Spectacles are a pair of smartglasses dedicated to recording video for the Snapchat service. They feature a camera lens and are capable of recording short video segments and syncing with a smartphone to upload to the user's online account. They were developed and manufactured by Snap Inc., announced on September 23, 2016, during Snap Inc's rebrand from Snapchat Inc. and released on November 10. They are made for Snap's image messaging and multimedia platform Snapchat and were initially distributed exclusively through Snap's pop-up vending machine, Snapbot. On February 20, 2017, Snap Spectacles became available for purchase online.
Video Spectacles (product)
History
In December 2014 Snap Inc., then Snapchat Inc., acquired Vergence Labs, the developers of the Epiphany Eyewear smartglasses. Epiphany Eyewear, which recorded wide-angle point-of-view videos, had been positioned as Vergence's first step toward eventually building biometrically-controlled augmented reality glasses which they hoped would someday "give people what would previously be called superpowers". However, due to Vergence's extremely small engineering team (consisting solely of electrical engineer Jon Rodriguez, software engineer Peter Brook, and mechanical engineer David Meisenholder), the company had to scale back its ambitions in order to ship a much simpler first product, Epiphany Eyewear, which they could manage to deliver despite the extremely limited size of their team. The successful development and launch of this minimum-viable product led to the company being noticed by Snapchat, which quietly acquired them, bringing them in-house to develop a similar but much more powerful and refined eyewear product for Snapchat. On October 2015, a video leaked online showed an early version of the new glasses, dubbed "Spectacles". Furthermore, news outlets reported employee hirings from companies such as from Microsoft, Nokia and Qualcomm and Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel was seen wearing the prototype in public according to a report by Business Insider in June.
After Snapchat Inc.'s rebrand to Snap Inc. on September 24, 2016, the product was unveiled and announced on the same day. The product was released on November 10, 2016 when the first Snapbot, a proprietary vending machine for the smartglasses, was located near Snap's headquarters in Venice, Los Angeles.
Maps Spectacles (product)
Design
Hardware
The glasses consist of two separate houses within the sides of the frame for the battery and camera. The camera lens has a 115° field of view and records in a circular format that adapts to a smartphone's screen size and orientation. The smartglasses record when the user presses a button on the top left of its frame, up to a maximum of 10 seconds, and syncs with its designated smartphone via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The camera also houses a ring of LED lights that indicate the battery level, when the camera is recording, etc. The pair of glasses charge in a yellow case that has a built-in battery and connects to its proprietary cable. The cable can be attached either to the case or directly to the glasses. According to the manufacturer, the fully charged case will hold enough power to recharge the glasses four times. The lithium-ion batteries in both the case and the glasses draw power from a standard 5 volt USB power supply, and connect via a USB cable which is held in place by small magnets.
Software
The glasses are exclusive to Snap Inc.'s service, Snapchat. They are paired by looking at the user's account Snapcode and pressing the button on the glasses frame, as well as connecting to them via Bluetooth (for iOS devices). The videos taken on the glasses are stored internally within the camera and can be viewed and individually uploaded in the "Memories" section of Snapchat.
Snapbot
A Snapbot is a proprietary pop-up vending machine developed and manufactured by Snap Inc. It is designed for the exclusive distribution of Spectacles and is randomly placed anywhere in the world for the duration of a day, with the exception of Venice, Los Angeles, as well as a previous location in New York City, operating through a pop-up store. The machine has three buttons for the Spectacles' color options: coral, black and teal and has a dispenser in the shape of a semicircle-esque smile. It allows the person to virtually "try on" the glasses using Snapchat's lens technology and the dispenser illuminates when the Spectacles are dispensed.
References
External links
- Official Spectacles website
- Official Snapbot countdown and map
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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