Snap Spectacles: Are They the Face Camera We’ve Been Waiting For?

You definitely remember Snap Spectacles.

Not only was it the company's first attempt

at making hardware but they were

ridiculously hard to get your hands on.

Which, in retrospect, was a brilliant marketing stunt

for a pair of toy-like sunglasses that cost $130,

and only captured 10 seconds of video.

But to a lot of people's surprise,

Snap is still making hardware.

In fact, the company says it's really committed to it,

and at some point in the next decade

it thinks that all of its hardware

is going to converge with all of its software,

and we're all just going to be wearing

cameras on our faces,

which is why today we're looking at

Snap's second version of Spectacles.

At it's core, it's another camera on your face.

But Snapchat has added some features that are supposed to

nudge this whole idea a little closer to normalcy.

So my Wired colleague, Arielle, and I

decided to compare version one with version two.

And we figured what better place to do it at

than a giant amusement park like Great America.

Because we have really tough jobs.

And you love roller coasters, right?

Yeah, I hate roller coasters.

(girls screaming)

This new pair of Spectacles looks a lot like the old pair,

with the exception of some new colors.

But there are subtle aesthetic changes.

The first thing you'll notice is that these are less clunky.

They're a little less nerd-alert

and more I-just-came-from-Coachella.

That's especially true on the sides here

where you can see that they're thinner.

The new pair also doesn't have

yellow rings around the lenses.

Snap figured that the LED lights

are enough of an indicator that you're recording something.

The more important stuff is what's under the hood.

Or frame?

The new specs have an improved image processor

and improved WiFi chip.

And the glasses now transfer HD footage

to your phone by default.

Whatever the equivalent of HD is in Snap's circular format.

Also, you can now take still images with these.

To take a picture, you press and hold the capture button.

Video capture function is still the same.

You press the button and you let go.

The good news is Snap says a firmware update

will let you take still images with the old pair, too.

Which means Arielle can do this with her specs, too.

Another feature update is that these

Spectacles are water resistant.

That doesn't mean that you're going to want to go

deep sea diving or anything like that wearing them,

but you can wear them around the pool,

get some water splashed on yourself and they should be fine.

Or you could do something like this.

(girls screaming)

(girls laughing)

Snap says you should get the same battery life

with these Spectacles that you did in the first pair,

but the battery in the new ones is smaller.

And they're also qualifying it differently,

which is a little confusing.

They used to say you could get 100 snaps

in a single charge,

and now they're saying you can take and transfer

70 snaps on a single charge.

These also cost more.

They're $150.

And, finally, you can order prescription Spectacles, too,

through the website Lensabl.

So all of these updates, they're totally fine.

It's like Snapchat went down a list of features

that people complained about with the first version

and decided to fix them.

But it's not a dramatically different product, still,

which kind of begs the question,

what is Snapchat doing?

And I think what they're doing is

they're just trying to get people

a little more comfortable with the idea

of wearing a camera on your face.

I mean, they see people love their GoPros,

and they see that people have their

smartphones with them all the time but in their pockets.

And so they're kind of going for something

in between with this. Right.

If you didn't love the first version,

you're probably not going to go out

and buy the second version.

But it's less about Snapchat's bid

to get you buying this product,

and more about the long game

to get people comfortable with

wearing camera on their faces.

Yeah, and to some extent,

things like HD video or water resistance

probably help make that case a little bit.

One thing that still bugs me about these

is that when you share the video

outside of the Snapchat app,

it is still that proprietary circular format.

I kind of wish that they would just

let you export it as flat, 2D video.

I think that would make it more accessible

to people in general, not just early adopters

or nerds like us. (Arielle chuckles)

But it's a good reminder that if you buy into Spectacles,

you are still buying into Snapchat's world

and the Snapchat app, however fleeting that may be.

Hey, you want to go on that roller coaster again?

I think I'm good.

I'm good.