
Snapchat Releases First Hardware Product, Spectacles - Doubleguitars
http://www.wsj.com/articles/snapchat-releases-first-hardware-product-spectacles-1474682719
======
keithwhor
I think this is brilliant. Even the press details seem perfectly crafted, with
one article referencing Evan's "supermodel girlfriend."

Snapchat can win here based on brand alone. The hardware features are a plus,
but they're going to sell a lifestyle. Think GoPro + Versace. Commenters here
are caught up in the tech. It's not the tech. Get a few celebrities in these,
people will buy them and barely use the recording features. They're cheaper
than Ray-Bans and I bet you and half of your friends own a pair of those.

Snapchat can assemble an AR powerhouse from the ground up with brand goodwill.
Evan and his team have figured out the best market strategy to do so. Google
is not "cool" and could never attempt to pull this off.

I have tremendous respect for Evan Spiegel right now. Bold move. Amazingly
positioned. I wish them the best of luck. Dare I say, it has the scent of Jobs
to it - the vision, the risk ("we make sunglasses now!") and definitely the
"cool-factor." Don't misinterpret - this isn't the iPhone, not yet anyway, but
I think they're on to something very big.

~~~
flohofwoe
I can't tell whether your comment is satire or serious, I should quit the
internet today ;)

Also, that 'thing' looks even more ridiculous then Google Glass.

~~~
keithwhor
Dead serious. "Cool" is all this product needs to be successful. People buy
sunglasses. People like Snapchat. At $129 this is a no-brainer. Don't
underestimate the power of social signaling.

~~~
yolesaber
> Don't underestimate the power of social signaling.

You mean the social signaling that is going to brand these users as
"glassholes" as well?

>At $129 this is a no-brainer.

Please step out of your tech bubble. Most snapchat users are teenagers or
college-age persons who absolutely do not have $129 to drop on a pair of
novelty sunglasses.

~~~
berberous
Cheaper than a pair of raybans, which are fairly ubiquitous. If they are
successful, the price will drop too. If the hardware is minimal, and people
like the design, why not buy these instead of whatever other sunglasses they
were going to buy and get a fun toy as well?

~~~
yolesaber
Raybans actually look nice and maintain their value. These look like they were
designed by a committee that googled "cool millennial"

------
primigenus
This fixes everything broken about Google Glass. It's almost disturbing how
much more on point this is:

Of _course_ they're sunglasses.

Of _course_ it's focused completely on video.

Of _course_ it's marketed as being about sharing your memories as you lived
them.

Of _course_ you can only record 10 second videos at a time.

Of _course_ snaps automatically sync to the app.

Of _course_ they're designed to appeal to young fashionable people.

Of _course_ the charge lasts all day

This is one of those things where once you see it it's just obvious this is
what it was supposed to be all along.

~~~
hiou
As Google learned with glass and Twitter still needs to learn:

If you don't know what your product is for, your customer is unlikely to
figure it out for you.

~~~
o_____________o
Twitter might be a bad example, given that's exactly how it rose to popularity

~~~
acdha
I think Twitter is a complicated example: it thrived when they were building a
product which the developers wanted to use personally, which included
embracing ideas which other developers had made for their users.

The decline started when they started building what the VCs thought would be a
winning lottery ticket: that was when they started closing the service and
everything became focused the pitch to advertisers without enough balance on
what their users might want.

------
fowlerpower
I think this is significantly better than what Google did with Google Glass.

It's better because it focuses on the one thing that is really easy to do
well. It does not try to do everything at once. It doesn't try to give you
apps in your glasses and everything under the sun. This is the right approach
to products. Do one thing but do that well.

Before you criticize me think back to the original iPhone, it didn't start
with an App Store and everything under the sun like the iwatch did. And yet
the iPhone is an icon and the watch is no big deal.

~~~
potatoyogurt
It also doesn't look nearly as dorky as Google Glass did. Google Glass had the
problem where it was trying to be an all-purpose life-enhancing thing that
people would wear all the time, so it was trying to be both invisible and
distinctive. This doesn't need to pretend to be something that you can forget
you're wearing or something that you can pair with any type of outfit -- it
has a strong sense of style, and it's easier to work cameras into a design
that is loud than a design that is quiet.

