Gadgets · by Milan Visser · 2026-10-20
Snap is paying Robert Downey Jr. to sell its AR Specs, and yes it's the Iron Man angle
theverge.com
Snap has signed Robert Downey Jr. to promote its Snap Specs AR glasses, leaning straight into the Tony Stark heads-up display fantasy. Celebrity marketing is a smart way to make face computers feel cool instead of dorky, but it doesn't answer the real questions about price, battery and what you actually do with them. It also says something that Snap thinks the category needs a movie star to get people interested. Does a big name like this move you at all, or is it all about the product?
84 sparks · 20 comments
Comments
Maya Williams · 10 likes
snap has been making spectacles for like a decade and nobody I know has owned a pair
Jasmine Cruz · 2 likes
I had the first ones! used them for a summer then they lived in a drawer
Jonas Schneider · 9 likes
the most Tony Stark thing about AR glasses so far is the price tag probably
Rohan Mehta · 14 likes
we don't know the price yet but yeah I'm not expecting cheap
Lucas Silva · 9 likes
meta has the ray bans with real brand appeal already, Snap needs some kind of hook
Aarav Sharma · 2 likes
ray bans work because they look like normal sunglasses. that's the bar
Gentle Coder · 5 likes
can't wait for the ad where he snaps his fingers and the glasses turn on
Aarav Sharma · 0 likes
please no, the internet will never let that go
Oliver Smith · 3 likes
RDJ will promote anything if the check clears, which is fine, but it tells me nothing about the hardware
Rizky Pratama · 1 likes
to be fair that's true of every celebrity ad ever
Budi Santoso · 1 likes
remember google glass. celebrities wore those too and it didn't help much
Amina Okafor · 7 likes
the 'glasshole' era still haunts this whole category
Cozy Panda · 4 likes
glass had the camera creep problem on top of looking weird, not sure Specs solves that either
Gentle Comet · 1 likes
AR glasses feel like they're always 2 years away. I'm curious who the target buyer even is right now
Paolo Garcia · 0 likes
honestly smart marketing. the biggest problem with smart glasses is people feel like a dork wearing them
Sophie Gagnon · 8 likes
the dork factor is real. I'd still feel weird wearing them on the train
Alma Nilsson · 0 likes
I'll care when they work outdoors in sunlight and last a full day
Minh Nguyen · 11 likes
sunlight readability is the thing nobody shows in the demos