Snap's hardware efforts may be in trouble
Earlier this month, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel revealed the company had sold 150,000 Spectacles. That would put it ahead of the original iPod, and above Snap’s expectations to sell 100,000.
That sounds pretty promising, but a new report from The Information says Snap actually has “hundreds of thousands” of unsold Spectacles sitting around. After selling well during last holiday season, Snap reportedly expected the demand to continue into the new year and ordered lots of new units.
Read this: How wearing Snap Spectacles changed my vacation experience
Snap’s expected demand did not materialize and, instead, it now has all of those units sitting around in a warehouse. However, The Information reports that those units also include unassembled Spectacles, the parts of which could be used for other hardware projects.
Speaking of other hardware projects, Snap was looking into creating a drone. “Was” being the key word, as The Information says that project has now been scrapped. The company still has a 150-person hardware team, but it’s not clear what it’s working on currently. It’s possible it could be a pair of augmented reality smart glasses, but at this point that seems like it could be a far way away. Especially with Apple CEO Tim Cook recently saying the tech for augmented reality glasses “doesn’t exist in a quality way.”
All-in-all, this is looking like an inauspicious start to Snap’s hardware plans. Spiegel reiterated earlier this month that the camera company wants to push farther into the hardware realm, and that Spectacles will form a base for innovations to come over the next decade.
With Spectacles not living up to the company’s adjusted expectations, and reportedly putting a dent into some of its hardware aspirations, it seems like Snap might have a tough hill to climb in the race to smartglasses, especially with bigger companies like Microsoft, Facebook and Apple alongside it.
We’ve reached out to Snap for comment and will update when we hear back.
