Voices of VR #1667: Kickoff of Snap Lensfest 2025 Coverage & SnapOS 2.0 Announcements
Oct 26, 2025
Jesse McCulloch, Spectacles Community Manager at Snap with nearly a decade in XR, dives into the exciting world of Snap's upcoming AR glasses and their developer tools. He discusses the features of SnapOS 2.0, the challenges in thermal management, and ideas for monetization through a newly introduced CommerceKit. McCulloch also highlights the importance of community and developer ecosystems, shares insights on hand tracking and AR games as social connectors, and invites new creators to join the Spectacles community.
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First HoloLens Moment Sparked A Career
- Jesse recalled flying an AR helicopter on HoloLens and feeling his brain accept it as real.
- That moment convinced him AR would have lasting impact and pulled him deeper into the field.
Rapid OS Iteration Drives Platform Capabilities
- Snap pushed eight OS releases in a year to rapidly expand developer capabilities for Spectacles.
- This fast cadence unlocked APIs for AI, co-located multiplayer, and hardware features that shape early app design.
Prototype Camera+LLM Flows Early
- Use managed LLM access inside lenses to combine camera frames with AI responses for contextual AR features.
- Try connecting to DeepSeek, Gemini, or OpenAI via the managed service to prototype real-world AI helpers.