This Is How Snap’s Non-Creepy, Fashionable Spectacles Wearable Camera Proves We’re Ready for Mainstream AR Smartglasses
But then something interesting happened just a few months later: Snap unexpectedly released two new, significantly more stylish versions of Spectacles (Nico and Veronica), priced at $200. Paying that much for a wearable camera device, whose previous two iterations weren't incredibly popular, might seem like a lot — until you actually hold a pair in your hands. These feel like a premium pair of shades (this is coming from a shades fanatic with ten pairs of normal shades sitting on my shelf at home).
Wearing the Nico version of Spectacles in public doesn't feel like you're helping Snap experiment with its business model. No. These are cool shades that you'll like wearing even if you have no plans to take photos and videos. Beyond the great design and build quality, what makes the device easy to wear is the subtlety with which the camera sits on your face.
Street Cred Test
After wearing the Nico for weeks on crowded New York streets, in business meetings, and in coffee shops, I've only had a few occasions upon which someone did a double take and either looked at my Spectacles with special interest or asked me "what are those," after discerning the camera housing in the frame.
You can store up to 150 videos or 3,000 photos, and you can take around 70 videos per full charge (I rarely ran out of battery life), so the only real limitation is around how much editing you're ready to do. My own use mostly involved recording a bunch of footage throughout the week, syncing Spectacles with the Snapchat app on my iPhone, and then downloading the footage for editing in iMovie on the same device. I later posted these videos on Twitter, Instagram, and even YouTube. In years past, the Snapchat walled garden dynamic was my biggest problem with the app. But with this kind of freedom via Spectacles, there's no reason for me not to buy in. Which leads me to my next observations...
See the full story here: https://next.reality.news/news/is-snaps-non-creepy-fashionable-spectacles-wearable-camera-proves-were-ready-for-mainstream-ar-smartglasses-0192076/