Will you be buying the Snapchat Spectacles?

Stephen McCance September 28, 2016

If you’re into your technology, you will have heard about Snapchats first hardware product release this week, the Spectacles. These new glasses aim to bring first-person video to social media, but will they be a hit?

If you’re into your technology, you will have heard about Snapchats first hardware product release this week, the Spectacles. These new glasses aim to bring first-person video to social media, but will they be a hit?

It was revealed last week that the company behind the influential social app – predominantly popular with teens and young adults – will start retailing Spectacles at the end of this year. Describing themselves as a “totally new type of camera”, the specs will take 10 second video clips that can then be saved and then uploaded to Snapchat.

The glasses, which will be priced at $129.99 (around £100) and are aimed at the young consumers who are already keen users of Snapchat.

After the somewhat failed attempts to make tech-enabled glasses cool, from the likes of Google Glass for example, can Snapchat break the mould? In a blog post, Snapchat described its vision for its first hardware product:

“Imagine one of your favourite memories. What if you could go back and see that memory the way you experienced it? That’s why we built Spectacles.”

Snapchat says that the video camera it has developed for Spectacles is one of the smallest wireless video cameras in the world and is capable of taking one whole day of Snaps on a single charge. The Spectacles case also handily doubles up as the device’s charging station.

The ‘circular’ video format for Spectacles allows users to play the recordings in full screen on any device, in any orientation. This means that if you view this video in the Snapchat app, you can look at it in horizontally, or vertically, or by continually spinning your phone around.

Let’s face it, Snapchat got a lot more addictive last year with the introduction of selfie filters, (what we do before the dog filter?), plus the introduction of stickers, geofilters and advanced video messaging. The app has managed to continually grow in popularity.

Sadly, this crazy set of filters that map onto photos and videos with scary precision won’t be available on the Spectacles. These glasses don’t do anything like augmented reality – they don’t have video displays – they are just camera glasses. However, there’s always the possibility that videos recorded via Spectacles could have filters applied afterward in the Snapchat app.

But what would it take to get you to wear something on your face? With Spectacles, Snapchat have clearly tried to appeal to the young users that make up the largest and most active segment of their user demographic.

A key feature that they have in their favour is that they don’t look like tech-enabled glasses that have been introduced before. While most smart glasses – or any sort of head-wearable eye tech – have been sort of eccentric things the average person wouldn’t typically feel comfortable wearing, the Spectacles do actually manage to look quite ‘cool’.

They’re either a huge promotional stunt, or a confident endeavour into the future of cameras – or both. We may or may not be in the realm where wearing video-capturing glasses is totally acceptable, but we wouldn’t mind having a go on a pair!