Snapchat launches Spectacles V2

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).<p>I&#x27;d gladly pay more than $150 for that ability, but I just don&#x27;t think Spectacles are it.<p>Someone, sometime, <i>will</i> crack that nut, though, and I&#x27;ll gladly throw them my money. Google seems to be trying to do it with Clips [0].<p>[0] - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theverge.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;2&#x2F;27&#x2F;17055618&#x2F;google-clips-smart-camera-review" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theverge.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;2&#x2F;27&#x2F;17055618&#x2F;google-clips-sma...</a>

I&#x27;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&#x27;ve addressed but it doesn&#x27;t seem so, is that they&#x27;re aimed at an age range that highly prioritises fashion and style - and yet they release a v2 that&#x27;s almost as ugly as the first, and that my grandma wouldn&#x27;t be seen dead in.

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&#x27;d like to.<p>I wonder if they built a proprietary video codec for this or whether they were able to adapt an existing one to circular content.<p>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.<p>I&#x27;m not a big snapchat user but I respect them very much for shipping this product.

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.<p>10 seconds of video, up to 30 if you keep poking the thing? Some commenters are acting like it&#x27;s a gopro, it&#x27;s not even close. How frequently are you doing something you want to record that exceeds 30 seconds?<p>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?<p>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.<p>Hard pass.

I like the idea of these, but Snapchat is unusable now – and I&#x27;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.

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.

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

Spectacles V2, or as some may call it, Snapchat&#x27;s 2nd attempt at mass commercializing body-worn spycams.<p>It&#x27;s a dual-use tech.<p>The consumers will be the ones fronting the cost for and implementing further mass surveillance and state infiltration into our private and personal life.

They haven’t learned anything.

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&#x27;m surprised they didn&#x27;t re-shoot that. Is that a selling point?

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.

People still use Snapchat?<p>Granted I&#x27;m a bit old for their target demographic but it&#x27;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.

Is there a Spectacles alternative that has a developer SDK?<p>Preferably with a sleek design that doesn&#x27;t scream &quot;I am wearing a computer on my face.&quot;

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&#x27;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?

Not really stylish, as the article wants you to believe. But under-water capable is pretty cool. Either way, I&#x27;ve never used Snapchat so I&#x27;m not the target audience.

Actually purchasable online AND in the UK this time, so I&#x27;ve bought some. First Spectacles weren&#x27;t available here at all.

Any chance it saves to anything other than snapchat?

April fools? lol

Article does a terrible job of explaining the differences between this and v1. I got:<p>- yellow ring is gone<p>- you can click photos<p>- exports are always HD<p>If this is the entire list then I dunno how snap plans to sell them any better than v1.

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

Probably an Off Topic comment, but I still can&#x27;t see the appeal in sharing so much of your life through social media. What is the point, exactly? To show how cool&#x2F;amazing life you have? Is that need really so strong that you will:<p>1. But a $150 product and<p>2. Wear it even if you don&#x27;t want to?<p>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&#x2F;fashion market, they should have worked with an actual high-end fashion designer to get nicer designs.

Glassholes v3? I can&#x27;t help but feel there&#x27;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&#x27;t learned anything.<p>Whatever happened to Privacy Visor? As stupid as I&#x27;d look walking around with those crazy glasses, it seems like it&#x27;s becoming the sane way to live.

I understand that I don&#x27;t even get Snapchat, so I&#x27;m not the target for this, but wow, that is not even sort of interesting.<p>You have to disconnect your phone from WiFi to connect to the glasses&#x27; WiFi to transfer data? I&#x27;m not interested in trying to get those glasses connected to WiFi, but I&#x27;m also not sure this is a better option.

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.<p>As long as the geeks shout innovation on cheap money we&#x27;ll bank on the idiocracy of the masses.