Snapchat launches Spectacles V2

https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/26/snapchat-spectacles-2/

by AnatMl2 • 8 years ago

98 125 8 years ago

iDemonix• 8 years ago

I'm surprised to see them have another go at this after the first go flopped. I always thought one of the main issues, which apparently they've addressed but it doesn't seem so, is that they're aimed at an age range that highly prioritises fashion and style - and yet they release a v2 that's almost as ugly as the first, and that my grandma wouldn't be seen dead in.

spyspy2• 8 years ago

I'd actually applaud them for buckling down and improving on what I believe is still a good idea. I actually wish you could set them to instantly go to your story rather than having to transfer the photos to your phone and do it manually later.

wonder_bread• 8 years ago

"I actually wish you could set them to instantly go to your story rather than having to transfer the photos to your phone and do it manually later."

Is there any word on why this is? These would be a lot better if I could just click the button on the glasses and have it post to my story automatically (I understand this means the user wouldn't be able to add any overlay effects but I feel like the vantage point of the video is the main attraction to posting it in the first place). With this friction it makes the process a bit less sexy.

throwaway675309• 8 years ago

When the first pair was announced, I was hoping that it was targeting the life-logging market... right up until I saw them - arbitrarily restricted video lengths, and Gene-Wilder level of ostentatious to the point that even Salvador Dali would balk. So the second pair I had more hope for, but they've still fundamentally got the same odd design along with a huge hypnosis looking pinwheel when you are taking video. Awful.

0x4f3759df• 8 years ago

Yeah the first edition was terrible (I used mine for about 10 minutes) and this doesn't look any better. I would love some nice life-logging glasses for filming my nephews, the occasional bike ride or sunset. The market is filled with very low resolution cheap units, with no actual good options from what I can tell... actually just googled it, these are both interesting: https://www.vuzix.com/Products/Blade-Enterprise

https://orbiprime.com/

bonestamp2• 8 years ago

This was my initial reaction too. But if they figure this out while nobody is expecting it, they'll have a huge first mover advantage that facebook/instagram can't replicate as quickly as software.

dwighttk6• 8 years ago

I understand that I don't even get Snapchat, so I'm not the target for this, but wow, that is not even sort of interesting.

You have to disconnect your phone from WiFi to connect to the glasses' WiFi to transfer data? I'm not interested in trying to get those glasses connected to WiFi, but I'm also not sure this is a better option.

matte_black2• 8 years ago

Have you never used a WiFi memory card for DSLR cameras? It works exactly the same way and it’s pretty good.

octalmage• 8 years ago

I would expect them to post to Snapchat as you take photos.

dwighttk6• 8 years ago

huh... I never got around to buying one but always thought it would be interesting to try... I'm probably imagining it being more of a bother than I guess it actually is.

cift• 8 years ago

You have to disconnect your phone from WiFi to connect to the glasses' WiFi to transfer data?

I'm guessing that since most people will be using these outdoors, losing WiFi won't be that big of a deal

dwighttk6• 8 years ago

yeah, I guess... It just seems so clunky

jannotti2• 8 years ago

I don't think I'm the target market either, but it seems to be a good fit as a GoPro competitor. At least in as much as people are often buying GoPros for Point-of-view vacation videos.

(And GoPros also use wifi to download, which is what me made me think of it in reply to you.)

tbassetto• 8 years ago

Spectacles record for 10s only (30s if you press 2 more times) and do not let you record in 4k or change FPS. Hardly a good fit as a GoPro competitor.

dwighttk6• 8 years ago

do you have to connect to the GoPro's wifi network?

I just don't get it... Let me plug the camera into my laptop (or phone through bluetooth I guess) and set it up to connect to My home wifi, or my beach house's wifi and I'm done.

neogodless• 8 years ago

That's a bizarre technical choice, isn't it?

I bought a $28 smart outlet. You open up the app, press a button on the outlet for 5 seconds, and they are sync'd. You add your WiFi password. Now, obviously the outlet is stationary, whereas your glasses move with you. So you'd think you would sync to your phone with bluetooth, and let it do the uploading.

