Few accessories are more important, for the summer, than a good pair of sunglasses.
But, these shades can do a lot more than just protect your eyes.
These are Snapchat spectacles, and they're packed with a ton of tech to help you capture and share all that summertime fun How do they work?
Let's find out.
I'm Bill Detwiler and this is Cracking Open.
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Snapchat Spectacles are basically a video camera built into a pair of sunglasses.
The camera is mounted above the right lens and the mic is hidden just behind it.
By the left lens, are a pair of LED indicators.
The record, or the snap button and a charging connector is hidden next to the temple hinge.
Our first step in cracking open the spectacles is to remove the temples, or the arms that run alongside your head.
With the temples removed, we broke out our trusty heat gun and loosen the adhesive on the plastic covers that protect the electronics mounted to each side of the frame.
After gently prying off the covers, we got our first look at the tech inside the spectacles.
On the left under the snap button, are the battery.
Charging socketly, LED indicators and snap button contact, on the right of the camera.
Microphone and all the chips that make the spectacles smarter than your average shades.
Now to get a closer look at all this tiny hardware, we first remove the battery.
Now attached to the battery is the charging circuitry and the LED indicator that lets the wearer know when the glasses are recording.
Next to come out, were the snap button contact and the front facing LED indicator.
Now, turning our attention to the other side of the glasses, We detached the cable that connects the electronics on the right side to the battery and the circuits on the left.
Then we removed the miniature circuit boards, the mic, and the camera.
An ambarella a12 wearable camera processor is the brains of these specs.
This system on chip handles video and audio capture and encoding.
And it's integrated arm cortex A9 CPU runs pretty much everything else.
The spectacles have a four gig flash storage chip that holds all your videos untill you transfer them to your phone.
And the Nordic Semiconductor wireless sock provides Bluetooth and wi-fi connectivity.
So what did we learn from cracking open the Snapchat Spectacles?
Well, basically Snapchat took existing wearable camera technology, like that found inside police body cameras, and put it inside an oddly stylish pair of sunglasses While the spectacles only do one thing, record video for Snapchat, they do it surprisingly well, according to most reviews.
So if you use Snapchat you'll probably want a pair of these.
Now, for more information on the Snapchat spectacles check out our full review on CNET and our smart person's guide on sister site Tech Republic.
To see more tear down photos and read my full hardware analysis.
Go to Techrepublic.com/crackingopen.
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