What’s Special about Snap’s Spectacles

Snap’s video-recording sunglasses are out in the wild, and websites are chiming in with reviews. Quirky as always, Snap isn’t selling the spectacles through retail stores or online. The company is relying instead on dropping vending machines full of the toy in random locations like Big Sur, California, and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I got my hands on a pair and have some thoughts about the usual stuff—charging, usability and design—that I will get to below. But my bigger takeaway is that, just as the smartphone reinvented photo sharing, glasses are going to reinvent mobile video. And if they do, they will have a longer lifespan than wearable devices of generations past.