The backlash was against the idea of being surreptitiously recorded. Did anyone actually do that? Probably not. Google glass turned on a little LED indicator light when it was recording.
But again, this doesn’t seem make any sense.
The “backlash” that you are talking about avoiding, is backlash directed at a product that doesn’t exist by definition in how you’ve phrased the problem.
You’re saying, “They made the glasses super obvious so that people wouldn’t lash out against glasses they don’t notice.” If you don’t notice the glasses, you can’t lash out against them.
I totally get that this was cited as a big problem with Google glass, but I think it was largely manufactured by folks who didn’t think it through. Everyone has cell phones with video cameras… you can totally be getting recorded at any moment… and the folks doing it could simply look like they are using their cell phone.
Either way, making these super ugly was not in fact a good decision, because… folks don’t like wearing super ugly sunglasses. I mean, you could have had the thing blare an annoying alarm all the time too, and it’d solve the same issue… but folks don’t like things that play annoying alarms all the time, so it’d be a bad decision.
I don’t think that’s why they failed. But neither of us has access to their market research, shrug.
Oh ya, I think it’s just one of many reasons. The core, I suspect, is that most folks just don’t really need/want to wear a camera on their face. like you said… but I suspect that for anyone who would want to wear a camera on their face, it would likely be better if it wasn’t super big and ugly.
They’re baaaaack, still stupid looking, and more expensive
If you’ve followed the story of Spectacles so far, you know that the first version proved to be a costly misstep for Snap Inc. Although reviewers were generally impressed with their whimsical design, Snap made far more units than the 150,000 or so that it ultimately sold. The company wrote down nearly $40 million in merchandise, and laid off about a dozen people.
Even worse, from the company’s perspective, is that people who bought Spectacles didn’t use them for very long. According to Business Insider, less than half of users continued to use Spectacles a month after buying them. They were presented as the future of communication, but the first iteration of Spectacles felt more like a toy — a relatively cheap novelty that people used a handful of times before stuffing into a drawer.
If Snap can pull it off, hardware could help the company chart a profitable path forward. (It lost $720 million last year.)
It still seems like a solution in search of a problem. Not to mention a solution that doesn’t work in large swathes of the world where it isn’t sunny all the time.
The only people I know using Snapchat pretty much only ever take pictures of themselves… and these don’t lend well to that. I don’t use Snapchat at all, so I’m sure someone is out there trying to record images of stuff like cats, sunsets, full dinner plates, police beatings, and drag racing… but don’t these people already own phones? And if they don’t, how the hell are they going to hear or read about these glasses from their cave?
Snap was founded in a house on Venice Beach, where everyone wears sunglasses year-round.
“Dude, what do you mean there are places with clouds?”
Oh look it’s a nerd with stalker glasses run away!
Google Glass had some problems:
I never understood the “Google glass is creepy” angle.
It’s like, “that guy might be taking a picture of me!”, Somehow unlike every other person everywhere who always has a video camera on them at all times.
I think the thing that made it a problem is that primarily creepy guys bought $1000+ Google Glasses at launch. It wasn’t something that appealed to people who you would really want to take your picture.
They’re $380 and will be liquidated in December.
Snap today announced Spectacles 3, a redesigned version of its augmented reality sunglasses with a sleek new design and an added HD camera to create depth perception. The glasses, which the company has positioned as a limited release, represent Snap’s latest effort to build a new computing platform centered on the face.
What a stupid company.
Reportedly great for producing POV porn.
I take back my prior criticism. People, we need this to succeed.
I wonder who keeps giving these dummies money to create products like this. What VC is thinking that this could be Snap’s big moment?
Is Oculus still popular? I could see them adding cameras to their goggles so you have two devices in one. Not that I would have a use for anything like that.
The new ones already have cameras.
Well Snapcrap went public a little while ago and assume they have $$ from that AND need to “innovate” in order to grow. When your only product is a social media app (whose features have been copied pretty blatantly by Instagram and Facebook) then you need some new and exciting things.