Speaker 1: Forty eight hours with Snapchat Spectacles.
Speaker 2: I'm rich Jimiro. This is rich on Tech Daily.
Speaker 1: Snapchat is added again with a new and improved pair
Speaker 1: of spectacles. These are their sunglasses with a tiny little
Speaker 1: camera built into them. The company lent me a pair
Speaker 1: for just forty eight hours to try them out, and
Speaker 1: I'll say I had a blast with them. For starters,
Speaker 1: I never really wore the first pair of spectacles for
Speaker 1: a very long time. I had access to them for
Speaker 1: a very short Show and Tell TV segment, so I
Speaker 1: wasn't really able to form a good opinion on them. Also,
Speaker 1: I wasn't really very interested in them. The reviews I
Speaker 1: read were pretty bad, and I wasn't a big snapchatter.
Speaker 2: So I really did not see the use case scenario.
Speaker 1: Snap says they sold two hundred and twenty thousand pairs
Speaker 1: of the first generation product, and they say they learned
Speaker 1: a few things in the process because the media said
Speaker 1: that they were a flop. Now, the new spectacles are
Speaker 1: thinner and lighter due to even more miniaturization of the
Speaker 1: electronics inside. Snap says the part that holds most of
Speaker 1: the gadget tree, which is above the temples, is about
Speaker 1: a third small overall. They also come in three colors,
Speaker 1: a black, a red, and a blue, and they are
Speaker 1: actual sunglasses.
Speaker 2: They are UVA and UVB rated.
Speaker 1: Spectacles come in a case that resembles a tennis ball can.
Speaker 1: You pop the top and you slide the glasses out,
Speaker 1: which are inside a yellow case. This case doubles as
Speaker 1: a portable charger. You charge it up by plugging it in.
Speaker 1: Then when you're out and about, you can pop your
Speaker 1: spectacles back in the case and they'll recharge.
Speaker 2: Overall, I was able.
Speaker 1: To take about seventy five ten second clips before my
Speaker 1: spectacles needed recharging. The battery is definitely gonna last a day,
Speaker 1: maybe a bit longer, depending on how much you use them.
Speaker 2: As for setup, it was a breeze.
Speaker 1: You just open the Snapchat app and let it know
Speaker 1: that you have a new pair of spectacles, and it
Speaker 1: pretty much does the rest. They use a combination of
Speaker 1: Bluetooth and Wi Fi to talk to your phone. They
Speaker 1: are compatible with both iOS and Android, although I tested
Speaker 1: them with an iPhone ten. Once you're connected, you just
Speaker 1: go about your business and when you want to take
Speaker 1: a video, you press a little button on the side
Speaker 1: of the glasses. They instantly start recording a ten second clip.
Speaker 1: Others know you're recording because there's a light on the
Speaker 1: opposite side to the camera. You can extend your recording
Speaker 1: time to thirty seconds by hitting the button a second time,
Speaker 1: and a long press will take a snapshot. Getting your
Speaker 1: videos and images to your phone is super simple. Every
Speaker 1: time I would capture something on the Spectacles, I would
Speaker 1: get a notification on my iPhone that the clips were
Speaker 1: ready to import. One more tap would bring me into
Speaker 1: the Snapchat app, and one more tap.
Speaker 2: Would start copying over all the clips to my phone.
Speaker 1: Now, one of the big complaints about the first generation
Speaker 1: of Spectacles is that the transfers weren't very fast.
Speaker 2: Snap says, this process has been improved.
Speaker 1: Transfers are about four times faster, and I didn't think
Speaker 1: it took very long at all. In fact, I was
Speaker 1: very impressed. It was using a Wi Fi direct connection,
Speaker 1: which is very speedy.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: As for the quality of the clips, well, they look great.
Speaker 1: Everything's in HD. When you're viewing in Snapchat, your video
Speaker 1: fills the entire screen. And what's really cool is even
Speaker 1: as you rotate your phone to portrait or landscape, the
Speaker 1: video still fills the screen.
Speaker 2: It's a really neat little effect.
Speaker 1: Everything you transfer is saved privately to Snapshot until you
Speaker 1: decide to share it publicly with your friends on the platform.
