Gadgetory

it's a concept that has been tried in the past wearable cameras and they've been met with mostly mixed results they tend to be unfashionable and too obvious while putting the issue of privacy into question however creators of the greatly popular app snapchat are tackling it with their own product that puts a camera in a pair of sunglasses and you have to be extremely lucky to get one do these fashion forward camera enabled glasses show us a glimpse into a future for not just snapchatters but also for storytelling itself we're here to find out because it's Joshua Garr from Android authority what's going on everybody and these are the snapchat spectacles I'm not a crazy snapchat user for general social media but the same sometimes silly aspects that play into social media are actually wonderful to use for messaging chatting with friends and family is easy often fun and snapchat puts every tool at the users disposal whether it be through text graphic audio or video as far as sunglasses go the spectacles are of decent quality and they make it pretty clear that the $129 you would pay for them is more for the electronics than the fashion I have a couple of worries that the spectacles will survive not much more than the typical wear and tear but these are a pair of glasses that you'd probably want to coddle a little bit anyway they fit a little snug on my head not to the point is pinching but it did take a little bit of time to get used to so the price is justified by the bits and pieces in the two temples on the left when wearing the glasses it's a shorter button that starts the ten-second snaps and there's a white LED indicator that shows battery life and alerts others to the fact that you are recording behind that temple are the connector pins for charging which can be done either with the included cable or with a case that holds the battery big enough for four full charges speaking of battery life the spectacles are claimed to get up to 100 snaps before needing to be charged but I've really only gotten closer to 60 this indicator on the left is actually really elegant and when you compare it to something like a red light it's much easier on the eyes a red recording light is often distracting and definitely alarming to some people instead you get this rotating white light here that is like I said easy on the eyes but also kind of inviting I can't even begin to tell you how many people came up to me asking me what is going on with my sunglasses and then of course I would get into conversations with them and explain to them what these are explanations as to what these spectacles are we're mostly received with awe and I was never asked to stop recording or delete footage after all they are only 10 seconds Maps and I don't record incessantly and also I'm smart enough to know when a situation doesn't lend itself to documentation it pretty much comes down to this don't be a jerk you should be smart enough and nice enough to know when to record and when not to record and if somebody comes up to you and tells you to stop recording or to delete footage you would do so right because you're a nice person got it good the videos are recorded at a pretty low resolution just over 720p but the camera is about as wide as a GoPro and its location is really the crux of the experience sound is actually pretty good though and anyone wearing them will have to be a little bit aware of that and of what they're doing viewing the videos on the snapchat app is actually really fun but it takes a while to get going if you're extracting a ton of snaps from the spectacles basically go to the memories area and find the specs area all recorded footage is grouped by day and they are not posted anywhere until you tell the app to because the specs record circular video to accommodate its wide angle the app can rotate to encompass certain portions of the frame think of it this way a rectangle in a circle the rectangle is your effective field of view which you can then use to reveal the possibilities that are found within the circle it's really quite slick actually extracting the videos is a different story I mentioned in my first impressions video that I wished full video could be taken from the app what I meant was sixteen by nine video as played back in the snapchat app because the videos when you extract them raw or well like this 800 by 800 resolution in a square which is distracting when the rest of a vlog video for example is in widescreen the main remedy for this has been to zoom and scale into the circle which makes the low resolution much more obvious but for this first iteration of the snapchat spectacles quality isn't necessarily the point what matters is perspective what you see and what your friends and followers will see if you let them we've learned in this age of vlogging and sharing that sharing one's own experiences is in demand and what Snap Inc has done is provide a low barrier of entry into a unique way of doing just that and it's still a little too easy to get addicted to just press the button and continue your experience without worry because the wide-angle lens will capture it plenty of people that I've allowed to wear the spectacles have gone nuts and really hit that shutter for a lot of snaps users can also cater their stories and messages to context accordingly cultivating the storyteller in each person and you know what that's why I enjoy somewhat begrudgingly wearing them because there are no other products yet that do quite the same thing I don't actually praise the spectacles themselves they're a gaudy looking low resolution recording attention-seeking means to an end for a videographer and storyteller like myself but to the storyteller in me the snapchat spectacles are the first kind of well-executed attempt at giving people the ability to share a unique perspective literally their own if there's one thing that the spectacles make clear to me it's that I'm excited to see more products like this in the future so fast-forwarding a little bit a lot of what you just saw in this review was actually filmed and done before the turn of the new year and what you're seeing right now is the little bit of footage that we were able to get at CES 2017 however in using the two pairs of spectacles that we had at the Consumer Electronics Show we did find the couple of problems to rear their ugly head once again mainly the fact that extracting the footage from the snapchat spectacles on to snapchat was a bit of a chore and even then once we got the footage into the snapchat app getting them back down from the app and into an actual video editor proved to be more of a chore than we were really willing to do in the fast-paced environment of CES however that also poses yet another question that we want to ask all of you while the snapchat spectacles fad was going really strong at the turn of the new year and everybody wanted a pair even at CES many of the hotels had snap BOTS that appeared each day of the conference we wonder if the fad has already passed or if the snapchat spectacles will continue to be a must-have item in 2017 we want to know what you think about these glasses and how you feel about snapchats move into the wearable space so let us know in the comments below as you can stay tuned to android authority for even more the snapchat spectacles and even more beyond the world of Android at our other properties that include VR source tab times sound guys and charged I oh and then once you're done with all of that head on over to Android Authority calm for even more because we are your source for all things Android