Snapchat’s Spectacles: Enjoy the spectacular view
Spectacles, the first hardware product released by the company that makes the popular photo-messaging app Snapchat, are large, whimsically goofy sunglasses with a camera embedded in the frame.
It takes some courage to put them on. But I did so anyway — and I’m glad I did.
If you’re lucky, you have the requisite head shape and confidence to go out in sunglasses that are essentially a four-alarm fire on your face. Maybe you’ll slide these on and look like one of those shirtless models in the Spectacles ads.
The greater likelihood is that you’ll come off as if you’re trying too hard, especially if you’ve got the red or teal Specs. (They also come in a more staid black.) It’s possible members of your family will laugh every time you look in their direction, that your spouse will openly question your maturity and sanity, and your offspring will threaten to disown you. What I’m saying is, it takes a certain personality to pull these off, and your humble-nerd correspondent may not be in possession of said style.
But ignore the haters. Whatever your head shape, if you are lucky enough to find some Spectacles this season, you will be getting your eyes behind one of the most compelling new gadgets to be released by a major technology company in years.
Glasses outfitted with a camera sound like a gimmick, especially given Google’s failure to popularize Glass, the eyeglass-computer it tried to introduce a few years ago. Perhaps wary that the same could happen to Spectacles, Snap, Snapchat’s parent company, seems to be playing down expectations for it: The glasses sell for $130, a price low enough to suggest a novelty rather than a groundbreaking new piece of tech.
They are also severely limited in supply — at this point the only way to get Spectacles is to find and wait in line at one of the pop-up vending machines that Snap is setting up around the country, or buy them at a premium from someone who has spent a long time waiting.
But Spectacles are worth the titters and strange looks. For a first-generation piece of hardware, these glasses are remarkably well designed, thoroughly useful and completely fun. More than that, they may be lighting the way to a future in which you might finally pull your face away from your phones when anything interesting happens around you.
I won’t spend much time detailing how Spectacles work because there isn’t much to say. Like any sunglasses, you slide them over your face when you go outside. When you see something interesting, tap the button near your left temple to snap a 10-second video of the scene. (A small light shines while you’re recording, to prevent spying.) Later on, look at Snapchat on your phone to view, share, caption, draw on or otherwise edit the clips you’ve captured from your Specs.
If you aren’t a regular Snapchat user, these glasses are probably not for you, but it is possible to export the videos you capture to your phone’s camera roll. The video quality isn’t spectacular, but it’s surprisingly good; in well-lit areas (which are the main places you’ll be wearing sunglasses) your
videos will be nearly as good as those you shoot with your phone.
In other ways, Spectacles surpass any phone. Over the last decade, smartphone cameras have intruded upon every corner of life. This has been magical — I have fantastic pictures of my family that I’d never have captured without my phone — but it also creates an uncomfortable distance. My children’s primary memory of me is of my face staring at them through a five-inch piece of glass.
Spectacles collapse that distance. You can snap a memorable moment without ever leaving the moment. Your eyes are your viewfinder; just reach up and tap, and whatever you look at is recorded.
It’s not just that Specs let you remain in the moment. When you play back what you captured from the glasses, you return to the moment more easily. The images I snapped with my Specs over Thanksgiving weekend are deeper, more real and more emotionally evocative than most other snapshots I usually shoot.
I think this has to do with point of view. When you take a picture with a camera, you are usually cropping an ideal shot that bears little resemblance to what you actually saw. But Specs don’t idealize the present. Because you just shoot what you see, the images seem to jog deeper memories about what happened when you were there. It’s a trippy sensation, and one I couldn’t resist.
There are other thoughtful details in Specs. When you’re just out shooting, they don’t need your phone nearby to work. They come with a charging case made of delightfully tactile, grippy material (you can shoot about 100 clips per charge). And the lenses are mirrored, so you can see yourself when you turn the Specs around for selfies.
Mostly, though, I was surprised by the degree of finish from a new gadget. From the Apple Watch to the Oculus Rift, a lot of new hardware released in the last couple of years has failed to deliver on its early hype. Spectacles are different. They’re real, and they’re spectacular.