Snapchat has launched the second iteration of its wearable product, the Snap Spectacles V2. This is not the official name of the specs, as Snapchat is just calling them the Spectacles. The new Spectacles cost US$ 150, which US$ 20 more than the original Specs. This time around, the company appears to have fixed many of the issues that users had with the original Spectacles.
Unlike the original model, the new Spectacles can also take images along with videos. As is with Snapchat, the videos are recorded for 10 seconds, and users can take continuous videos up to 30 seconds. The glasses are water-resistant at shallow depths, and the company says you can safely dive into a pool with them or splash around in the ocean. The case for the glasses, which also acts as a charger, has also been made splash-proof. The case can charge the glasses up to 4 times on a single charge. This time around, the carrying case is also much smaller.
The carrying case is smaller because Snap has made the Spectacles thinner and lighter. The specs now have a lot of different glass designs and colour options to choose from. For users in the US, there is also support for people who wear polarised glasses. Snap is working with a company called Lensabl to offer prescription and polarised lenses. This will only be applicable when buying the spectacles from Spectacles.com.
Snapchat also claims that the file sharing process between the glasses and your smartphone is 4X faster. The pairing process remains the same, wherein users have to wear the specs and point them at their Snapcode. Once paired, their smartphone then has to join a Wi-Fi network created by the glasses. Once that is done, the file sharing process begins wirelessly.
Compared to the original model, the new Spectacles look much more realistic and closer to regular glasses thanks to the new design and colours. The camera is still visible and should alert bystanders but, the yellow ring around it is gone which helps the lens blend in with the specs a bit more. The Snap Spectacles are on sale in three jewel tones: onyx (black), ruby (red), and sapphire (blue). As of now, these are available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and France. May 3rd onwards, they’ll be available May 3rd in the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Finland, Poland, Spain, Italy, and Ireland.
There have also been reports of Snapchat introducing a dubious feature in its app. Not too long ago, Snapchat went through a complete UI overhaul which, to say the least, did not please its users. Now, it could potentially introduce a feature that might annoy its remaining daily users to a point of no return. Snapchat is reportedly preparing to introduce unskippable advertisements which will only please its stakeholders.
According to a report by Digiday, citing three sources with “direct knowledge” of the company’s plans, the company will soon insert six-second video ads that will run during select Snapchat Shows. These are short-form video programming from major media companies that run on the platform. The tests for the new advertising format will begin on May 15th. As of now, these ads won’t appear in the app’s Discover feed or in between Stories posted by users.
Instering unskippable ads on its platform is a telltale sign of the company’s failing business model. It posted its most successful quarter ever in the Q4 of 2017, and still managed to lose about US$ 350 million. It is clear that things are not going well for Snapchat even after recently going public.
Snapchat was the first was to do what has now become a trend in social media. Personal messages with an exhaustion time limit to adding “stories” in your profile are what made it so famous among teenagers and young adults. However, Facebook, and then Facebook-owned social media platforms Instagram and WhatsApp also adopted that pattern and has been more successful than Snapchat.
Whether this new advertising format will anyway help the company is yet to be seen. It isn’t clear right now how successful Snapchat Shows is and how many people actually watch it for users to be annoyed with unskippable ads.
