Testing an Autographer, the “world’s first intelligent, wearable” camera
Since wearable technology is widely held to be the next big thing, I was excited to try out a new clip-on camera called Autographer last month. Unlike other wearable cameras (GoPros or the forthcoming Memoto from Sweden) Autographer doesn’t just snap away on a time lapse. It decides when to photograph a scene itself, based on changes to its five sensors. Leave it around your neck, or on your belt, and it records visually interesting moments of your life while you’re actually living it. It might, as a friend sadly speculated, even allow geeky men to hold their girlfriends’ hands while on holiday rather than frantically pointing a camera at everything.
We were loaned the Autographer at work, with a plan to use it at Glastonbury, but as it was rather overshadowed there by a trial of a certain other wearable gizmo, I thought I’d write here about what it’s like to wear a camera all day. It was an unfinished device so this is NOT a review.
My first impression was that Autographer is surprisingly big, and very plasticky. When you step out the house wearing it you feel a bit grubby, a voyeur recording friends and strangers alike. That feeling’s not helped by the resulting neck-level photos, which suggest you’re constantly staring down people’s tops. Dorky and obtrusive as Google Glass looks, they’re onto something putting the lens by your eyeball. Unlike Glass, however, whose notoriety precedes it, nobody really noticed the Autographer. Most people thought it was a pedometer, and once I got used to its presence it really faded into the background. Downside: this is the most losable camera you’ll ever own.
The photos Autographer takes are really fun, but frustrating. The lens is fish-eye, creating a distinctive hipstery effect but also a strong sense of the first person, like tapping directly into memories, capturing angles and moments you’d miss otherwise. But 99% of the pics it decides to take are unusable crap. Your job changes from creator to editor, spooling through thousands of images to pick out good ones. Fortunately the supplied software for doing this is lovely, and there’s something delightfully nostalgic about having to wait to see what you’ve got. It’s also very simple to create stop motion movies or .gifs from the footage.
Just don’t expect image quality to live up to any other £400 camera. Autographer costs around the same as a budget SLR, great compact camera or top-end GoPro, but its 5 megapixel sensor delivers results more akin to an old iPhone. It may have been designed in the UK but it really begs for bright sunshine. The rural Chilterns during our uncharacteristic heatwave came out beautifully, but it can’t handle everyday murky cloud or being shaken when running on Hampstead Heath (stick to a GoPro for first person action). Night or gig photos are impossible. And, sadly, there’s no video.
All of which might be an unfair way to look at a first stab at a new and unique type of device. If we’re going to film our homes 24/7 with webcams like Dropcam, and film our travels from dashboard cameras on our cars, then there’s definitely room for this arty and unpredictable wearable camera too, a sort of lifelogging Lomo.
- High res test-shots in this 500px gallery
- Full gallery of test shots on my Flickr
- I also made a test stop motion video
- And full coverage of my so-called life, as ever, on Flickr.