Oh. The article. It does sync over bluetooth. 7-second press of a button. Makes sense. Where did you see that you have to disconnect your phone WiFi?

dwighttk6• 8 years ago

"Syncing to your phone now just requires Bluetooth and a seven-second press of the shutter button, rather than a shoddy QR code scan. Exports always happens [sic] in HD over Specs’ internal Wi-Fi now"

syncing != exporting

lumisota• 8 years ago

From the support docs [0], it appears that you can configure the case to connect to your home WiFi network, and import over that.

[0] https://support.spectacles.com/hc/en-us/articles/36000040694...

m_ke• 8 years ago

I made an app that uses computer vision to help people track what they eat with computer vision. I'd love to have these if they opened up an API so that we could make the experience 100% passive.

Right now our users still have to pull out their phone and take a picture when they're eating and it turns out that a lot of people forget to do it.

I'd also be interested in something like the spectacles but as a small clip on camera that I could stick on any glasses / my shirt. Google clip is a bit too big.

CameronBanga• 8 years ago

Can people actually buy these? My brother is the biggest user of SnapChat I know (dozens of posts a day?) and wanted a pair, but had to wait for me to travel to NYC to buy some for him at their temporary store. It was either that, or follow some web page in hopes that a random track showed up somewhere within driving distance.

0xCMP• 8 years ago

You can buy it from the app or their website.

wlesieutre• 8 years ago

The old ones have been listed on Amazon since at least June though this doesn't say whether they were in stock

https://camelcamelcamel.com/Snapchat-Inc-Spectacles-1-0-Sung...

Their initial release was admittedly sad. Made them extremely difficult to buy and then it turned out they lost $40,000,000 on unsold inventory.

blairbeckwith• 8 years ago

The $150 V2s are $20 more than the old version and only available on Snap’s app and site — no Amazon, pop-up stores or vending SnapBots. And V1 owners will get a firmware update that lets them take photos.

First 20% of the article.

lavezzi2• 8 years ago

They were always listed on Spectacles.com

otp124• 8 years ago

Not really stylish, as the article wants you to believe. But under-water capable is pretty cool. Either way, I've never used Snapchat so I'm not the target audience.

madeel2• 8 years ago

How about spending the same amount of money to build cheap usable glasses for blind people. No we are too ego washed to try anything that benefits humanity.

As long as the geeks shout innovation on cheap money we'll bank on the idiocracy of the masses.

seattle_spring2• 8 years ago

Why in the hell would it be Snapchat's responsibility to build vision tools for blind people?

madeel2• 8 years ago

that's like saying why is it U.S responsibility to export Democracy by funding terrorism

adamnemecek2• 8 years ago

They haven’t learned anything.

mkirklions• 8 years ago

Eh, a billion dollar company has a marketing department that said they should go for a second try of this.

They probably studied it, asked customers to try it, etc...

Lets see what a billion dollar company comes up with. If nothing else, it pushes innovation a little forward.

adamnemecek2• 8 years ago

I'm guessing that this isnt the case. I'm guessing that it's yet again another instance of Evan Spiegel believing he knows what customers want the best despite evidence indicating otherwise.

igetspam• 8 years ago

Glassholes v3? I can't help but feel there's something deeply wrong with a world that voluntarily signs up for and actively participates in creating a surveillance state. After all the stories, we still haven't learned anything.

Whatever happened to Privacy Visor? As stupid as I'd look walking around with those crazy glasses, it seems like it's becoming the sane way to live.

johnrob• 8 years ago

The underwater capability could be huge. Given the timing here (mid spring in northern hemisphere), I suspect Snapchat is fully aware of this killer feature. Influencers could have fun with it while enticing the masses to buy a pair.

oflannabhra6• 8 years ago

With kids, I have often wished to be able to capture a short moment, after it occurred. I hate having my phone out and recording my 2 year old daughter, because it changes her behavior (and I think trains her to be a bit narcissistic).

I'd gladly pay more than $150 for that ability, but I just don't think Spectacles are it.

Someone, sometime, will crack that nut, though, and I'll gladly throw them my money. Google seems to be trying to do it with Clips [0].

