It's amazing how you can write a whole article on this, but the gist is they built something with low utility value. period.<p>If you look at it from this point of view, everything else is just side effect.<p>- It failed because it's not fashionable? => No. See bluetooth headset. Also see Crocs. If it's useful, people will use it.<p>- It failed because it waited 5 months to sell it? => No. See Apple.<p>- It failed because the excitement died off by the time it shipped? => No. See all kinds of films that succeeded WITHOUT any initial hype (such as the Matrix)<p>- It failed because it couldn't get any influencers to endorse the product? => No, see Snapchat. Yeah their original app itself.<p>- It failed because the content couldn't be ported over to other platform without cropping? => No. In fact, if Spectacles would have succeeded, Techcrunch would probably be blabbering about how the key to success is how brilliant its marketing strategy was, so that all the videos uploaded to youtube and instagram had the "signature snapchat crop", which got everyone else curious.<p>The only arguments I agree with in this article are related to its utility--how it's considered rude to be video taping someone else, and how it was limited to sunglasses format.<p>The rest is bullshit because they're one of those "MBA case studies" type after-the-fact interpretation, which in most cases are bullshit.<p>Just go build something useful and you will never have to worry about being "fashionable" or all the gimmicks. In fact as a tech company you should never see yourself as a fashion company. It's a myth created by ignorant media pundits who's never built a product in their life.
So how about this: the influencers on Snapchat are all recording <i>themselves</i> most of the time. These glasses did nothing to help with that particular and most popular use case.<p>I feel really weird for being the first to bring this up, it seems pretty obvious to me the main reason these glasses weren't going to catch on.
Am I the only one that thinks that a) it's obvious that these sorts of devices (face wearables) aren't led by people who have worn glasses their whole life and b) if you haven't lived that, you shouldn't try to build devices for people's faces?<p>I say it's obvious because neither Glass nor Spectacles were wearable by people who need corrective lenses AS corrective eyewear.<p>None of the leadership had any idea what it meant to have a large piece of hardware on your face all day every day. Nor, importantly, how to convince someone to put a large piece of hardware in their face every day all day.<p>It's like they didn't even BOTHER to call the guys at warby Parker, or zenni, or even the anti-christ Luxotica<p>Glasses are SO much more personal than a computer or a phone, or even a shirt or other clothing. They are your face. Your literal identity.<p>It's so tone deaf of both teams (and everyone in the AR/VR community that thinks some manner of out-in-public eyewear is "close) to not deal with that need for customization at minimum.<p>Sorry had to rant about that. M sure all those people are actually pretty sharp, and I'm just being grumpy.
I was talking to a parent friend of mine a while back, and we both agreed (he owns a pair) that Snapchat Spectacles could be an amazing accessory for parents.<p>Kids are easily distracted, so if you point a phone at them it'll completely throw them off whatever cute activity it was they were just doing - probably because they now want to play with your phone. No such problem with Spectacles - and not only that, it means you can keep two hands free (not a small issue when one arm might already have a child in it).<p>The problem is that Spectacles are so tied into Snapchat that it makes sharing the output very difficult. Grandma and Grandpa are not going to use Snapchat, and I'm not sure Snapchat wants them to. You can, eventually, import into Snapchat then export single videos back out again, but they lose the cool display method for circular videos and look awful. I think they could shift some of these glasses with a little rebranding and a spin-off app just for importing videos into whatever destination you want. They'll never do that, though. Maybe if they finally declare it dead they'll open up the sync API, but I'm not holding my breath.<p>(this is a repost of an old comment I wrote a few days ago in case anyone is suffering from deja-vu)
It's interesting to go back and re-read the overwhelmingly positive predictions HN users made when Spectacles were announced:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12569182" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12569182</a><p>and compare those to the "it was obviously going to fail" responses here.
I was really curious about spectacles, and bought a pair as soon as I could. I lost them about 3 weeks later, and that was that.<p>In some ways they were really cool, but the article was bang-on about pretty much everything. It's really a case study about how to fuck up a product roll-out.<p>Portability complications were a huge downer. The shaded lenses made them difficult to use indoors, and what wasn't mentioned was that the mic was hypersensitive to distortion from the slightest breeze, which made them useless outside as well.<p>But, as the article states:<p>>To drive demand, Snap needed to demonstrate all the creative things you could do with Spectacles, and the cool people who wore them.<p>Why the fuck didn't they do this?
