Shares of Snap, Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) closed at their lowest level in over a month on Wednesday, falling 6% to $5.29 amid mounting investor criticism of the company’s $2,195 SPECS augmented reality glasses.
The decline marked a second straight session of losses for the stock, which is also on track for its second consecutive weekly decline and is down 5% so far in September.
CEO Evan Spiegel’s social media promotion of SPECS drew pointed responses from investors, with several replies shifting focus from the glasses to Snap’s sliding share price.
One user asked when Spiegel would buy shares, while another wrote, “Will you buy shares now?” and a third predicted SPECS would be “one of the biggest fails in tech.”
Snap originally unveiled SPECS in June as standalone, see-through augmented reality glasses requiring a $200 refundable preorder deposit, with shipments expected this fall across the U.S., U.K., and France.
The glasses feature a 51-degree field of view and up to four hours of battery life, with an included charging case extending total use to as much as 20 hours.
Snap has also broadened its commercial pitch, offering a $2,395 Connected Case bundle with cellular connectivity alongside partnerships with Nvidia, Salesforce, and Amazon Web Services, with in-person demonstrations set to begin in Los Angeles on October 1.
Meta’s Connect keynote on Wednesday put Snap’s pricing firmly in the spotlight, with Meta introducing its Adventurer glasses starting at $249, Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses at $349, and camera-equipped Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3 starting at $449.
Meta said its expanded eyewear range would encompass more than 100 styles by the end of the year, and the company also previewed $1,299.99 VR Glasses targeted for a spring 2027 release.
On Stocktwits, retail sentiment for SNAP shifted to “bearish” from “bullish” levels just a day earlier, accompanied by a 34% decline in 24-hour message volumes on the platform.
One Stocktwits user wrote, “$SNAP Meta VR glasses for half the price will be another nail in the coffin here unfortunately,” while another added, “$SNAP so Evan worked on new Specs for years, and then Meta took it and made it better and cheaper. Who would’ve known.”
Adding further noise to Wednesday’s session, Elon Musk amplified a report that SpaceXAI’s Grok Bot reached 418,000 weekly users as of September 14, up 24% from the prior week, according to an internal company presentation.
Musk posted on X that “Grok @Bot usage is growing faster than anything we’ve ever seen,” drawing attention to the AI assistant at a moment when Snap’s own AI ambitions are under scrutiny.
SpaceXAI also disclosed that Grok Bot helped its customer-support team handle 175% more tickets without adding staff, with some resolutions costing between $0.20 and $0.30, and separately released Grok 4.7, an updated model targeting coding and knowledge work.
SNAP stock has now fallen 34% year-to-date, as the company navigates intensifying competition in the wearable technology space while its flagship hardware product faces skepticism on both price and timing.
