Snapchat admits it made the 'wrong decision' on its Spectacles

Back in 2016, Snapchat Spectacles were released to allow you to film your life from your eyes and upload it directly to the disappearing photo app, but the latest investor information from the company confirms it didn't deem the wearables a success.

We previously heard the company had sold 150,000 pairs of Snapchat Spectacles, which at the time CEO Evan Speigel said had exceeded the company's expectations, but that's no longer the case.

In a statement, Spiegel said, "We were very excited about Spectacles and by the initial reception and because we were so excited I guess we made the wrong decision and we were balancing the trade off with unit economics of course that come with hardware, but ultimately we made the wrong decision based on the early traction and ordered a lot of long lead time parts and ultimately weren't able to sell as many Spectacles as we thought we'd be able to based on the early adoption".

Snap - the company behind Snapchat - has posted $207 million revenue in Q3 2017, which means a loss of nearly $40 million for the company.

Big changes at Snap

Initially the glasses were only made available from vending machines in major cities, but you can now buy the glasses easily online too. It's uncertain whether Snap plans to drop the price to try and up the adoption of the wearable glasses.

It's a big negative for Snapchat's first foray into the world of wearables, but the statement didn't share any information on whether the company will be trying again with a second generation of Snapchat Specs.

The Snapchat app is also set to undergo a major redesign on Android and iOS too, which Snap hopes will encourage more new users to be able to use the platform easily.

Speigel said, "There is a strong likelihood that the redesign of our application will be disruptive to our business in the short term, and we don’t yet know how the behavior of our community will change when they begin to use our updated application.

"We’re willing to take that risk for what we believe are substantial longterm benefits to our business."

There's no clear timescale on when Snapchat will be pushing the update to the app, but in the meantime we have a gallery of TechRadar's Senior Editor Matt Swider wearing Snapchat Spectacles for you to admire.