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17055618/google-clips-sma...

tjwds• 8 years ago

Have you checked out Google Clips? I've heard good things about it, though I haven't tried it out myself: https://store.google.com/us/product/google_clips?hl=en-US

oflannabhra6• 8 years ago

Yeah, most reviews I’ve seen are underwhelming, including the one I linked.

blhack• 8 years ago

What the hell is that clip of the guy slapping the ball out of the kid's hands all about?!

ggg99904• 8 years ago

I’ve already cracked this with Nest cameras around our house. When something cute happens I tell my Google Home to take a note with the time so I can go take a clip later. Very poor showing from Google that this isn’t already integrated — would love to say “Hey google save a clip of the last 3 minutes from the bedroom camera”

oflannabhra6• 8 years ago

The needed feature for me is POV. Eye contact, etc, are a big part of memories.

I know there is probably a dystopian future that could come from such a product, but, well, my daughter will only be 2 once.

tlrobinson2• 8 years ago

I can’t say I love the idea of turning my home into a surveillance state.

untog3• 8 years ago

A friend brought Snapchat Spectacles (V1) for the exact purpose, and said it was fantastic (the one issue being the light when recording - distracts baby! - that it sounds like V2 solves).

The main issue he had, though, was that Spectacles forces you to use Snapchat. And grandma and grandpa aren't about to install Snapchat just for this. They need to make it much easier to export directly from the glasses to the camera roll, but Snapchat has no vested interest in doing that. So I hope to see a different company come along with a similar project one day.

SubuSS• 8 years ago

I just checked and the export to camera roll option is still there. Did you try that to share with grandma/pa?

acct1771• 8 years ago

Cool, we lose privacy light because baby gets distracted by it and dad doesn't own tape?!

IncRnd• 8 years ago

I think it's already been done for years, just not by one of the big websites.

You can search on Amazon in Electronics : Security & Surveillance for spy glasses to see a listing that may be what you want.

_m8fo3• 8 years ago

I'm curious -- why do you want to record the moment?

donttrack• 8 years ago

Maybe he is too busy with work related thinking to enjoy the actual moment and want to save it, so it can be enjoyed properly at a later time.

oflannabhra6• 8 years ago

To preserve it.

That is like asking why anyone wants to record anything. Why make home movies? Why take a picture? Why write down a thought?

nhangen3• 8 years ago

That's a ridiculous question. $10k says you don't have kids.

I have 3. 15, 14, and 7. I'd give anything to have more of their precious moments saved so that I could reminisce and stroll through those periods once more.

genieyclo• 8 years ago

Kino from Stargate?

baby3• 8 years ago

Why are spectacles not it?

oflannabhra6• 8 years ago

1) I'd prefer if I could capture a window that includes the previous x seconds, plus what follows. Live Photos on iOS do a great job of this. Spectacles begin recording immediately from button press.

2) I'd like to directly access the captured moments from my camera roll. I don't use SnapChat.

3) I'd like a more innocuous design than Spectacles. I don't mind a "recording indicator", but the style doesn't really fit a 30 year old dad.

I realize I am not a fit for Spectacles target market. However, I think the market for what I want is a) quite large, b) much more willing to spend.

dingaling• 8 years ago

Well they are tinted 'sunglasses' so not really suitable for wearing constantly indoors. So they need to be near to hand to put-on, at which point a phone is probably just as near .

gondo• 8 years ago

this might be of interest to you https://benjaminbutton.co/en/

richsinn• 8 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entire_History_of_You

Just sayin... :)

013a• 8 years ago

Interestingly, I think Microsoft has a solution in this category... on the Xbox. "Xbox Record That" goes back in time and records the last 30 seconds of gameplay.

This is how Google Clips should have worked. You can't trust AI algorithms to know exactly when something should be recorded. But, if they're constantly recording and throwing away video, then imagine yelling "Ok Google, record that" to your Google Home, it could instruct all the Clips you have in your house to save the last 2 minutes, then give you an interface to select and edit the videos you want.

How Google didn't think of this integration is beyond me. Sometimes they live twenty years in the future. Sometimes they miss things that are so blatantly obvious that Microsoft has a solution already.