~~~
mozumder
This is a dead-end product.

People aren't going to wear this, because they don't want to creep out people
by having a camera pointed at them all the time.

This was the real problem with Google Glass.

Also, everyone already carries around a camera in their smartphone. They
aren't going to add another.

~~~
stormbrew
Comments like this always remind me of when camera phones were controversial
and had to make a loud clicking noise when they took pictures so everyone knew
it was happening. Fast forward 10-15 years and do you really know whether that
person using their phone across from you on the bus isn't recording you?

Nope.

~~~
exergy
Uh, yep? If you're using your phone for reading or some such, it is perhaps at
a 45 degree angle to the horizontal, or even less. If you're sneaking a creep
shot, the angle is much greater. You can always tell when someone is clicking
a picture.

~~~
dEnigma
They might be filming themselves though; even if they don't do anything worth
filming they could be just using their phone as a mirror.

------
CodeWriter23
Hype and grumbles aside, I believe optimizing the "I want to record what I'm
seeing right now" to a tap near your temple is pretty compelling. Fumbling to
get my camera out of my pocket, or even just grab from tabletop and swipe-to-
cam is often long enough to miss that precious moment with my daughter.

~~~
agumonkey
True, this removes a ton of useless and uber-annoying friction.

~~~
Bakary
There will be a lot of friction associated with being filmed and recorded all
the time, as will probably be the case not with this generation of tools but
in maybe 5 years

~~~
gaius
Bit harsh to describe the Millenial generation as "tools".

------
rdmsr
This is definitely the result of Snapchat's acquisition of Epiphany Eyewear
back in 2013[1], which was a startup that made something very similar.

[1][https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_Eyewear](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_Eyewear)

------
ftrflyr
Why? You need to seriously question the motives behind such a launch. IMHO:

[1]Snapshot is an online multimedia application. [2]The infrastructure
required to move from online to hardware requires significant investment
(beyond the $1.8B they recently raised) - that of which I don't believe
Snapchat can fund without a serious re-monetiziation strategy beyond Ads. It
is only a matter of time before FB makes the move into Snapchat's market more
than they already are. [3]This is an unproven market. Google tried it and
didn't succeed. A better play - let someone else test the market a bit more
and then move in with a solid Ad monetization strategy around the Spectacles.
[4]Why Hardware?! Seriously? I believe Evan is overplaying his hands with so
much VC capital coming his way.

~~~
sheer_horror
If Snapchat is able to sell this product to only 5% of their 150M userbase
that's 7.5M * $130 = 1B in revenue. Then they diversify their future product
line somehow and keep selling to the other 95% of their users. Forget a re-
monetization strategy for ads - ads make a product worse and it is refreshing
that there may be another way for VC-backed companies to monetize.

~~~
sloanesturz
How much of their userbase of 13-30 year olds wants to plunk down $130 for a
toy? Less than 5%, I'd guess.

~~~
ethanbond
The <5% who are mega influencers on one of the most influential social
networks on earth, as opposed to the <5% comprised of the dorkiest people on
earth (not that I have anything against dorks, seeing as I myself am somewhat
dorky).

You couldn't even wear Glass in Silicon Valley, land of graphic tees and dad
jeans. I could imagine seeing these anywhere from Santa Monica to NYC or Lake
Tahoe to Macchu Pichu.

------
leetrout
Even thought I'm not "inb4" Glass comparisons this really does hit a market
that I think is untapped. I used to have a "flipcam". It was before I had a
phone with the ability to take HD video and before a GoPro was a choice for me
because of cost (I still don't have a GoPro).

The ability to have cheaper, stylish, handsfree video recording of my POV has
a lot of potential. How-to videos, the "capturing memories" as noted in the
article, even just easily recording benign life experiences (police stops, for
instance) seamlessly and without hassle is huge.

I do hope there is a tattletale light or something so that the average user
can't surreptitiously record things and otherwise easy privacy controls... and
I hope it's not long before someone hacks this or they unlock the product to
do more than 10 second clips...

If I were GoPro I'd be nervous.

Edit: Actually a second thought- this would be a lot better than body cams in
a lot of situations (or certainly a good companion) because it would capture
the officer's line of sight.