Speaker 1: I found the delineation between the two to be pretty clear,
Speaker 1: so I don't expect to see a lot of mistake
Speaker 1: and shares. If you want to get your captured moments
Speaker 1: out of Snapchat, well that's pretty easy too. You can
Speaker 1: export to your camera roll and seconds. The only problem
Speaker 1: here is what your video looks like when you export it.
Speaker 1: It's a circular image surrounded by a big white box.
Speaker 1: And you can still zoom in and crop your videos
Speaker 1: and images to fill the entire screen, but that does
Speaker 1: take a few extra steps and you might lose some
Speaker 1: of the stuff on the edges of the image, and
Speaker 1: also the quality suffers a bit.
Speaker 2: Other things to know about spectacles.
Speaker 1: They're not super comfortable to wear for long periods of times,
Speaker 1: so you're probably not going to be able to replace
Speaker 1: your sunglasses with them. I took a run with the
Speaker 1: spectacles and they felt kind of heavy on my head
Speaker 1: after a while. You also might get some second takes
Speaker 1: from folks wondering what you're wearing, because they do have
Speaker 1: kind of a distinct look to them, and they're also
Speaker 1: water resistant. This time around, I did not jump in
Speaker 1: a pool to try this out, but it was raining,
Speaker 1: which is crazy for la The day I tested them
Speaker 1: near Venice Beach and they did just fine. Overall, having
Speaker 1: a pair of Spectacles is an absolute blast. There's so
Speaker 1: many fun little moments in life you can capture with
Speaker 1: them from such unique It's literally like having a little
Speaker 1: GoPro on your face at all times. In fact, I
Speaker 1: don't know what GoPros thinking these days, but maybe they
Speaker 1: need to team up with Snapchat for a go pro
Speaker 1: version of these glasses.
Speaker 2: Maybe a go pro glasses action cam kind of thing. Now.
Speaker 1: A lot of people might think the Spectacles are best
Speaker 1: for teens or the younger set, but to me, the
Speaker 1: best use case scenario might be new parents or parents
Speaker 1: in general.
Speaker 2: You never know what your.
Speaker 1: Kids are gonna do, and these can definitely help you
Speaker 1: capture that. One thing to note about the captures, none
Speaker 1: of them include the person actually wearing the spectacles. This
Speaker 1: sort of flies in the face of the selfie culture
Speaker 1: we live in. Lots of snaps and Instagram stories are
Speaker 1: captured with the camera facing the author. Spectacles makes this
Speaker 1: a little tricky, although I was able to take them
Speaker 1: off all I was recording and aim them back at
Speaker 1: myself and it made.
Speaker 2: A pretty good image.
Speaker 1: Bottom line, spectacles are a fun and unique way to
Speaker 1: capture life's little moments, but you have to be a
Speaker 1: super dedicated snap fan to invest the one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty dollars to purchase them. If you're planning on using
Speaker 1: them to share to other platforms, like if you're a
Speaker 1: big Instagram Stories person, you're going to grow frustrated pretty
Speaker 1: quickly at the extra steps involved, and then you're going
Speaker 1: to stop using them. This will probably limit the wide
Speaker 1: appeal of these new and improved spectacles. But still, even
Speaker 1: after forty eight hours, I'm convinced Snap is onto something
Speaker 1: and we're going to continue to see this technology perfected
Speaker 1: and camera glasses will play a big role in the
Speaker 1: future of video capture.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: If you like to rich on Tech podcast, please rate
Speaker 1: and review it in the Apple Podcast step. That way
Speaker 1: more people see it and follow me on Instagram. My
Speaker 1: username is at rich on Tech. I know, did I
Speaker 1: just promote my Instagram in a story about Snapchat? Kind
Speaker 1: of crazy? You can find a link to everything I
Speaker 1: mentioned here, including my Snapchat Spectacles review, on my website.
Speaker 2: Just go to rich on tech dot tv.
Speaker 1: There you can also see a bunch of clips of
Speaker 1: videos I took with the Spectacles.
Speaker 2: I'm Rich Demiro. Thanks so much for listening. I'll talk
Speaker 2: to you real soon