> (Spiegel argues that rectangles are an unnecessary vestige of printing photos on sheets of paper.)
It's also the shape of nearly all screens in the world. Perhaps I'm not visionary enough, but I don't foresee a circular computer or phone screen really improving the current situation...
It's because it leaked out on YouTube earlier today. Probably best to get out in front of the story before everyone starts comparing it to Google Glass.
I think this is significantly better than what Google did with Google Glass.
It's better because it focuses on the one thing that is really easy to do well. It does not try to do everything at once. It doesn't try to give you apps in your glasses and everything under the sun. This is the right approach to products. Do one thing but do that well.
Before you criticize me think back to the original iPhone, it didn't start with an App Store and everything under the sun like the iwatch did. And yet the iPhone is an icon and the watch is no big deal.
Of course, Glass took significant heat over the fact that it had a camera that you can record people without them knowing (except that it was quite obvious when Glass was 'on'). This thing appeals to have two cameras, and given that it just does video recording, it might be able to be on significantly longer.
I wonder if it has any privacy safeguards, like a red led indicating recording in progress?
I think the privacy safeguard here is that they're nothing but a camera, so if you're interacting with somebody who's wearing them you can assume you're being filmed.
Glass's problem was that it was a device that you were supposed to wear all the time, and a camera.
I would think that's a software limit not a hardware limit. I'm sure once these are out somebody will either jailbreak them or they'll come with no security to begin with.
It also doesn't look nearly as dorky as Google Glass did. Google Glass had the problem where it was trying to be an all-purpose life-enhancing thing that people would wear all the time, so it was trying to be both invisible and distinctive. This doesn't need to pretend to be something that you can forget you're wearing or something that you can pair with any type of outfit -- it has a strong sense of style, and it's easier to work cameras into a design that is loud than a design that is quiet.
I obviously don't agree with you based on my previous comment but I could be wrong. I will say this though that we all vastly underestimate what people want to do and share with each other. This is the company that spawned the self deleting video. I thought that was the dumbest idea ever. My point is privacy is something they thought of and this isn't as dumb as it looks.
This product could evolve to become more than meets the eye. No pun intended.
It's impossible for attractive, socially connected, young people to be creepy.
So, it's pretty brilliant for Snapchat to be making this sort of thing. Probably the devices to hit the market will be given to a very carefully curated set of people, and ubiquitous surveillance by camera-glasses will become fashionable.
Based on the number of vlogs I see on YouTube shot with DSLRs, I don't think many people care about being filmed.
I probably show up in hundreds of videos from bike commuting over the Brooklyn Bridge. It doesn't matter. I'm guessing 99.99% of the videos go unwatched anyway.
I don't know much about vlogging, but I assume that the controversy would increase views/shares/revenue, and as a result, you'd want to keep the controversial segments in.
Probably not, but that doesn't help the CEO's case on whether he has a handle on what the young'ins (I suppose you'd call them) think is creepy or not.
Maybe it is, but I don't think it's clear at this point. People certainly aren't going to wear this all the time, but I could definitely see it getting worn for many specific occasions. I see the niche it as something closer to a GoPro for things that aren't extreme sports. I already get random snapchats from friends and coworkers in their early to mid 20s who are dancing at a club, doing whatever it is people do at music festivals, running around in the park, or whatever. It's awkward to pull out a phone and start taking video when you're in a club, but people do it anyway because these are social experiences that people want to document and want to share with their friends. If there is a hands free, less annoying way to do that without looking like a dweeb, I could totally see a large demographic doing it. These aren't the types of events where people are creeped out by there randomly being cameras -- clubs often have semi-official photographers who will go around taking pictures anywyay. I think most people in their early twenties (or younger) are generally very used to cameras being present in these types of situations.
>It's awkward to pull out a phone and start taking video when you're in a club
From my perspective, that's a feature not a problem. It's obvious what you're doing, and of you try to photograph something really inappropriate, I can always slap the phone out of your hand. With snapchat (or google glass) style specs, I essentially need to attack your face to stop you filming, a far more aggressive action. I'd love to be able to bank on people knowing when not to film, but theres always one shitbag at every emergancy callout trying to get a really gnarly shot of someone elses broken arm so they can get dank internet points from their friends.
Agree to an extent. Personally, being aware that this only records for 10 seconds and requires a tap to activate, I can feel pretty confident nothing is recording.
Then again, even if I know someone is pointing an empty gun at me, I'm still of the mindset "don't point that at me!"
