LAS VEGAS — What if your entire life was like a Russian dash cam? Our phones already know where we are and what we’re doing every moment of the day, but the Narrative Clip takes things to the next level.
This tiny little square clips onto your person and takes a 5 megapixel photo every 30 seconds. Apparently wearing such a thing makes you a “lifelogger,” which sounds like a great term to drop on a first date. Then again, once you admit that you’re wearing an always-on camera during a date, it won’t really matter if you call it lifelogging or not. You’re not getting a second shot.
The Clip communicates with a companion iOS app that shows a timeline of the photos you’ve stored in Narrative’s free cloud service. Getting photos onto the cloud itself is a little rudimentary right now, as you have to connect the Clip to your Mac via USB to have them uploaded. From there, the Narrative app assembles a timeline of what it algorithmically determines to be the most interesting photos you’ve taken. (Double tapping the Clip while in use manually takes a photo that’s sure to make it into the timeline.)
There are some bells and whistles that help make the Clip’s $200 price point more bearable, like how it automatically turns off in a dark room or when it’s set face-down on a table. But when you can almost get an iPad mini for the same price, it’s hard to justify the purchase.
The upcoming Clip 2 looks much more interesting with built-in WiFi and Bluetooth for wirelessly beaming pictures to your iPhone. It also has a higher quality 8 megapixel, 90-degree lens. Narrative hasn’t announced a release date for the Clip 2 yet beyond sometime in 2015, which is only a little more information than when we know Apple is shipping its Watch.
Is there real value to being a lifelogger? Probably not. Am I still going to be one for the duration of CES this week? Totally.
Alex Heath is a journalist who works for Tech Insider. He’s the former co-host of The CultCast. He has been quoted by the likes of the BBC, KRON 4 News, and books like “ICONIC: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation.” He lives in Lexington, Kentucky. If you want to pitch a story, share a tip, or just get in touch, additional contact information is available on his personal site. Follow him on Twitter.
3 responses to “Narrative Clip is like a Russian dash cam for your body”
Will there be people throwing themselves in front of cars for insurance money? If so, I’m in.
A LOT can happen in 30 second breaks. Like running from guys with guns. If this was video it’s be awesomer.
Wooie! CES 2015 really bringing the goods with this small camera…that I’ve been using for the past year now and watched for even longer as the Memoto.
Come on, you’re at CES!!!