I was a Snap power user. Got spectacles very early. Hated the upload UX.<p>Bluetooth issues galore. Completely stopped using them. As standalone sunglasses, they are inferior to a good $10 pair from amazon - heavier, worse lens quality, and limited viewable area.
A few months ago on Hacker News I asked about the low usage of the Spectacles and the response was generally that people who bought it liked it: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14562560" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14562560</a><p>Spectacles are a case where appealing to a niche may not be the most <i>profitable</i> endeavor. (and now that Snap is a public company, they have to actually care about profit at some point)
Just curious, am I the only one who really, really wants the AR glasses from Daemon by Daniel Suarez? I would very much like a pair of glasses that records information, helps me to recognize faces, and bring information further into my reality.
IMO, (well based on actual data from my websites and apps) most people consume media, not produce it, where producers are < 1%. The phone is a device that both consumes and produces doing a great job at it but for the majority of its use, ~99% , consumes. A device only for producing is already at a disadvantage and its a novel one at that. When glasses or contact lenses both consume and produce, we got something pretty great going on. For example, kind of related, when the iwatch becomes 100% an phone in its own right, no tethering, you already sold me and I'll buy it as it just dramatically increased its utility and its novelty vanished turning into a new form factor.
Because they were pointless.<p>The first time I saw them I thought to myself, well that's a cool idea but that was it.<p>It truly felt like marketing or some attempt to trick people into believing Snap could make cool things... like a response to Facebook/Oculus.
They took a gamble and it did not work out for them, their product was not the next 'spinner' grade craze. But if you don't try you don't get.<p>It is only a matter of time before cameras in sunglasses becomes a common thing with people using them in place of action cameras, dashcams and regular cameras. The UX needs to be 'wink' to take a picture so these things can operate hands free with voice control - 'cheese' etc.<p>Somehow these wonder sunglasses of the near future weigh no more than normal sunglasses, charge magically in their special case and stream 4K HDR+ 3D stereo over bluetooth 24/7 storing all content on a nano-SD card. But we are not there yet and Snap took a punt at pitching a fun variant of the ideal product with low-res functionality seeing if people would go for it. They didn't. People didn't go crazy for them like they did with 'spinners', an equally 'useless' product. But cameras in sunglasses are happening. People have got over lenses in public. There is one in every car bumper.
i actually bought one.<p>1: hard as hell to pair.<p>2: circular video does not work since a lot of people want to port out the videos away from snapchat.<p>3: i wear glasses, the lens on these frames are not circular. couldn't find anyone in the bay area who did custom lenses (at the time).<p>4: towards the end of the year (2016), a lot of people wanted them but were frustrated that even if they got to the vending machine there was zero guarantee they would even get one. at most they had ~70ish in quantity per day. way too low. drove short term hype up though.<p>5: no marketing at all for this thing.
God damn it. These fucking wearable pieces of shit need to stand on their own. They can’t be unrepairable, expensive, tethered pieces of shit that die when the battery refuses to charge.<p>No one wants garbage that only works with one website, and no one wants to pay for an uncontrollable device with a mind of its own.<p>If you have a free service on the internet, millions or perhaps even billions may clamour to use it. If you’re giving stuff out for free, people will happily try it out, if they have the option to throw it in the trash without consequence.<p>Make people pay for something? It better do what they want, when they want it, or you might have some pissed off people on your hands.
I can buy a pair of spy glasses for $100 to record at 30fps for an hour in full color 1080, 60fps for half that time. There are no giant lenses on the sides with lights that show my glasses are even capable of recording.<p>I can even order those glasses with a prescription. They will help me see, and nobody else will be the wiser about being recorded. I'm not saying that I go out of my way to discreetly record people - I don't. But that shows to me these commodity glasses are a superior product to cartoonish looking Snapchat Spectacles.<p>For me, that is why Snapchat and all other similar recording spectacles will fail.
They had the application completely wrong. It's not for "social influencers". It's for jocks. People doing extreme sports. Skateboarders. Surfers. They needed to market this as a more convenient GoPro.<p>The trouble is, that's not Snapchat's target demographic. The device concept is fine; it's the seller that's wrong.
I thought it faced a certain and quick death when it was launched.<p>The thing is expensively useless. And the design is very cheesy.<p>Surprisingly, at the time, I saw many articles praising it as "the most brilliant idea", feeling like total flattery. I suspect those were from their marketing team. Guess the market isn't so easy to fool.