But I also question the motive. This idea that we need to record everything for the future is very recent, definitely motivated by human psychology to collect things and escape the clutches of time. We've lived for thousands of years without it. Why do we need it now? Nostalgia? We already know that Facebook and Insta are bad for your brain by showing you the "surface perfect" lives that all your friends seem to live.

What, then, is the psychological impact of living in the "beautiful past" instead of the moment. You're trading time and money today to collect these. When we recall memories, especially positive ones, our brains add imperceptible flair to them, helping us cherish them even more. This is lost when we take and watch videos of everything, recording the absolute truth of moments in our past. We post them to Facebook. We embarrass our children later in life with them. Its... weird.

spdionis• 8 years ago

As a twitch user that sounds so obvious to me.

chrischen3• 8 years ago

Nvidia offers this, but both Xbox and Nvidia's feature only apply to gameplay footage on your computer.

milesokeefe• 8 years ago

Could be a pretty major battery drain to be constantly writing video on such a small portable device.

csomar• 8 years ago

I don't like the design of spectacles. Also, you can't get the videos of your daughter unless you push them to Snapchat (in case you didn't read the TC article)

A reasonably designed, classy glass with the camera not too obvious will do it for me. Will pay $300-400. Already paying that for simple designer glasses.

spyder• 8 years ago

Reminds me of this TED talk:

https://www.ted.com/talks/deb_roy_the_birth_of_a_word

"MIT researcher Deb Roy wanted to understand how his infant son learned language -- so he wired up his house with videocameras to catch every moment (with exceptions) of his son's life, then parsed 90,000 hours of home video to watch "gaaaa" slowly turn into "water." "

bflesch2• 8 years ago

To me, the circular video format is an amazing new feature. Now no longer you need to worry about how you hold your phone, and your friends can view it in any fashion they'd like to.

I wonder if they built a proprietary video codec for this or whether they were able to adapt an existing one to circular content.

Also, people are used to spending hundreds of dollars on nice sunglasses, it is clever to go after that spending. $150 for sunglasses merged with a gopro is amazing.

I'm not a big snapchat user but I respect them very much for shipping this product.

pjc50• 8 years ago

Most codecs will compress a round vignette of a square video extremely well.

untog3• 8 years ago

It's just a normal video, warped. Someone already made an iOS module that'll replicate what the app does:

https://github.com/gizmosachin/Monocle

bflesch2• 8 years ago

Thank you for the pointer. It was very interesting to go through the repo.

nakedrobot22• 8 years ago

it's not warped. a camera lens is round, it makes a circular image. here that circle is smaller than the sensor. all they're doing is wasting 1/2 the sensor's pixels :)

tlrobinson2• 8 years ago

Does it detect orientation and automatically rotate so it’s level?

If not it might as well just be square,

baby3• 8 years ago

check the video, it does.

some_random2• 8 years ago

To me, the circular video format is an amazing new feature.

Is it though? Within the app maybe, but what if you want to pull the video off and say, post it to youtube? Outside of the snapchat walled garden, a round video will look absurd.

$150 for sunglasses merged with a gopro is amazing.

It's not a gopro, it doesn't have (real) HD, it records round videos, and can only record for a maximum of 30 seconds. I cannot think of any overlap in use-case between this and a gopro.

dasanman• 8 years ago

April fools? lol

username2232• 8 years ago

Why does Techcrunch publish marketing spam (money), and why did you post it here (money?)?

solarkraft• 8 years ago

doubt; i consider this noteworthy for the tech industry.

username2232• 8 years ago

That says very little for the tech industry. This is the low-effort ad copy pasted on top of an obnoxious photo of a model biting her tongue and pretending to smile:

Photos, not just video. No yellow ring alerting people to the camera. Underwater-capable. Classier colors with lighter lenses. Prescription options. Faster syncing. And a much slimmer frame and charging case.

Techcrunch should have sold out for a bit more.

prophesi• 8 years ago

Is there a Spectacles alternative that has a developer SDK?

