.
Standalone headsets such as Quest will mainly participate in PC VR & PSVR 2 as game-centric devices. Next is Apple’s Vision Pro, which focuses on entertainment and productivity.
Snap’s glasses, meanwhile, emerge from the company’s sociocentric approach to AR, highlighting both location-based and collaborative experiences (meaning experiences related to experiences involving multiple users in the same physical space as the real location).
In June this year, SNAP CEO and co-founder Evan Spiegel will be appearing on the main stage of AWE 2025, one of the world’s largest and longest-running XR-centric conferences, in order to share the vision of AR and strengthen the bridge to the existing XR industry.
The event will be held in Long Beach, California from June 10th to 12th and will host more than 6,000 participants, 300 exhibitors, 400 speakers and a 150,000 square feet of expo floor. Early bird tickets are still available The road to VR Readers can receive an exclusive 20% discount.
Spiegel’s keynotes include presentations from Qualcomm and XReal, which are well-established conferences and industry-wide peers.
Ironically, Snap’s commitment to building an AR platform from scratch is one of the reasons why he remains an outsider in the XR space.
In addition to building its own AR glasses, the company is also building Snap OS, a custom-made operating system for glasses. And there’s a unique authoring tool (Lens Studio) where developers need to learn how to build headsets, rather than using ready-made tools like Unity. The unique approach and device capabilities mean that porting existing XR content is not easy.
However, its commitment to building a platform from scratch shows the company’s authentic belief in the XR space.
I’ll talk recently The road to VRScott Myers, Snap’s vice president of hardware, said the company is building glasses to become more than just an extension of Snapchat. The company believes that glasses-like glasses will one day completely replace smartphones. This belief leads to the standalone nature of glasses designed to operate without cell phones or tethered computing units.
“We want them to look into it (through glasses), (on smartphones), (through glasses),” Myers said.
In addition to focusing on social and location-based AR experiences, Myers said his own focus is on optimizing the platform for developers by building great tools and actively repeating feedback.
Myers said he personally uses glasses “almost every day” to test new features and experiences. “We’re learning to develop (as easily as possible) with developers,” he said.
Snap will have to play cards to position themselves for success in the coming years as Tech Giants Meta, Apple and Google compete to build a pair of mainstream AR glasses first.
Road to VR is proud to be the best media partner of AWE USA 2025 and is able to offer readers an exclusive 20% discount on tickets for the event.
