Spectacles record video in what format?

Spectacles record video in a circular video format.

That distinctive format was one of the defining ideas behind Snap’s first-generation Spectacles. Their camera captured a round image intended to be viewed naturally in any orientation, rather than locking the recording into the traditional horizontal or vertical rectangle. When played on a phone, the video could adjust as the viewer rotated the device.

The design matched Snapchat’s mobile-first approach: Spectacles were meant to capture what the wearer was seeing, while the circular frame gave the footage a recognizable visual identity. This is why “circular” is the canonical answer, even though later software changed how users could export or display the recordings.

A common mix-up is to answer “vertical,” because Snapchat popularized vertically oriented mobile video. However, the original Spectacles recording format was circular. In June 2018, Snap added export options that allowed videos to be saved in square or widescreen formats, so later exported files need not remain circular.