~~~
emilburzo
> If I were GoPro I'd be nervous.

Yeah... no.

I wouldn't skydive with those glasses.

Though "gopro for the rest of us" would be a good tagline.

The rest of your post is pretty spot on.

~~~
leetrout
Sure. I'm sorry I wasn't clearer. I just think they should be nervous not
because they would lose customers but because they could potentially lose the
market segment this is going after.

If Spectales were $99 instead of $129 I think they'd be in solid impulse buy
territory, too.

I am not in marketing / sales so maybe GoPro likes being at the top and making
higher end cameras and it won't matter. As it is today a pair of glasses that
only records 10 seconds of video won't be able to compete anyway.

------
orbitingpluto
Now everybody can be Spider Jerusalem...

Just like Google Glass users being called Glassholes, SnapChat glasses will
probably be called something like SnapChads, because only white rich guys in
pastel shorts and rugby shirts named Chad will use them. The aesthetic just
isn't there for wide adoption.

------
josephpmay
Being someone in the AR space, I find this a smart but risky move. If they're
marked right and become "cool" I'll definitely have to cop a pair (and at $130
they're almost disposable). Spectacles will make it way easier for me to post
to Snapchat at parties/concerts/etc without having to break out of the moment
by taking my phone out. Strategy-wise, this is a Trojan horse into the AR
hardware space, which Evan has wanted to get into for years. However, they fit
way better into Snap's image of being a media company vs. directly launching
an AR headset.

~~~
tluyben2
The site seems blocked here (China) but if I read the comments, how is it AR?
What more does it do than make a picture when you tap your temple? Is there
any augmenting of reality going on, because _then_ $130 would be 'free'.

~~~
rawnlq
Snapchat has a lot of cool tech for video augmentation (Lenses:
[https://support.snapchat.com/en-
US/a/lenses1](https://support.snapchat.com/en-US/a/lenses1)).

If they simply live stream the video from the glasses to the phone and do the
same augmentation, I think that counts as AR.

~~~
mgiannopoulos
But you're supposed to be looking forward and not on your phone.

------
WhitneyLand
Looks like they have learned from the glasshole debacle.

1). The messaging emphasizes it's just "a toy", a low volume experiment. More
playful and more humble approach makes it a smaller target for ridicule.

2.) Pricing at $149 also makes it less pretentious and more importantly, puts
it in the discretionary income range of what the heck I'll give it a shot.

~~~
msabalau
They literally took the feature of glass that people found creepy and made a
product out of it.

------
technofiend
If this means I can go to a public performance and no longer have to try to
look past the sea of upthrust arms and glare of 1000 brightly lit screens to
see what I came to see then it can't come quickly enough!

Particularly since I feel it will inspire the next product which is an IR
flood light that renders all digital cameras useless, since there are so many
people oblivious to the fact by trying to capture the experience for
themselves they're detracting from the experience for everyone else.

Letting people who need a digital memento silently get one without intruding
on the experience of those of us just there to enjoy and be in the moment is a
great compromise.

~~~
dr_zoidberg
Good cameras (well, practically every camera now) come with IR-cutoff filter,
so the IR light to "blind" the cameras would be pretty much useless.

And the IR-filter is actually a problem for those of us who like
astrophotography and have to resort to modding or (expensive) special editions
of cameras.

~~~
technofiend
>Good cameras (well, practically every camera now) come with IR-cutoff filter

Oh well, thanks for telling me that, Dr. Zoidberg. I wonder if flooding some
IR would be enough to add enough ghosting or whiteout as to make the video
captured undesirable.

------
whitecarpet
Another huge innovation which is more about software than hardware is the new
circular video format: you can rotate your phone and the video keeps its
orientation.

Quite impressive, you have to see it in action:

[https://twitter.com/ow/status/779592486461313025](https://twitter.com/ow/status/779592486461313025)

~~~
martinko
A significant part of the recorded video in that demo is always off screen. If
you fit it to the screen, it will be circular. This doesnt really seem to
solve anything.