Comments like this always remind me of when camera phones were controversial and had to make a loud clicking noise when they took pictures so everyone knew it was happening. Fast forward 10-15 years and do you really know whether that person using their phone across from you on the bus isn't recording you?
Uh, yep? If you're using your phone for reading or some such, it is perhaps at a 45 degree angle to the horizontal, or even less. If you're sneaking a creep shot, the angle is much greater. You can always tell when someone is clicking a picture.
Not only that, but phones know where you are and start making noise! I was in Tokyo and saw a cute father and baby and wanted to take a photo on the train, but the phone made a loud "click!" even in silent mode, and I looked like a perv.
At least the Japanese were too polite to say anything.
Sorry, I have to disagree with you here. Google Glass never achieved mass adoption amongst consumers due to the simple fact that they weren't fashionable, imo. Excluding SV, many people saw them as ugly and creepy.
Really? Pretty sure we walk in and out of several hundred (thousand?) camera FOVs every day. Google Glass didn't succeed because you looked like a total dork wearing it. These are a bit silly, but they also acknowledge that they're a bit silly. Google was just classically out of touch, as always.
Teenagers right now have a different attitude about how their camera interacts with the world, by virtue of having been raised in a perpetually-filmable world. For a teenager, everyone they know has had a camera with them pretty much as long as they can remember. They've already got a camera pointed at them all the time. It only takes a few seconds to start filming something with your phone.
People who are 30 are going to be weirded out by this. People who are 18 are not. They already have the assumption that anything they do in public might be filmed and shared on social media. And they want to be able to quickly film anything they're doing in public and put it on social media.
These glasses are going to be a huge hit thanks to their style. The main userbase of snapchat are product-hungy 12-25 year olds without much conviction; they'll jump at the chance to get a product that looks cool and represents their favourite timesink. I am very impressed with this move because it gives Snapchat a supplement to ad-based revenue. I hope this makes them a lot of money.
The above three comments to me summerise what has qualified as American Innovation for the last 15-20 years.
When you are surrounded by the superficial, building things for the superficial what else can you produce other than the superficial. It is sad as hell to watch. It isn't ironic to me that Trump is going to be leading this bunch of innovators soon.
An alternative way of thinking about this is that we're fortunate that our needs are so well provided for that we can focus on entertainment and life enrichment.
A camera at eye level is extremely useful for many reasons, snapchat is just one, excellent use case. In my own life, I have a use for that specific tool, and am glad it exists - Google Glass was never widely released. And the price is great - at $129 this seems amazingly affordable.
That's a good point, but "better" is a subjective word. If an individual is capable of enjoying life while using cocaine, without regrets that outweigh their experience, then cocaine has enriched their life. Drugs are always a mixed bag, and the bad generally outweighs the good, in my opinion. Others may feel differently though, so I don't want to deprive them of their definition of life enrichment. Enrichment is not enlightenment: If anyone claims these glasses will make a person's life more enlightened, I would then be skeptical. Enriched though, I can accept. Let's first imagine some of the less valuable things people may be doing with their time, specifically in the targeted age range.
>An alternative way of thinking about this is that we're fortunate that our needs are so well provided for that we can focus on entertainment and life enrichment.
It's a nice way of thinking of it and hopefully it's true one day, but unless "our" means the typical HN reader, I don't think we're there yet. Consider that in the US in 2015, 43.1 million people were living in poverty (13.5% poverty rate) [1], and income inequality continues to rise [2].
Don't assume all HN users are narcissists and politically uninterested. I for one have very personal needs that are directly connected to what is going on politically and socially in the world.
I'm not - I'm just saying that, generally speaking, most of our 'needs' (the important stuff like food, water, shelter) have been met. Everything else, mostly all that's discussed on this site, is unimportant & frivolous 'wants'.
I'm not saying this as a criticism, just explaining the comment thread.
The other part of my comment I didn't write because I thought it would basically be evident without spelling it out: problems like poverty and income inequality aren't solved by tech innovators.
The actual problems that do exist in the U.S and the rest of the developing world are social problems. No amount of big disruptive thinking (by tech folk) is going to solve them.
If you look at SV's attempt to solve medical problems, you start to see where regulation and oversight are necessary for the difficult problems. Then you see why large governments, large companies, and exceptionally smart people with the backing of those organizations are the ones who need to solve the problem.
