No, they are not. It's gonna be another gimmick lifestyle tech product that gets trumped up in the press and then no one cares about. They are glasses that only take ten seconds video and can only post it to snapchat. And they cost $130. Come on.

No WiFi. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

Lol people post this everytime someone critiques a hyped up new bullshit tech product. Guess what, the vast majority of them fail. Spectacles is not the iPod. It's going to flop, I stand by it.

Your analysis that it is a "gimmick", "bullshit", and "hyped up" is over-simplified and, I think, wrong. There's no need to swear or be mean about this. Some people, myself included (I hate hate hate hate the snapchat app, I'm not able to use it and I can't stand the idea of it) think that Snap does understand product and its market, and has incredible visions for the future with an ability to execute. I think that Snap will be a huge success for a long time to come.

Naysaying Snap is fine, but not if your argument is "bullshit hype".

His argument was cost and lack of utility...

Bullshit hype IS an argument in and of itself and if we can't speak plainly how can we speak honestly?

$129 is pretty cheap nowadays, you can get a Google Home for that price.

Snapchat is targeting teens and young adults with this - not exactly people who have $130 lying around

Did not stop Gopro. If you have been to a ski resort in recent years you have probably noticed that at some point, Gopro saturation started to become inversely proportional to riding skill. Where Gopros are sold with the promise of being like those who get really fast and have spectacularly high jumps, Snapchat specs will be sold with the promise of being like those who get really drunk and have spectacularly great parties. That is a very promising market to tap into, but no way that it could ever be a four billion market.

There are important differences between GoPros and Spectacles, though.

GoPros are a convenient, high-quality, expandable memory camera that creates a regular video file as big as the storage space available that you can use however you want.

Spectacles are a convenient, unknown quality camera creating a ten-second video that requires smartphone interaction, is designed to be on your face, and is tied to one specific (albeit popular) platform.

Aside from both being able to take video and being easy enough to carry around, the products and the target markets don't intersect perfectly, so it's hard to predict one's success from the other.

I base my comparison on the observation that both are purpose built for capturing a very specific kind of experience that few have, but many think they should have (but never will).

This is certainly no predictor of absolute success, just an element of understanding the potential market.

But they do all seem to have $500+ phones already. I don't think it's a stretch to assume that they could afford the glasses if they deem it worth it.

I hope not.

I really dislike the asymmetry between the ability to take pictures of anyone in public easily (assuming spectacles or an equivalent comes out), with low chance of detection (unlike cameras/phones, which are harder to disguise) while being unable to as easily wear a mask in public to preserve some semblance of anonymity. Anti-mask laws exist for a variety of reasons, some of which I am fine with (e.g near banks) and some of which I am not (e.g abuse to shut down things like the Occupy movement). I would like to see a similar treatment of devices like this (spectacles, google glass, or whatever other product people work on in this space).

They should be treated on par with hidden cameras and the like. Until legislation takes care of this, I am not happy with the situation.

Snapchat spectacles are specifically designed to transfer the "everybody smile for the camera" effect to the wearer. The absolute opposite of a disguised camera.

Hidden cameras (not terribly well hidden cameras, but hidden nonetheless) are nothing new, the Snapchat innovation is to reverse the camouflage to create completely different usage patterns.

If the Snapchat specs become popular there will actually be a knockoff market for fakes that don't even have a camera, because imitating just the recording status lights will be enough to get the "say cheese" effect.

They are at least trying to avoid the Google Glass fiasco by adding recording indicator lights to the front.

Google Glass was meant to be worn all the time, people were wearing them to the bar and stuff. Spectacles are pretty easy to put in your pocket. For the most part kids will be wearing Spectacles in situations where they would otherwise be walking around with a camera in their hand, ready to shoot stuff.

And I bet we'll be seeing our first Spectacles-based-sex-tape scandal within a year, once someone figures out how to short-circuit the indicator light. ;)