Preferably with a sleek design that doesn't scream "I am wearing a computer on my face."

o_____________o2• 8 years ago

I like the idea of these, but Snapchat is unusable now – and I'm saying this as a fan of their esoteric UI. Their app has become stupefyingly bad, primarily from forcing a ton of random celebrities and tabloid content into the stream of people you intended to follow. It also grinds my modern Android to a halt pretty frequently.

erk__• 8 years ago

They have added a tab with subscribed content where all the tabloid content not is (except if you subscribe to it)

o_____________o2• 8 years ago

There are people that I follow in the publisher/subscriber sense that aren't Friends so aren't in the mercifully clean section. Instead, I would have to wade through the random ordering in the tabloid section to find them.

It's too bad they didn't take content curation a little more seriously (or personalized, at least). The in-app content seemed almost revolutionary in the beginning, especially those from more serious publishers that explored one topic over multiple high-design pages. It turned into AOL before it had time to mature.

dingo_bat• 8 years ago

Article does a terrible job of explaining the differences between this and v1. I got:

- yellow ring is gone

- you can click photos

- exports are always HD

If this is the entire list then I dunno how snap plans to sell them any better than v1.

nakedrobot22• 8 years ago

Agreed. Maybe they didn't manufacture 10 million of them yet, at least?

baby3• 8 years ago

- waterproof

- different colors

lavezzi2• 8 years ago

- Slimmer case

- Faster video transfers

- waterproof

- slimmer frames with nicer colours

- prescription options

Also the article lists most of the features in the first paragraph, so I hardly consider that a legitimate criticism of the content.

pm90• 8 years ago

Probably an Off Topic comment, but I still can't see the appeal in sharing so much of your life through social media. What is the point, exactly? To show how cool/amazing life you have? Is that need really so strong that you will:

1. But a $150 product and

2. Wear it even if you don't want to?

As someone else has pointed out, although they are certainly more stylish that Google Glass and Spectacles v1, their design is still pretty ugly (IMO). I think if they really wanted to crack into the celebrities/fashion market, they should have worked with an actual high-end fashion designer to get nicer designs.

petercooper• 8 years ago

Actually purchasable online AND in the UK this time, so I've bought some. First Spectacles weren't available here at all.

prdonahue2• 8 years ago

People still use Snapchat?

Granted I'm a bit old for their target demographic but it's a ghost town as far as I can see (when I open it once a month). Seems like everyone has migrated to Instagram Stories.

leadingthenet• 8 years ago

My exact same experience, even though (I think) I'm still in their target demographic.

davisonio• 8 years ago

Absolutely not true for my demographic (18 UK). Everybody is using Snapchat stories still because it's more "personal". Instagram Stories are used mostly by brands.

hesdeadjim• 8 years ago

Make them look like a pair of Raybans instead of the current bubbly design and they’ve sold me.

some_random2• 8 years ago

I can understand why this might be of interest to some people, but V2 is still a long way from something I think most people will want.

10 seconds of video, up to 30 if you keep poking the thing? Some commenters are acting like it's a gopro, it's not even close. How frequently are you doing something you want to record that exceeds 30 seconds?

Not to mention the round output, not a bad thing for a casual social media post, but what if you want literally anything other than that?

Oh, and of course your $150 purchase will only work through a proprietary app that adds another step to getting your pictures and media out.

Hard pass.

chrischen3• 8 years ago

Proprietary app to you, but main chat app to others.

guiomie• 8 years ago

Bought the V1s, used them for only 1 trip, then I stopped using them because what I care is sharing with people on facebook not on snapchat. I've got a water oriented trip coming up, and am tempted to buy them, but then, everything is trapped in snapchat, so whats the point?

chrischen3• 8 years ago

You can export video clips.

spycamv2• 8 years ago

Spectacles V2, or as some may call it, Snapchat's 2nd attempt at mass commercializing body-worn spycams.

It's a dual-use tech.

The consumers will be the ones fronting the cost for and implementing further mass surveillance and state infiltration into our private and personal life.

stronglikedan• 8 years ago

In the first demo POV video of the article, the girl has to push them back up on her face after a simple spin. I would think they would need to stay up on their own to maintain a proper POV perspective. I'm surprised they didn't re-shoot that. Is that a selling point?

drb91• 8 years ago

Any chance it saves to anything other than snapchat?

Snapchat launches Spectacles V2

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