On top of all that, there's so often no actual intent to solve those problems. Poverty in the US is a big problem because the people who are capable of solving it just don't care enough to. In the case of government, voters are too self interested in the short term to push for it - how many times do you see complaints about hard earned tax dollars being used for poor people?
Even when the tech people do try to solve a social problem because the public has decided to care about it, attempts are misled and ineffective. If you look at the problem of diversity, companies are tryin to solve their problems at demand side. Big companies compete for female engineers to boost their numbers and smaller companies can't match their offers. This looks good on Apple's diversity report, but the problem is disguised, not fixed. Actual solutions, like encouraging women to become interested in STEM when they're young are few and far between.
So yes, I'd like tech innovators to focus on solving non-problems with life enriching innovations (slack, twitch, twitter, facebook, steam, VR, AR, bluetooth audio, etc) then waste time on misguided attempts that are way out of range for them.
I don't understand. None of the above commenters mentioned anything about innovation; they just said the Spectacles looks like it'll be a successful product. Appreciating successful capitalism is half of what this forum is about.
A few of the more significant American innovations in the last 15-20 years:
-CRISPR, gene editing
-iTunes, iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc.
-re-usable space rockets (Spacex and Blue Origin)
-IBM's Watson and Deep Blue, Google's AlphaGo
-LIGO's detection of gravitational waves
-MIT's improvements in lithium ion technology
-NASA's exploratory discoveries on Mars, Mercury, Pluto, Saturn, etc.
-Google
-Wikipedia
-Facebook
-Tesla
-Uber
Actually AlphaGo is British. DeepMind was well ahead on that road when Google bought it. All the rest is American AFAIK even if other countries have similar technologies and successes for space exploration and detection of gravitational waves. If you go back more than 20 years, space exploration was USA vs USSR with an early Soviet advantage.
Also, Elon Musk came from South Africa and did not become a US citizen until 2002.. I don't know that that makes anything that Tesla or SpaceX have invented to be not completely American, but if he is considered the driving force, then .. there could be a doubt
Hey, immigration is great! Steve Jobs was also the son of an immigrant..
How does Uber always make these lists? It's a taxi app. You can hold it up as a well-done business, but you can't call it a technological breakthrough.
I do think it will be a lot more successful than most here think.
First off, Snapchat (Snap?) isn't Google - their brands are completely different at least among the target audience. Glasses of some sort are inevitably going to be a fashion accessory with extra functionality, and Google is just too uncool. They are the company that wants to knows everything - every interaction refreshes that impression, from Street View vans to Search.
Second, it's sold as a camera on your face, instead of a computer on your face that can do things like recording a video. Even if it's the same hardware, this does make a difference. Everyone understands pseudo-mechanical functions like "press a button to take a 10 second video". Unless the wearer is mashing a button by their face, you can assume it's off. Computers and phones? One might as well assume it's recording video if the operator has the camera pointed at you. The average HNer has a good mental model of how a computer works, but the average person sees it as a magic-infused black box.
The price point looks reasonable, I assume the goal here is strong sales for the holidays. Would expect some celebrities or whoever to be spotted wearing these in the next few months.
I'm truly curious, why would you hope it makes them a lot of money? couldn't care less about the fact if a company makes money with a new product. It's not a company that has a shot at world peace or curing all diseases, so why care?
It is important that tech growth continues for a long time. I am very concerned that ad-based revenue will not sustain forever. We need more physical goods and more faith in technology, as every other industry is stagnant. No generation will ever have it as good as those who thrived in the last half of the 20th century and it upsets me greatly.
Don't buy this do one thing and well for a second.
Using your own example:
Before the iPhone, you had seperate:
GPS
Camera
Flashlight
MP3 Player
and many other things
With the iPhone, you got all of these and a nice compact package that you could carry with you at all times. Thats not to say feature creep can't be a problem, but more that sticking to hard and fast rules like 'do one thing but do that well' is largely an oversimplification of the world to make the world more comprehendible to those that don't want to look at the real nuance of products/markets etc.
Also, in the now famous introductory presentation of the iPhone, Jobs even spoofed the audience that there were 3 products he was about to release, spinning them all into 1 item.
It didn't have GPS and I think no flashlight, but it did have a camera, could play MP3s (and Video) and even supported geotagging for photos (though not GPS based)
I disagree. It's better because the marketing doesn't suggest that it's anything more than a toy. There's no expectation that you're going to reorient your lifestyle around the Spectacles, but it was implied that you would be filming your entire life 24/7 with Google Glass.