------
arcticfox
> (Spiegel argues that rectangles are an unnecessary vestige of printing
> photos on sheets of paper.)

It's also the shape of nearly all screens in the world. Perhaps I'm not
visionary enough, but I don't foresee a circular computer or phone screen
really improving the current situation...

~~~
rgbrenner
Its been done. The first CRTs were circular. Take a look at this one on a
PDP-1 from 1959:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-1#/media/File:PDP-1.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-1#/media/File:PDP-1.jpg)
(yes, that thing next to the typewriter)

------
slackoverflower
Snapchat has a huge opportunity in its hand which it has limited to take full
advantage of: starting a revenue share program with influencers on the
platform. Facebook has yet to do it and Snapchat, which is strapped with VC
dollars, can attract a lot more influencers to its platform. I think the
companies on the Discover are already in some sort of revenue sharing
agreement with Snapchat but brining this to the massive number of young
influencers unlocks huge opportunities for Snapchat.

~~~
omarchowdhury
Revenue from what product or service?

~~~
ethanbond
The ads all over Snapchat?

------
nitrogen
I'm amazed the top-rated top-level comments are all so positive. We have
enough people shoving cameras into devices and situations where they don't
belong. At least we know what they look like now so we can ostracize anyone
wearing them.

------
bunkydoo
Well I'll be completely straight and say this isn't anything new. (You've been
able to buy similar video glasses from china for about 5 years now) but if it
can properly integrate with the app, and slim down a LOT more. To the point
the camera is unnoticeable - they could finally start making some money. Well,
until the Chinese knockoffs start rolling in

------
cobookman
For those wondering wtf are these, I don't like the styling, why do these
exist...etc, well, i don't think the target market for these is hacker news
viewers. I will say that they do look awesome. Way easier to use these than a
go pro or hold a camera/phone. Hopefully it's not just locked down to
Snapchat.

~~~
DasIch
It's limited to Snapchat and 10s recordings. In no way this anywhere close to
being a go pro replacement.

------
k_sh
> Why make this product, with its attendant risks, and why now? “Because it’s
> fun”.

The way they framed this product is _so_ refreshing.

------
nvr219
I'm into this! I think selling it as a toy is the right approach.

------
nappy
If this leads to fewer people holding out their phones at concerts... Then I'm
especially excited ;)

------
xeniak
> initially appears to be a normal pair of sunglasses

While it's less offensive than Google Glasses, this doesn't look like "normal"
glasses.

------
hellogoodbyeeee
I don't understand why all these software companies are in a rush to make
hardware. With the lone exception of Apple, all hardware seems to resort in a
race to the bottom commoditization resulting in paper thin margins.

~~~
erichocean
> _With the lone exception of Apple…_

And why is Apple profitable with hardware? Because the company that makes the
hardware _also makes the software_.

Just like Snap, Inc.

~~~
hellogoodbyeeee
Didn't Facebook try a Facebook phone? How'd the Microsoft phone projects work
out?

------
robbles
This article mentions Snapchat's hundreds of employees and multiple offices.
This is one of the most obvious examples of the "what are they all doing?"
question for me. I know it must take quite a few people to run operations at
that scale, and of course they have an advertising business too, which likely
explains the need for multiple offices. But it seems like Snapchat is still an
extremely minimal app with only a couple of extra features being added over
the years. Instagram had only 13 employees when it was acquired, so what role
are most of these people in?

------
NTDF9
This is genius. Really. You want to know what kind of crowd will drop $129 on
this?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6naWlVjcIM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6naWlVjcIM)

Genius!

------
TeMPOraL
I like it. Seriously, "creepy" is just a word that means "I can't accept the
reality doesn't work the way I'd like it".