Spectacles failed because they wouldn't sell us the damn things! There was all this hype but it was practically impossible to buy a pair except for scalper prices on eBay.
When people were saying that Snapchat is toast after Facebook stole all their functionality, there was always that one person saying that Spectacles will save Snapchat. Which made no sense even back then.<p>Also, before this article, I have never seen a single video shot by Spectacles. And now I understand why: they look <i>terrible</i>. It's not at all like seeing the world from the glasses-wearer's point of view. It's more like looking into a goddamn peephole.
These failed because they built all of their hype around "we have a truck selling them in random cities for a couple days" and they weren't interesting enough to buy second market. To be honest, I didn't even realize I could buy them now. Their whole thing was that you CAN'T just buy them online.<p>This is the same issue Pokemon Go had---they made a really cool product that would go through a period of super high demand followed by an extreme dropoff, but they didn't roll out their product in time---their release window didn't match the window for the traction they actually generated. Pokemon Go was massive when it released for a couple weeks, and they touted a IoT thing to go with the game that made it even more immersive, but that didn't come out until people really stopped caring.<p>The moral of the story is to know that if you're going to have a huge release, be ready THEN to sell things. Hype is useless if you aren't capitalizing on it.
I think the use case is brilliant, if albeit niche. I would never wear them in everyday life but when travelling I found myself wanting something like this to capture memories, moments or just "atmosphere". A mobile camera doesn't quite cut it because it's hard to get an authentic angle, especially if you're moving. I'd rather not wear glasses when i don't have too but if it's sunny, why not instead of sunglasses?<p>I'd prefer something with less conspicuous branding however, and something I could export in a decent format. I predict this will be a somewhat mainstream gadget within 5 years (Well, for people who can afford it). Apple will make iGlasses, or some shit like that, with Siri and camera.<p>Then there's the whole thing about living in the moment, perhaps that's better :)
Because it was a BS idea designed to get some cheap press and PR, and doomed to fail from the start?<p>Google Glass failed for all the technological and social reasons it did, why would a BS subpar imitation from a, in the grand scheme of things, insignificant service, fare better?
I think AR sunglasses could be big just needs the right execution.<p>Maybe it only allows you to see things in the real world based on QR codes embedded in real world objects like objects in a museum and other places where businesses, organizations or governments embeds AR qr codes. The heavy computing lifting is done not in the glasses but in the displays. Possibly making the glasses cheap and barely bulkier then current sunglasses.<p>Also this way distribution of such glasses could be like 3D glasses ... pay ticket for museum tour and get Their AR glasses for the tour.<p>A good introduction to AR glasses in the market and other businesses could do the same.
This was obviously a marketing-led disaster from day one. It's hard to accept company leadership that can be be persuaded to do go down a path like this so easily.
Maybe it‘s because they released sunglasses in November. I don‘t know California but here in developed Europe nobody buys sunglasses nowadays, because there is no sun.
I wonder if they ever tested the concept before the release. To me, they would have seen the issues with any sort of actual market test prior to the investment.
Here is detailed usability and feature function allocation analysis. This product was dead in the water from the beginning. <a href="https://www.mauronewmedia.com/blog/snap-spectacles-failed-poor-usability-featurefunction-allocation-errors-compromised-potentially-breakthrough-product/" rel="nofollow">https://www.mauronewmedia.com/blog/snap-spectacles-failed-po...</a><p>Mauro Usability Science
Besides their technical and marketing failings, spectacles are also a failure of imagination. They attempt to digitize moments rather than trying to use technology to enhance what you are doing or to create entirely new artificial experiences. I wish this was why they failed but the reasons outlined in the article are much more realistic
I wish they would sell these glasses for $50 USD. they would have no problem clearing out quite a few of them. I can’t see myself paying $100+ on Craigslist let alone the retail price of $129.99<p>Here’s to hoping they get highly discounted and dumped on eBay/amazon.
Because people don't want to put stupid shit on their face that doen not even have any trace of marginal value. There's no transcendental deeper reason.
iGlass will probably be created by Apple or a hardware startup led by some people like Steve Jobs and Woz. No software company has made a hugely successful hardware product.
They should have supported iphone only. And adjusted the projected demand accordingly. It's much easier to make bluetooth peripherals work nicely only with one specific device and specific os. The whole experience would have been much more polished. They could even have used something like airdrop. Iphone users are also more likely to have $150 to spend on a joke pair of glasses. Really seems like the obvious thing to do.