As a productivity device it's weak, but as a toy it looks pretty fun and I'm amazed at the sea of people screaming about what a stupid idea it is and how it'll never catch on. If I had disposable income I could certainly see myself buying one and playing with it.
What happened to google glass is textbook: Exec walks into R&D lab and falls in love with alpha stage project, utters the words: we should release this to the public, stat! and failure ensues.
Glass as a AR demonstrator is doing quite well as a beta product for enterprise. Augmedix comes to mind.
Even thought I'm not "inb4" Glass comparisons this really does hit a market that I think is untapped. I used to have a "flipcam". It was before I had a phone with the ability to take HD video and before a GoPro was a choice for me because of cost (I still don't have a GoPro).
The ability to have cheaper, stylish, handsfree video recording of my POV has a lot of potential. How-to videos, the "capturing memories" as noted in the article, even just easily recording benign life experiences (police stops, for instance) seamlessly and without hassle is huge.
I do hope there is a tattletale light or something so that the average user can't surreptitiously record things and otherwise easy privacy controls... and I hope it's not long before someone hacks this or they unlock the product to do more than 10 second clips...
If I were GoPro I'd be nervous.
Edit: Actually a second thought- this would be a lot better than body cams in a lot of situations (or certainly a good companion) because it would capture the officer's line of sight.
Sure. I'm sorry I wasn't clearer. I just think they should be nervous not because they would lose customers but because they could potentially lose the market segment this is going after.
If Spectales were $99 instead of $129 I think they'd be in solid impulse buy territory, too.
I am not in marketing / sales so maybe GoPro likes being at the top and making higher end cameras and it won't matter. As it is today a pair of glasses that only records 10 seconds of video won't be able to compete anyway.
Snapchat has a huge opportunity in its hand which it has limited to take full advantage of: starting a revenue share program with influencers on the platform. Facebook has yet to do it and Snapchat, which is strapped with VC dollars, can attract a lot more influencers to its platform. I think the companies on the Discover are already in some sort of revenue sharing agreement with Snapchat but brining this to the massive number of young influencers unlocks huge opportunities for Snapchat.
If this means I can go to a public performance and no longer have to try to look past the sea of upthrust arms and glare of 1000 brightly lit screens to see what I came to see then it can't come quickly enough!
Particularly since I feel it will inspire the next product which is an IR flood light that renders all digital cameras useless, since there are so many people oblivious to the fact by trying to capture the experience for themselves they're detracting from the experience for everyone else.
Letting people who need a digital memento silently get one without intruding on the experience of those of us just there to enjoy and be in the moment is a great compromise.
Good cameras (well, practically every camera now) come with IR-cutoff filter, so the IR light to "blind" the cameras would be pretty much useless.
And the IR-filter is actually a problem for those of us who like astrophotography and have to resort to modding or (expensive) special editions of cameras.
>Good cameras (well, practically every camera now) come with IR-cutoff filter
Oh well, thanks for telling me that, Dr. Zoidberg. I wonder if flooding some IR would be enough to add enough ghosting or whiteout as to make the video captured undesirable.
I don't understand why all these software companies are in a rush to make hardware. With the lone exception of Apple, all hardware seems to resort in a race to the bottom commoditization resulting in paper thin margins.
Why? You need to seriously question the motives behind such a launch. IMHO:
[1]Snapshot is an online multimedia application.
[2]The infrastructure required to move from online to hardware requires significant investment (beyond the $1.8B they recently raised) - that of which I don't believe Snapchat can fund without a serious re-monetiziation strategy beyond Ads. It is only a matter of time before FB makes the move into Snapchat's market more than they already are.
[3]This is an unproven market. Google tried it and didn't succeed. A better play - let someone else test the market a bit more and then move in with a solid Ad monetization strategy around the Spectacles.
[4]Why Hardware?! Seriously? I believe Evan is overplaying his hands with so much VC capital coming his way.
If Snapchat is able to sell this product to only 5% of their 150M userbase that's 7.5M * $130 = 1B in revenue. Then they diversify their future product line somehow and keep selling to the other 95% of their users. Forget a re-monetization strategy for ads - ads make a product worse and it is refreshing that there may be another way for VC-backed companies to monetize.
The <5% who are mega influencers on one of the most influential social networks on earth, as opposed to the <5% comprised of the dorkiest people on earth (not that I have anything against dorks, seeing as I myself am somewhat dorky).
