On Friday, Sept. 23, Snapchat announced that it is officially changing its name to Snap Inc. and launched Spectacles, a pair of camera-equipped glasses.
The first publication to present Snapchat's Spectacles has been Business Insider. Not long after, the company officially announced its new product in The Wall Street Journal.
For years, Snapchat has been working on these glasses secretly, dating back to the 2014 acquisition of the Vergence Labs startup. According to sources close to the company, co-founder Bobby Murphy and CEO Evan Spiegel have been closely involved in making the glasses developed by a top-secret, small team called internally Snap Labs.
According to Snap Inc., its Spectacles will work be available "this fall." The product will be available in limited quantities at first and will come in three colors: coral, teal and black.
The glasses are based on a 115-degree-angle lens designed to look closer to how the human eye sees. They will be able to record up to 10 seconds of circular video with just a tap on the phone. With tree taps, Spectacles will record up to 30 seconds of video.
The recorded video will be sent wirelessly to the Memories section of the Snapchat app. According to the company blog, Spectacles will connect to a phone via a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection.
According to Tech Crunch, Spectacles' battery could be recharged from the portable charging case up to four full recharges and when fully charged it should last a day. For now, Spectacles can only record the world around, but future versions could enhance it. Reports announced earlier this month that the company is working on an augmented reality (AR) headset.
According to analysts, the marketing of Spectacles could turn into an enormous opportunity for Snap Inc. However, the future success of the product depends in great measure on the initial perceptions and the early adoption by inspirational figures such as widely respected yet hip celebrities.
