In a world in which wearable technology has become the future, Snapchat is the newest company to upgrade its product to this form. Snapchat is set to launch their Snapchat Spectacles sometime toward the end of 2016.
Snapchat, a form of social media that involves taking pictures and sending them to friends, is arguably the most popular up and coming form of social media available. In fact, according to Business Insider, “It would take you ten years to view all the photos shared on Snapchat in the last hour. By the time you’d viewed those, another 880,000 years’ worth of photos would have been shared.” Snapchat has become the social media platform of the future, and Snapchat Spectacles is the next step in how we interpret social media.
The company even changed its name from “Snapchat” to Snap Inc., suggesting that it is looking to release more products like the Snapchat Spectacles in the future. This new technology is the beginning of the future of how we use and view social media.
Snapchat Spectacles work by holding down the button on the top of the frame of the glasses; recordings last up to 10 seconds but can be extended to half a minute. The glasses will maintain the videos that are taken until downloaded and saved to Snapchat memories when connected to Bluetooth.
According to Snap’s CEO, Snapchat Spectacles are “a ‘toy’ to be worn for kicks at, say, barbecues and outdoor concerts. They are about us figuring out if it fits into people’s lives and seeing how they like it.”
With 115-degree vision, quality better than the average Snapchat camera, and a camera that films at eye level, there is no doubt that this will will make your snap story worth watching. The spectacles’ battery life runs for 24 hours. All of this for $130 seems to be a great deal, although Snap, recently revealed that only a limited number of glasses will be sold. However, they have not officially issued a release date for the product , and there are still unanswered questions about the true value and quality of the spectacles, such as the true resolution and the true battery life of the hardware.
“Imagine one of your favorite memories. What if you could go back and see that memory the way you experienced it? That’s why we built Spectacles,” the company said in a blog post.”
There is little doubt that Snapchat is not only increasing its popularity with the release of the hardware but also going after other wearable technologies on the market today. Google Glass, for instance, is a product similar to the Snapchat glasses, but there are a few key differences such as price and appearance. Google Glass has a starting price of $1,500 compared to the Snapchat Spectacles’ price of $130. Furthermore, the Spectacles look much more natural than Google Glass, despite that they have the same functions when it comes to playing videos.
A future in which technology and our day to day lives are so closely linked is one that we should desire. Wearable tech will open our lives to possibilities that we cannot even comprehend, and will help with transparency and information transfer in our opaque and convoluted lives.