You couldn't even wear Glass in Silicon Valley, land of graphic tees and dad jeans. I could imagine seeing these anywhere from Santa Monica to NYC or Lake Tahoe to Macchu Pichu.
Quadcopters, 'hover boards' are a good example. Lots of people age 13-30 buying them, and that's people can't save money. Buying stuff they don't need and would not use - only to look cool.
Yeah and you know what userbase that is? Product hungry 15 year olds whose identity is tied to superficial shit just like this. Apple should have taught us something: People do not care about what they're buying, they just care that it's the 'cool' thing.
Devils advocate here. You overlooking quite a few things. Realistically, let's break some things down:
Background: Google Glass
Cost: $1,500 for early adopters (irrelevant)
Cost to Manufacture: ~$100 USD
Sale Price: $299
Margin: ~33% (low)? Probably. Yes!
Yes with economies of scale...blah....blah...blah...
Let's assume (I'll use the 150M, but I don't want to):
A. 5% of their 150M userbase that's 7.5M * $130 = $1B USD
B. 5% of their 150M userbase that's 7.5M * $89 = $668M USD
C. 5% of their 150M userbase that's 7.5M * $50 = $375M USD
Let's play with some more numbers because I think 5% is super generous. Why? Yes, Snapchat's demographic is 18-24 yr olds but as you may know, new users over 35 is growing at 2X. Personally, I am under the impression that this means Snapchat is losing it's appeal with their current demographic.
A. 1% of their 150M userbase that's 1.5M * $130 = $195M USD
B. 2.5% of their 150M userbase that's 3.75M * $89 = $334M USD
C. 3% of their 150M userbase that's 4.5M * $50 = $225M USD
$1B seems a bit off from your calculations. We haven't even factored in COGS, manufacturing costs, etc. Not to mention their margins will be extremely low until they square away manufacturing which could take several years.
> Diversify their future product line...
I highly doubt it is going to happen.
> Forget a remonetization strategy for ads...
I agree! I didn't say it was the best idea, but snapchat will need to go all in or not. They can't put a toe in and decide the market isn't ready or they need to raise more capital - it will send the wrong message to investors.
Again, I am operating under the assumption that Snapchat is trying to become a brand.
You say 'realistically' but you're speculating that they are losing appeal and that they won't try and sell another product.
The only thing to realize is they have a $100+ device that is compelling to their 150M user base. That's a great sign. I think that the manufacturing chain for 'cheap shit electronics toys' is developed enough in 2016 to make good margins.
1.8B...? not sure what you are talking about. In China, the molds for the frame don't cost more than 30kUSD (and thats on the high end). Not sure what the lenses do on the glasses so I'll hold off on an estimate. PCBs and off the shelf components have 0 overhead other than buying in MOQs which is inconsequential for snapchat.
An investment of more than a billion for a wireless camera? Are you kidding? You could probably launch a product like this for $100.000 if you keep it lean.
In terms of "hardware" Spectacles are almost a textbook example of what plenty of people with $0 funding do, tweak/private label a product from china and sell it on Amazon. Look at the range of "camera sunglasses" on Alibaba for starters.
The only difference with these are product design & software, two things that are core businesses for Snapchat. In terms of manufacturing, that custom Snapchat backpack would probably be trickier to get manufactured than this..
The fact that a product with less functionality than a $25 set of camera sunglasses on Alibaba is being compared to Google Glass really shows what a great PR/strategy move this has been for Snapchat.
2015 revenues of $59M. Assuming an above average salary range, 1000 employees cost about $250M. If they were a public company, they'd get slaughtered on the stock markets.
Beg to differ - this might be the spin made popular by the valley's VCs and founders as a collective price gouging strategy, but it never flies in the public market. Ever wondered why the unicorns are hesitant to go IPO - they don't even buy their own spin on valuation, that's why.
Hype and grumbles aside, I believe optimizing the "I want to record what I'm seeing right now" to a tap near your temple is pretty compelling. Fumbling to get my camera out of my pocket, or even just grab from tabletop and swipe-to-cam is often long enough to miss that precious moment with my daughter.
Pictures are only 1ms. Nobody had problems with it. More would make you a journalist and trigger people privacy alarm completely. The snapchat lockin is "bad" in theory, but snapchat is leveraging its market/brand/whatever and to their audience it's a no brainer.
There will be a lot of friction associated with being filmed and recorded all the time, as will probably be the case not with this generation of tools but in maybe 5 years
Just like Google Glass users being called Glassholes, SnapChat glasses will probably be called something like SnapChads, because only white rich guys in pastel shorts and rugby shirts named Chad will use them. The aesthetic just isn't there for wide adoption.
