Even with a camera in everyone's pockets it's difficult to capture spontaneous moments. By the time you take out your phone the moment has passed or the picture looks unnatural. LensBricks is aiming to solve this problem with an always-on camera that chooses when to snap images and video.
The Vidalife is an autonomous video camera that sits in your home and starts filming whenever it senses a moment worth capturing.
The colorful gadget is designed to sit on a living room shelf and has a video camera with built-in artificial intelligence that help it sort snippets of video it records and select "interesting moments" to keep.
Co-founder Raji Kannan says the system learns who the people and pets are in a household, and prioritizes interactions between people, or people and pets, and moments of high activity and sound.
The camera records in 1080p, has an automatic zoom feature and a 120-degree field of view, which should allow it to capture busy moments in a family living room. The camera also contains auto zoom as well as night vision, which allows it to work throughout the day.
The real benefit is the camera's ability to select and record then compile together pertinent shots, saving the user the laborious task of editing video, a chore most people never get around to doing.
The problem is how well this AI will actually work. It's likely to record kids and pets running around the room (high motion), but will it pick up on a child's unique smirk or expression, the kind of things that only a human cameraman can pick up on?
Still, it's an interesting idea and only by testing it out will we learn how effective the product will be. The Vidalife is not for sale yet and LensBricks hasn't released any pricing details, but you can register for preorder notification here. If you're in California, you can sign up to receive a free beta unit, otherwise you'll have to settle for looking at the sample videos like the one below.
LensBricks is a startup that graduated from the Highway 1 incubator in San Francisco at the start of June.