That said, I worry about implementation. My guess is that it's going to be
directly and permanently tied to Snapchat itself. Which significantly reduces
the potential usefulness of this product - not everything you record is
something you only want to have sent directly to Snapchat. Personally, I want
files. Plain, old files. Is that so hard to understand for all those cloud-
first companies?

~~~
clydethefrog
You first paragraph sounds like something out of Dave Eggers' The Circle.

I thought the book was quite heavy handed three years ago, but statements like
"Privacy is theft" are becoming more and more normal.

------
ajamesm
Great product for people who want to film women in public, but not be noticed.
Game changer

~~~
tartuffe78
These products draw a lot of attention to the cameras, even the black model
where they could have blended in they're outlined in yellow.

~~~
yaegers
>they're outlined in yellow.

Good thing that cannot possibly be painted over or something. crisis
averted...

------
BinaryIdiot
I can't be the only one who thinks this is going to eat GoPro's lunch, am I?
Sure the initial version may not be as high quality as a GoPro and the time
limit isn't as good but those are easy things to fix and they have a monstrous
social network (something GoPro is sorta trying to break into).

If anything kills GoPro it's something like this.

~~~
Splines
They'd need to have longer videos than 10s though. I enjoy watching GoPro
videos on youtube and they are universally longer than 10s.

~~~
nip
That's just a software limitation that could be bypassed if the device gets
jailbroken, redirecting the creepiness from the company to a single user (who
decided to jailbreak to take longer videos).

If enough people start jailbreaking their Spectacles, Snapchat good could then
get rid of this limitation.

------
anonbiocoward
They really should have consulted with the Warby Parker folks, or pretty much
anyone who actually designs glasses.

------
mkagenius
When deciding about products, try to think if cute Minions (from Despicable
Me) would like that? - Evan Spiegel

------
pmontra
Where are those 10 second videos stored? At Snapchat, on the phone, into the
glasses? That changes dramatically the privacy implications of both the
glasses and Snapchat. Remember what he said: he watched videos from one year
ago. Snapchat has been all about deleting everything now.

~~~
runeb
Snapchat introduced a feature called Memories, where you can store snaps you
take indefinitely. If its synced to servers I don't know.

------
bradleybuda
Friday night media release? Surprising.

~~~
jdavis703
It's because it leaked out on YouTube earlier today. Probably best to get out
in front of the story before everyone starts comparing it to Google Glass.

~~~
discordance
And the associated Glasshole anti-marketing

~~~
aswanson
Glasshole. That's like...the best derogatory slur in history. Captures so much
in one word.

------
p4mk
I love the execution of "circular videos", surprising that no one has
implemented this before!

[https://twitter.com/namzo/status/779589506479652864](https://twitter.com/namzo/status/779589506479652864)

------
bobsil1
>he was the best product visionary I’d met in my entire life.

This person has never seen the Snapchat interface.

------
mathewsanders
There's been an empty store on exchange place in NYC financial district (near
Tiffany's) that for a couple weeks has had a huge Snapchat logo taking up the
entire window. I wonder if they're also gonna explore retail along with
hardware.

~~~
CardenB
That's probably their New York office.

------
jondubois
Maybe Snapchat will sell some of their users' videos to porn companies (for VR
porn)... There are two cameras - Obviously for VR; and given Snapchat's
history as a sexting app, I think it's clear where things are heading here.

------
listic
How do I read the full story? I tried signing in with Facebook, but it
redirects to [http://www.wsj.com/europe](http://www.wsj.com/europe).

------
mankash666
2015 revenues of $59M. Assuming an above average salary range, 1000 employees
cost about $250M. If they were a public company, they'd get slaughtered on the
stock markets.

~~~
Nicholas_C
Companies are valued on expected future profitability. Not current
profitability.

~~~
mankash666
Beg to differ - this might be the spin made popular by the valley's VCs and
founders as a collective price gouging strategy, but it never flies in the
public market. Ever wondered why the unicorns are hesitant to go IPO - they
don't even buy their own spin on valuation, that's why.