I can't be the only one who thinks this is going to eat GoPro's lunch, am I? Sure the initial version may not be as high quality as a GoPro and the time limit isn't as good but those are easy things to fix and they have a monstrous social network (something GoPro is sorta trying to break into).
That's just a software limitation that could be bypassed if the device gets jailbroken, redirecting the creepiness from the company to a single user (who decided to jailbreak to take longer videos).
If enough people start jailbreaking their Spectacles, Snapchat good could then get rid of this limitation.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 281 ms ] threadIt's also the shape of nearly all screens in the world. Perhaps I'm not visionary enough, but I don't foresee a circular computer or phone screen really improving the current situation...
It doesn't improve the image itself but it improves the physical appearance of the product.
It's better because it focuses on the one thing that is really easy to do well. It does not try to do everything at once. It doesn't try to give you apps in your glasses and everything under the sun. This is the right approach to products. Do one thing but do that well.
Before you criticize me think back to the original iPhone, it didn't start with an App Store and everything under the sun like the iwatch did. And yet the iPhone is an icon and the watch is no big deal.
I wonder if it has any privacy safeguards, like a red led indicating recording in progress?
Glass's problem was that it was a device that you were supposed to wear all the time, and a camera.
People aren't going to wear this, because they don't want to creep out people by having a camera pointed at them all the time.
This was the real problem with Google Glass.
Also, everyone already carries around a camera in their smartphone. They aren't going to add another.
I obviously don't agree with you based on my previous comment but I could be wrong. I will say this though that we all vastly underestimate what people want to do and share with each other. This is the company that spawned the self deleting video. I thought that was the dumbest idea ever. My point is privacy is something they thought of and this isn't as dumb as it looks.
This product could evolve to become more than meets the eye. No pun intended.
So, it's pretty brilliant for Snapchat to be making this sort of thing. Probably the devices to hit the market will be given to a very carefully curated set of people, and ubiquitous surveillance by camera-glasses will become fashionable.
I probably show up in hundreds of videos from bike commuting over the Brooklyn Bridge. It doesn't matter. I'm guessing 99.99% of the videos go unwatched anyway.
That's because they cut the ones who don't want to be filmed out.
> It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter to you. And you know what, that it doesn't matter to you doesn't matter to me, so this gains nothing.
26 is young for me now, even if that 26 yo person has a couple of children that think that their parents are as old as me.
From my perspective, that's a feature not a problem. It's obvious what you're doing, and of you try to photograph something really inappropriate, I can always slap the phone out of your hand. With snapchat (or google glass) style specs, I essentially need to attack your face to stop you filming, a far more aggressive action. I'd love to be able to bank on people knowing when not to film, but theres always one shitbag at every emergancy callout trying to get a really gnarly shot of someone elses broken arm so they can get dank internet points from their friends.
on next years model?
on next years cheap chinese imitation?
Then again, even if I know someone is pointing an empty gun at me, I'm still of the mindset "don't point that at me!"
Nope.
You can bet on this (and most tech products) failing hard.
At least the Japanese were too polite to say anything.
Normal people would hate this.
This only appeals to a certain tiny nerd demographic, the kind that thought Google Glass was originally a good idea.
People who are 30 are going to be weirded out by this. People who are 18 are not. They already have the assumption that anything they do in public might be filmed and shared on social media. And they want to be able to quickly film anything they're doing in public and put it on social media.
When you are surrounded by the superficial, building things for the superficial what else can you produce other than the superficial. It is sad as hell to watch. It isn't ironic to me that Trump is going to be leading this bunch of innovators soon.
A camera at eye level is extremely useful for many reasons, snapchat is just one, excellent use case. In my own life, I have a use for that specific tool, and am glad it exists - Google Glass was never widely released. And the price is great - at $129 this seems amazingly affordable.
I expect it to be a hit.
Is this really what this product does?
It's a nice way of thinking of it and hopefully it's true one day, but unless "our" means the typical HN reader, I don't think we're there yet. Consider that in the US in 2015, 43.1 million people were living in poverty (13.5% poverty rate) [1], and income inequality continues to rise [2].
[1] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2016/demo/p60-25...
[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GINIALLRH
I'm not saying this as a criticism, just explaining the comment thread.
The actual problems that do exist in the U.S and the rest of the developing world are social problems. No amount of big disruptive thinking (by tech folk) is going to solve them.
