You have to give Snap[1] credit for giving hardware another try. Its first attempt, the face-camera called Spectacles[2], fell short of spectacular. From a cultural perspective, the toy-like sunglasses appeared almost entirely on the faces of influencers, early adopters, and people who just got back from Coachella. From a practical perspective, Snap didn’t manage its inventory very well (hardware is hard).
But the company is committed to hardware—in fact, it says it envisions that in a decade or so, its hardware efforts will align with its software efforts in “a way that defines the company[3].” And it’s been working on the second version of Spectacles since it launched the first pair. Which is what I’ve been wearing for the past day and a half: Spectacles, part deux.
Few of the significant changes in the new Spectacles are visible to the eye. They’re buried in the acetate frames, a bunch of fixes so crucial that it makes you wonder why the first Specs weren’t built this way. But there are some aesthetic changes that nudge these glasses a little more towards mainstream. The question is how close to the mainstream these will get, especially when, at $150, they're even pricier than the original pair.
New Vision
If you were familiar with the original Spectacles, the first thing you'll notice about the new pair is that the yellow rings around the lenses are gone. The company made the determination that the LED lights, which still appear when you’re recording, are enough of a heads up to people that you’re capturing something. It’s a big assumption, for sure, but it also makes the glasses a little less toy-like. The temples of the glasses are noticeably thinner. Put...