------
hackerews
I love the difference between this and Glass - 'capture life's moments in
style' (spectacles.com) vs. 'join the future' ([http://marketingland.com/wp-
content/ml-loads/2014/05/glass-h...](http://marketingland.com/wp-content/ml-
loads/2014/05/glass-homepage.jpg))

------
AndrewKemendo
I think what people are overlooking is that this device has stereo cameras by
default. That means every snap likely has reasonably quality depth for each
snap. With the scale of users they will likely have the largest consumer based
depth capture platform in the market. That's actually a big deal for building
infrastructure needed for the AR ecosystem.

------
rabboRubble
I reserve judgement until I see a pair in color. And better yet, in person.
And see more detail about the power situation.

------
mrharrison
I think Apple needs acquihire snapchat and promote Evan as the new Apple CEO.
I have zero hate for Cook and think he is great CEO. But Evan is shaping up to
have some the most modern product prowess out there. I don't know if these
spectacles will be a hit, but I think his choices are in the right direction.

------
adamnemecek
I wonder what is the intended use case of this. The response will be
lackluster which will make creating a V2 harder.

------
idlemind
Glasshole meet Snaptwat.

------
Dwolb
On the design end, I don't like the look of the camera lense.

Are they able to darken the lense glass to hide the camera a bit? Maybe they
could match the black of the camera sensor to the black of the glass a little
more. Otherwise it looks a lot like two cameras on your face.

~~~
Zelphyr
They seem to want to do the opposite. I think those yellow circles around the
lenses are part of the glasses. They seem to want to _highlight_ where the
cameras are.

~~~
DasIch
If you consider the criticism Google Glass has received, making the camera
obvious might very well be a good idea, at least for the first iteration of
the product.

------
oliv__
I'm just going to wait until this "Spectacle" self deletes after a few
months...

------
smegel
Goofy but clever. The kind of thing that might be a hit with a certain
youthful demographic. And you need to be "cool" to pull something like this
off - i.e. not Google.

------
tomkinstinch
What about people who wear prescription glasses, but can't wear or dislike
contact lenses? Is it possible to replace the lenses with prescription ones?

------
Multiplayer
The most interesting part of the article to me is how useless the WSJ comment
section is.

I cannot believe this is still an issue for major publications.

------
clydethefrog
Reminds me of SeeChange from Dave Egger's The Circle. I wonder if Clinton will
wear them during this election.

------
drivingmenuts
Nice design.

How do they solve the personal privacy issues that arose with Google Glass? Or
have they even bothered?

------
vasanthagneshk
Is it only me that does not want to read the article because I cannot read it
anonymously?

------
nefitty
This is exciting for the wearable headset market. If even a fraction of
Snapchat's users get this it will normalize the space much more than Google
Glass was able to. This is especially considering the young demographic
Snapchat caters to, which I assume is more open to new technologies.

------
JustSomeNobody
These don't look comfortable at all.

------
superJimmy64
This is a ridiculous product... reminds me of the classic upper management/CEO
"ideas". You know the kind: obsolete, neglects societal concerns
(security???), nobody around to tell them it's a bad idea.

> (Why make this product, with its attendant risks, and why now? “Because it’s
> fun,” he says with another laugh.)

Sometimes you can look at something and just KNOW that there is not a chance
that pile of junk is gonna gain traction.

------
dmritard96
ill wait for the generic model that posts to any social network....

------
PercussusVII
Fuck off, Snapchat

------
amingilani
How do I get around the paywall?

~~~
kamiheku
[https://web.archive.org/web/20160924044000/http://www.wsj.co...](https://web.archive.org/web/20160924044000/http://www.wsj.com/articles/snapchat-
releases-first-hardware-product-spectacles-1474682719)

~~~
ionwake
Hi, is there a quick and easy way to see the web archive version of a page?

------
gjolund
This is a win for self obsessed snapchat users.

------
throwaway28123
I'd just like give everyone a reminder,

>The most important principle on HN, though, is to make thoughtful comments.
Thoughtful in both senses: civil and substantial.

"Google Glass 2.0" and similar cheap bashing isn't just against the rules,
it's boring and petty.

Take it to 4chan, you'll get the attention you're after.

~~~
colordrops
There is cheap bashing in this thread, but "google glass 2.0" is not it. That
just sounds like unobservent judgment.

