Snapchat on the go with the new Snapchat Spectacles

Dec 2, 2016 | Life

Would you wear recording glasses?

There has been a lot of hype surfacing around the new Snapchat Spectacles, a pair of glasses that records 10 second videos while people wear them.

The product stems off of the popular social media app Snapchat which allows users to snap videos, share them with friends and have it disappear within 24 hours.

The idea has onlookers wondering if Snapchat is going for an ‘augmented reality’ root by creating a form of smart glasses similar to Google glasses.

Kristopher Alexander, video games design and programming professor at Humber College, said it is interesting to see Snapchat get involved with this form of virtual reality.

“This could be a silent investment via social media into VR, what uses it will have in the future and what’s going on in the background,” said Alexander.

“In our gaming program we teach our students to use VR as another lense,” Alexander said. “What they do with it is all based off of their own interests.”

So far, the glasses have taken a simpler approach only being able to record video and be connected to a smartphone. It has not yet branched off into augmented reality, smart glasses.

Chris Black, an urban arboriculture student, says to him the glasses seem kind of pointless.

“It looks like it’s more of a fad, why would you need glasses to record videos when you have your phone on you anyways?” said Black.

“The only people who would really need these are those who need to be hands free most of the time,” he said.

Snapchat Spectacles retails for $130 US and buyers will have to pay upwards to $199 US for prescription lenses.

They have been available throughout the month via pop-up dispensers called Snapbots across undisclosed locations in the United States starting in Los Angeles.

There is no news on the Snapbots coming to Canada, so far.