Hello and welcome to the show!
My name is Alex and this is TechFlow!
A very, very, very rare opportunity for us today - let's check out the brand new Snapchat spectacles!
Let's do this!
Right, so pretty much everyone and their dog has heard about the Snapchat spectacles and,
if you haven't, here they are.
So, these are the Snapchat spectacles - pretty much, they're a plastic pair of glasses with
a little bit of tint in them so they block out the sun.
Obviously, they're glasses - they have a simple button on the top of them, they have a camera
in this side, a light in this side, WiFi and Bluetooth functionality in the side portions
and that is pretty much the Snapchat spectacles.
Let's start from the beginning.
So, starting from the beginning - now, you can't just go out and buy these things if
you want them.
I know that they're really cool and everybody wants them - everyone would have them if they
could - but you can't just go out and buy them.
Snapchat have been dropping off vending machines in pretty famous locations.
Now, there's only been about five or fix drops so far of this vending machine and each of
the vending machines only has about 200 pairs of Snapchat spectacles in them.
It's been dropped in places like Las Vegas, in the mountains and it's been dropped in
places like New York City.
Now, if you're lucky enough for one of these vending machines to land in your location
or near to where you are and you go over to it and pick some up, you're going to be greeted
by some fairly simplistic packaging.
So the case, or carrying case, for the Snapchat spectacles is more than just a protective
case.
Now, it's really nice, it's yellow, it has these speckled dots all over it - it looks
really flash with a little spectacles logo on the back as a little flap.
On the side of this case, as I've said, it's not just a case, it has a button.
And upon clicking this button, it will illuminate four lights.
This is actually the charge that the case is holding.
Yes, you can charge the case up.
Now, you charge the case up with this included, braided, proprietary, magnetic charging cable.
The case has a battery in it - why does the case have a battery in it?
To put it simply, the battery in the Snapchat spectacles isn't all that good so you're meant
to take the case out with you to obviously protect the glasses but when you're not using
the glasses, you put the glasses in the case and the case then charges the glasses so when
you take them out, they've got a full battery.
Pretty cool idea!
Now, the glasses sit in the case via a magnet system and then there's two little metal prongs
which obviously transfer over the charge from the case to the glasses and you can see, on
the glasses, the charge of the actual glasses via the simple ring when it's placed in its
dock, in the case.
And that is pretty much it for the packaging - that is pretty much it for the case of the
Snapchat spectacles - it's pretty simple and really cool - feels premium.
Now the Snapchat glasses themselves feel like a fairly average pair of glasses - they're
not Ray-Ban standard but they get the job done - they block out the sunlight and, to
be fair, obviously this is personal preference, but they do look pretty cool.
Like, you see someone with these on and you think - "He's not messing about."
You know, they don't look stupid - this is Snapchat we're talking about.
The little ghost is their icon.
The glasses look pretty cool.
So, what's the point in Snapchat spectacles?
Do you wear them to look good?
Are they a fashion statement?
No, they're not a fashion statement at all.
What are they for?
Actually, wait, no, they probably are going to be a fashion statement very soon - I'll
take that back.
So, pretty much, these Snapchat spectacles have a simple button on the top - one button
operation.
Now, you pair these things with your Snapchat app - it's really very simple to do - you
press the button on the spectacles and your phone will then display a code.
You just look at your phone and the Snapchat glasses read the code and then pair with your
phone - fairly simple stuff.
You press this button on the top of the Snapchat spectacles - single button operation.
A little light will then start to rotate on the front left side of the spectacles, on
the same side as the button and when this light is rotating, it's actually an indication
of how long you have left to record - yes, it's the usual Snapchat 10 seconds.
The actual lens of the camera is on the opposite side to the light that rings around on the
right hand side where the camera is.
Back on the left hand side, on the inside of the glasses, there's actually a light that
illuminates when you're recording and flashes when there's only two seconds remaining to
the Snapchat.
Once, you've done this, the Snapchat glasses then go back into standby mode whilst they
Bluetooth over the video which you've just recorded to your phone.
You'll then get a notification on your phone saying "Spectacle import complete," you click
on the "memories" app on your phone, go over to the "specs" pane and, pretty much in here,
you can click through a story of your entire day that you've recorded on your spectacles.
From here, you can swipe up, choose individual 10 second segments, you can add text to them,
draw on them - do anything you want to, like you could to a normal Snapchat video.
Then, from there, you can go ahead and post them to your story or send it to your friends.
I may as well just walk off now because that is the Snapchat spectacles all done.
That is it - that's what they are and that's all they do.
No, there's actually a little bit more to it than that.
You can actually click on "Get HD" and it will then turn the built-in WiFi on, on the spectacles.
Navigate over to the WiFi on your phone, connect to the spectacles' WiFi, go back to the Snapchat
app and you can actually transfer a HD version of the Snapchat spectacles' quality.
Now, here is a demo live of me recording a TechFlow video right now and this is the quality
of the Snapchat spectacles - as you can see, you've got this rotating round - as you can
see, it's like a square with a circle video thing.
The reason it's a square is so that you can actually rotate your phone and view the spectacle
story, like, end rotation.
You can do it landscape, portrait, upside-down - whatever you want.
So yeah, that's the Snapchat spectacles - one thing to note is that when you send it to
your friends it doesn't actually come through like a normal 10 second Snapchat and then
just disappear - it sends it through in the messages pane so that they can keep replaying it.
But on your story, it does just look like a normal Snapchat story.
I mean, yeah - they're cool.
A bit gimmicky but they're cool.
And I like them and I think that, soon, there'll be a lot of people wearing them - probably
the younger kids - but still, there will be a lot of these on Christmas lists.
My name's been Alex, this has been TechFlow, this has been the Snapchat spectacles and
we'll catch you in the next one!