Seriously. Weloop are smart glasses that allow you to live stream – and share – with just the press of a button and a smart phone.
The Weloop hardware itself is a simple pair of glasses with a camera and wifi chip to enable you to show your friends your life as you live it. Or if there’s something going on that’s too good for anyone to miss, now they don’t have to. Weloop pairs with your iPhone or Android to stream live to the Weloop platform, or to save videos directly to your phone. The choice is yours.
It’s also free. No hidden charges, no hidden costs. Now and forever, always 100% free. Founders Ze Xu and Allan Yarmulnik share their vision:
Tell us about the product.
Weloop glasses are smart glasses focused on live streaming and sharing in the now. We want you to instantly be able to live stream your point-of-view with a single button press. The glasses pair via WiFi to your mobile phone and then use your phone’s data connection to livestream. Simultaneously, we are developing a mobile app that enables you to pair with our glasses, and is focused on social media. All live streams will go through our Weloop app, and anyone without the hardware will be able to use our app to enjoy content from the glasses users. They will be able to chat/explore/follow/discover live streams and recorded clips.
How is it different?
Unlike GoPro, handheld cam recorders, or other recording glasses, our product is an extension of your phone and is focused on live streaming. Thus we provide an instantaneous live experience to the glasses users and the app users. Other competitors are hardware only; we are aiming to provide both the hardware and a great user experience with our mobile software.
What market are you attacking and how big is it?
We are targeting the smartglass market, live streaming market, and heavy social media users (Vine/Instagram). Vine has over 40 million users, and Instagram is probably 2-3x that amount. We hope to capture a small percentage of those users and get them excited to share in realtime.
What is the business model?
On the hardware side, we plan make a small amount on each device by selling at a $99 price point. On the software side, we aim to build an awesome realtime sharing platform of live and recorded POV clips that users will want to explore/share/discover. Then we plan to implement a custom ad platform focused on realtime advertising tailored to live streams that users are currently watching/capturing.
What are the milestones that you plan to achieve within six months?
In 6 months, we hope to sell at least 50K pairs of our smartglasses and get at least 100K users onto our mobile platform. We also plan to begin working on other wearable devices.
If you could be put in touch with one investor in the New York community who would it be and why?
We are unsure, but anyone who loves hardware and crazy ideas!
Why did you launch in New York?
We launched in New York because both co-founders are from New York City, went to school here, and have lived here for the majority of their lives.
What’s your favorite fall destination in NYC?
Ze likes New York Bike path 9 just outside of the George Washington Bridge. It connects New York City to Canada, where another bike path picks up and links it to Montreal. In fall, he sometimes bikes to Bear Mountains for the October Festival there, and then takes the train back.
Allan likes the Brooklyn Bridge Park and the promenade. Best views of Manhattan anywhere in NYC.
