FrontRow: A Camera Necklace That Livestreams And Edits Video
What you wear around your neck can say a lot about you. Maybe it’s a locket with a loved one’s photo inside, or a diamond from your significant other. Or maybe it’s a livestream-enabled necklace with an LCD screen.
Ubiquiti Labs has released a wearable camera in the form of a necklace dubbed FrontRow that fits around your neck and resembles a pendant. The necklace totes a two inch circular touchscreen and actually has two cameras, one on the back that uses an eight megapixel sensor and one on the front that is five megapixels. FrontRow is also capable of shooting 1080p HD and only weighs 55 grams.
The camera-jewelry can also livestream for up to two hours, and this may be the selling point for any potential buyer. It sits on your neck and the better quality rear camera will face out, allowing you to use the main screen’s interface if need be. You can have quick access to the menu to snap a photo very quickly this way too. A connector at the top of the device allows attachments, such as a dash cam mount.
FrontRow retails for $399 and compared to a lot of smartphones totes some pretty good specs. Though one has to wonder, if you’re not constantly streaming, why purchase this? Sure, it may help shave a second off your phone-in-pocket to phone-in-hand draw time, but FrontRow could face the Google Glass dilemma of simply costing too much and looking too odd to use on a daily basis.
The device runs Android and comes with sleek control and menu access. There is a possibility that FrontRow will add more Android app capability in the future (it only has Spotify and Dropbox now), but for now streaming and content capturing are the most important. There is also a story mode, where FrontRow gathers photos and videos for up to 12 hours then edits them into a montage of sorts.
A big hope for Ubiquiti is that FrontRow will help users stop from bringing their phones out of their pockets, and maybe even out of their homes. You can head to Lollapalooza and leave your phone at home if you felt at risk losing it, as FrontRow will shoot videos and photos then edit it all together at the end.
Another big market for FrontRow could be streamers. In real life (IRL) streams have become massive on YouTube and Twitch, with some streamers gaining up to 30,000 simultaneous viewers. Those massive IRL streamers are always forced to bring along a companion or constantly hold their phone for hours at a time, so FrontRow could perhaps alleviate that.
A video and photo enabled necklace does have a small market, but it could also have a loyal one as those who want to create content but also remain handsfree will only grow as younger generations become introduced to livestreaming and vlogging.
