According to Variety, Robert Downey Jr. has signed on as lead pitchman for Snap's Specs AR glasses, which pre-order at $2,195 for the WiFi model or $2,395 for the Verizon 5G model and ship "late this fall." The announcement rolls out as a series of original episodes showing him using the glasses in everyday situations, and his official title is "Honorary Chief Customer Experience Officer."
Twenty years of wearable tech, and the man who spent 2008 telling you he was inevitable while selling you a chest plate you could actually build in a garage is now the man who tells you $2,200 of plastic is the future. Snap found the one asset in Hollywood that still works: a famous face that looks like it has a job to get to. Evan Spiegel says Robert has been envisioning this technology for "nearly 20 years," which is corporate for our founder watched a 2008 movie and thought, that is a product.
"Honorary Chief Customer Experience Officer" is the kind of title that exists so a press release has a job to name. Somewhere inside Snap there is a real customer experience department, and it has a new boss who has never worked a shift of customer service, whose entire qualification is a 2008 jawline. When the $2,395 glasses arrive and something goes wrong, which it will, someone on a phone line is going to hear, stay on the line, we are connecting you to the Chief Customer Experience Officer.
The number to remember is 40 seconds. Having tried virtually every wearable tech that has hit the market in the past 20 years and been largely unimpressed, I was completely won over by Specs in 40 seconds. A man unimpressed by every wearable on the planet for two decades found the one in 40 seconds. That is not a review. That is a rate card. And he is not even charging you for the belief. That is the part that should worry you.
YOUR TURN: How much of your life are you willing to hand over to a device that a movie star was paid to fall in love with in 40 seconds?
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