If you look at SV's attempt to solve medical problems, you start to see where regulation and oversight are necessary for the difficult problems. Then you see why large governments, large companies, and exceptionally smart people with the backing of those organizations are the ones who need to solve the problem.
On top of all that, there's so often no actual intent to solve those problems. Poverty in the US is a big problem because the people who are capable of solving it just don't care enough to. In the case of government, voters are too self interested in the short term to push for it - how many times do you see complaints about hard earned tax dollars being used for poor people?
Even when the tech people do try to solve a social problem because the public has decided to care about it, attempts are misled and ineffective. If you look at the problem of diversity, companies are tryin to solve their problems at demand side. Big companies compete for female engineers to boost their numbers and smaller companies can't match their offers. This looks good on Apple's diversity report, but the problem is disguised, not fixed. Actual solutions, like encouraging women to become interested in STEM when they're young are few and far between.
So yes, I'd like tech innovators to focus on solving non-problems with life enriching innovations (slack, twitch, twitter, facebook, steam, VR, AR, bluetooth audio, etc) then waste time on misguided attempts that are way out of range for them.
Hey, immigration is great! Steve Jobs was also the son of an immigrant..
First off, Snapchat (Snap?) isn't Google - their brands are completely different at least among the target audience. Glasses of some sort are inevitably going to be a fashion accessory with extra functionality, and Google is just too uncool. They are the company that wants to knows everything - every interaction refreshes that impression, from Street View vans to Search.
Second, it's sold as a camera on your face, instead of a computer on your face that can do things like recording a video. Even if it's the same hardware, this does make a difference. Everyone understands pseudo-mechanical functions like "press a button to take a 10 second video". Unless the wearer is mashing a button by their face, you can assume it's off. Computers and phones? One might as well assume it's recording video if the operator has the camera pointed at you. The average HNer has a good mental model of how a computer works, but the average person sees it as a magic-infused black box.
The price point looks reasonable, I assume the goal here is strong sales for the holidays. Would expect some celebrities or whoever to be spotted wearing these in the next few months.
Exactly why comparisons to google glass miss the point. Totally different products and userbases
Which thing is that? Being a camera, or being a pair of sunglasses?
Using your own example:
Before the iPhone, you had seperate: GPS Camera Flashlight MP3 Player and many other things
With the iPhone, you got all of these and a nice compact package that you could carry with you at all times. Thats not to say feature creep can't be a problem, but more that sticking to hard and fast rules like 'do one thing but do that well' is largely an oversimplification of the world to make the world more comprehendible to those that don't want to look at the real nuance of products/markets etc.
As a productivity device it's weak, but as a toy it looks pretty fun and I'm amazed at the sea of people screaming about what a stupid idea it is and how it'll never catch on. If I had disposable income I could certainly see myself buying one and playing with it.
Glass as a AR demonstrator is doing quite well as a beta product for enterprise. Augmedix comes to mind.
The ability to have cheaper, stylish, handsfree video recording of my POV has a lot of potential. How-to videos, the "capturing memories" as noted in the article, even just easily recording benign life experiences (police stops, for instance) seamlessly and without hassle is huge.
I do hope there is a tattletale light or something so that the average user can't surreptitiously record things and otherwise easy privacy controls... and I hope it's not long before someone hacks this or they unlock the product to do more than 10 second clips...
If I were GoPro I'd be nervous.
Edit: Actually a second thought- this would be a lot better than body cams in a lot of situations (or certainly a good companion) because it would capture the officer's line of sight.
These things will go the way of google glass. Cue reports of people being beaten up for wearing them.
And unlike google glasses, the only usecase these things are good for is taking creep shots and uploading them automatically.
Don't think for a second that all the limitations like 10 second recording length won't be patched out by users on day one.
Yeah... no.
I wouldn't skydive with those glasses.
Though "gopro for the rest of us" would be a good tagline.
The rest of your post is pretty spot on.
If Spectales were $99 instead of $129 I think they'd be in solid impulse buy territory, too.
I am not in marketing / sales so maybe GoPro likes being at the top and making higher end cameras and it won't matter. As it is today a pair of glasses that only records 10 seconds of video won't be able to compete anyway.
Particularly since I feel it will inspire the next product which is an IR flood light that renders all digital cameras useless, since there are so many people oblivious to the fact by trying to capture the experience for themselves they're detracting from the experience for everyone else.
