Snapchat Spec­ta­cles: Glasses with a camera function?

For years now, Snapchat has been one of the biggest and most popular messenger apps on the market. The ap­pli­ca­tion, which allows users to send dis­ap­pear­ing photos and short videos, has now taken things to the next level with the release of Snapchat Spec­ta­cles. These are glasses equipped with a camera, allowing users to record short videos and publish them on Snapchat. Released last year in the US, the glasses were a raging success and have now begun to migrate across the Atlantic to Europe. However, the glasses do raise some important questions, not least of all to do with in­di­vid­ual privacy and data pro­tec­tion.

With these glasses, Snap Inc., the company that is behind Snapchat, wishes to add to the appeal of their messenger app. The spec­ta­cles allow users to capture their ex­pe­ri­ences from the first person per­spec­tive and share them with other Snapchat users. The whole concept behind the sun­glass­es is that they are designed to be used with Snapchat – anyone looking to use the recording function of the spec­ta­cles needs to have a smart­phone with the Snapchat app installed. The target group is un­doubt­ed­ly teenagers or young adults, something which is made very clear in the Snapchat Spec­ta­cles ad­ver­tise­ment:

The spec­ta­cles allow you to capture 10-second videos (including sound) that can be started with one press of the button on the side of the glasses. If you press the button two or three times in a row then the cor­re­spond­ing number of clips will be recorded. As soon as recording has begun, LEDs around the camera light up. Above all this is to inform those in shot that a video is currently being recorded.

What is note­wor­thy about the record­ings is that the viewing angle of the camera is 115 degrees. This makes for a very special feature within the Snapchat app: while viewing, if you rotate your phone, the recorded shot will also move ac­cord­ing­ly.

The syn­chro­niza­tion between the Snapchat Spec­ta­cles and app occurs wire­less­ly: the record­ings are trans­ferred to the app either via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.  The app also allows you to export videos and publish outside of Snapchat, e.g., via YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter). Here the clips also have a wide format – similar to a fish eye view – and are sur­round­ed by a large white frame.

The battery is in­te­grat­ed into the frame of the glasses and can be charged using the ac­com­pa­ny­ing case. Further detailed in­for­ma­tion on the Snapchat glasses can be found in this video from the Android device and software spe­cial­ists An­droid­pit:

The easiest way to order the sun­glass­es is on the Spec­ta­cles website. They are available in three different colors (Black, Coral, and Teal) and cost $129.99. It is also possible to purchase them at so-called Snapbots. These are yellow vending machines which are placed in specific locations for a limited period of time. In the US the rush to use one of these was very big, as is demon­strat­ed by this video from Snap Inc.

In many ways, the spec­ta­cles are just a hipper version of Google Glass, although obviously with much fewer functions. But that being said, Snapchat Spec­ta­cles still have a camera with which you can film other people and whose image will then end up on the app provider’s server. And this is exactly what was sharply crit­i­cized about Google Glass.

This has led to there being some criticism also leveled at the Snapchat sun­glass­es and its impact on in­di­vid­u­als’ privacy. Snap Inc. them­selves have actually addressed the issue on their website stating “Our Community Guide­lines have always said to be thought­ful and respect people’s privacy, and these ideals apply equally when you’re using Spec­ta­cles. Please be re­spect­ful and con­sid­er­ate of others.” While the LED lights around the camera light up to indicate that the camera is recording, there are many that say that this is not enough, as other people still may not have a choice whether they wish to be filmed or not.

A poll carried out by YouGov in September 2016 found that 47% of people (55% of women and 39% of men) said that they would feel un­com­fort­able around a stranger wearing Snapchat Spec­ta­cles, while over 35% (40% of women and 31% of men) would be un­com­fort­able around a friend wearing them. This gives us an idea of what the public per­cep­tion of these glasses is. While the growing pop­u­lar­i­ty of the sun­glass­es may lead to a nor­mal­iza­tion of them and wider ac­cep­tance, there is no guarantee of this. It remains to be seen what the fate of Snapchat Spec­ta­cles will be. Watch this space.