A camera you wear on a lanyard so you can record concerts, lectures, and daily life experiences isn’t exactly a unique idea. We’ve seen a few products try it in the past, usually to floundering results. FrontRow is one of the latest to stake their claim in the space.
Like similar products, the device mounts on a lanyard for wearing around your neck and recording everything you encounter throughout the day. Unlike them, it actually doesn’t look weird. In fact, you’re not likely to get the Google Glass treatment with this thing, since it doesn’t really look like any sort of camera whatsoever. Aside from the lanyard, it also comes with a magnetic clip that you can use to clip it on clothing, set it down on a table (the clip serves as a kickstand), or stick it on the fridge door.
FrontRow has a semi-teardrop shape that measures 2.3 x 2.8 x 0.5 inches (height x width x depth), with the main camera lens sitting near the top. An eight megapixel camera serves as its main shooter, documenting your experiences with a 148-degree field of view. It can shoot 1080p videos at a maximum frame rate of 30 fps, with optical image stabilization ensuring your videos aren’t shaky or jittery at any point. Do note, the battery can only keep it recording for up to two hours max (with a 50-hour standby), so if you plan to use it for extended filming, make sure to have a power bank on hand.
Unlike many wearable cameras, this thing can work independent of its app. That’s because it has a 1.96-inch round touchscreen (640 x 572 resolution) on the opposite side where you can access the menu and choose among the different shooting options. You can also use it to watch what the camera is seeing at any time, so you can keep your phone in your pocket and still have a complete mobile setup for shooting photos and videos. There’s also a five megapixel camera on top of the screen, by the way, in case you want to shoot selfies or film yourself without needing your phone.
FrontRow comes with 32GB of onboard storage, so you can save a good load of media before needing to transfer it. While you can, of course, transfer media to your phone, the device comes with Wi-Fi that you can use to upload media to Dropbox, as well as Facebook, YouTube, and other social networks. It also supports livestreaming on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, so you can decide to livestream on a whim without much setup.
Quite possibly its most intriguing feature is a “story” mode that, when activated, will automatically shoot pictures and short videos on its own all throughout the day. Once you’re back home, you can have it create a brief timelapse using those pictures and videos, essentially creating an automated summary of your day that you can easily share on social media. Don’t worry, it doesn’t just randomly throw on any picture it took. Instead, it uses an algorithm that uses a variety of data to determine good shots, so blurry pictures and empty scenes are likely to get thrown out.
Want one? FrontRow is available now.
- Capture experiences for several hours and create dynamic first person time lapses