Letting people who need a digital memento silently get one without intruding on the experience of those of us just there to enjoy and be in the moment is a great compromise.
And the IR-filter is actually a problem for those of us who like astrophotography and have to resort to modding or (expensive) special editions of cameras.
Oh well, thanks for telling me that, Dr. Zoidberg. I wonder if flooding some IR would be enough to add enough ghosting or whiteout as to make the video captured undesirable.
And why is Apple profitable with hardware? Because the company that makes the hardware also makes the software.
Just like Snap, Inc.
[1]Snapshot is an online multimedia application. [2]The infrastructure required to move from online to hardware requires significant investment (beyond the $1.8B they recently raised) - that of which I don't believe Snapchat can fund without a serious re-monetiziation strategy beyond Ads. It is only a matter of time before FB makes the move into Snapchat's market more than they already are. [3]This is an unproven market. Google tried it and didn't succeed. A better play - let someone else test the market a bit more and then move in with a solid Ad monetization strategy around the Spectacles. [4]Why Hardware?! Seriously? I believe Evan is overplaying his hands with so much VC capital coming his way.
You couldn't even wear Glass in Silicon Valley, land of graphic tees and dad jeans. I could imagine seeing these anywhere from Santa Monica to NYC or Lake Tahoe to Macchu Pichu.
Background: Google Glass
Cost: $1,500 for early adopters (irrelevant) Cost to Manufacture: ~$100 USD Sale Price: $299 Margin: ~33% (low)? Probably. Yes!
Yes with economies of scale...blah....blah...blah...
Let's assume (I'll use the 150M, but I don't want to):
A. 5% of their 150M userbase that's 7.5M * $130 = $1B USD B. 5% of their 150M userbase that's 7.5M * $89 = $668M USD C. 5% of their 150M userbase that's 7.5M * $50 = $375M USD
Let's play with some more numbers because I think 5% is super generous. Why? Yes, Snapchat's demographic is 18-24 yr olds but as you may know, new users over 35 is growing at 2X. Personally, I am under the impression that this means Snapchat is losing it's appeal with their current demographic.
A. 1% of their 150M userbase that's 1.5M * $130 = $195M USD B. 2.5% of their 150M userbase that's 3.75M * $89 = $334M USD C. 3% of their 150M userbase that's 4.5M * $50 = $225M USD
$1B seems a bit off from your calculations. We haven't even factored in COGS, manufacturing costs, etc. Not to mention their margins will be extremely low until they square away manufacturing which could take several years. > Diversify their future product line...
I highly doubt it is going to happen.
> Forget a remonetization strategy for ads...
I agree! I didn't say it was the best idea, but snapchat will need to go all in or not. They can't put a toe in and decide the market isn't ready or they need to raise more capital - it will send the wrong message to investors.
Again, I am operating under the assumption that Snapchat is trying to become a brand.
The only thing to realize is they have a $100+ device that is compelling to their 150M user base. That's a great sign. I think that the manufacturing chain for 'cheap shit electronics toys' is developed enough in 2016 to make good margins.
https://www.amazon.com/Snapchat-Inc/pages/10660293011
In terms of "hardware" Spectacles are almost a textbook example of what plenty of people with $0 funding do, tweak/private label a product from china and sell it on Amazon. Look at the range of "camera sunglasses" on Alibaba for starters.
The only difference with these are product design & software, two things that are core businesses for Snapchat. In terms of manufacturing, that custom Snapchat backpack would probably be trickier to get manufactured than this..
The fact that a product with less functionality than a $25 set of camera sunglasses on Alibaba is being compared to Google Glass really shows what a great PR/strategy move this has been for Snapchat.
[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_Eyewear
What changed?
>The most important principle on HN, though, is to make thoughtful comments. Thoughtful in both senses: civil and substantial.
"Google Glass 2.0" and similar cheap bashing isn't just against the rules, it's boring and petty.
Take it to 4chan, you'll get the attention you're after.
Just like Google Glass users being called Glassholes, SnapChat glasses will probably be called something like SnapChads, because only white rich guys in pastel shorts and rugby shirts named Chad will use them. The aesthetic just isn't there for wide adoption.
While it's less offensive than Google Glasses, this doesn't look like "normal" glasses.
If anything kills GoPro it's something like this.
If enough people start jailbreaking their Spectacles, Snapchat good could then get rid of this limitation.
If anything, the goal of this article is simply to have 3rd parties clone this idea.
The way they framed this product is _so_ refreshing.