OMG Life starts sales of Autographer ‘intelligent wearable camera’

British company OMG Life has announced that its Autographer camera is now on general sale. Billed as the ‘world’s first intelligent, wearable camera’, it uses an array of built-in sensors to take pictures automatically triggered by changes in its environment. It has an ultra-wideangle lens with a 136° view, a 5MP sensor, and 8GB of internal memory for up to 28,000 images. Images can be shared with smartphones using a Bluetooth connection, and assembled into stop-motion movies (currently iOS only, but with Android support coming soon). It’s available from the company’s website for £399, shipping initially to the UK and most European countries – US sales are planned to start in couple of months.

We’ve been trying out an Autographer for the last few days, and will be sharing our first impressions of this unusual device shortly.

Jump to:

• Press Release
• Specifications
• Additional Images

Press Release:

Autographer: The world’s first intelligent wearable camera launches

Custom built and high-tech, the Autographer paves the way for photographic wearable technology

London, UK – 30 July 2013: OMG Life has today launched general sales of Autographer, the world’s first intelligent, wearable camera. Autographer automatically captures images hands-free, allowing people to live in the moment rather than behind a lens, changing the way photographs are taken.

Research  from OMG Life reveals that nearly half (45 per cent) of the UK adult population expects to own wearable technology in the next five years. With one in three people wanting to capture still images of their life, Autographer provides the means to do so hands-free, ensuring that the moment is both experienced and captured.

Autographer is an intelligent automatic camera that can capture thousands of photographs a day through a custom wide-angle lens, enabling users to enjoy experiences without having to pause for photos. Autographer chooses the perfect time to take a picture, using its five on-board sensors to detect changes in light, motion, direction, colour and temperature:

• Colour sensor: Autographer’s ‘eye’, perceiving light and brightness and adjusting the image accordingly
• Temperature: in built thermometer, measuring ambient temperature
• Magnetometer: determines which direction the camera is facing
• PIR: motion detector that uses infrared light to sense moving objects
• Accelerometer: measures how quickly or slowly the Autographer is accelerating

GPS functionality also pinpoints Autographer’s location, so users can see exactly where their photographs were taken.

Autographer comes with easy-to-use desktop software and a smartphone app, allowing people to view and edit photos, helping to construct a digital story of their day. The software and app also allows users to create quick and easy stop-frame videos and GIFs.

With its 136-degree wide-angle lens, Autographer can take an average of up to 2,000 images per day depending on user defined sensitivity settings. It can store up to 28,000 images; meaning up to 12 days of images could be captured before the 8GB storage limit was reached.

Simon Randall, Head of OMG Life, says, “There is growing interest to capture and share precious moments in our everyday lives. Our recent research found that the majority of Brits want to use wearable technologies to create a library of their life (30 per cent) or to aid memory (28 per cent) and Autographer was created with these purposes in mind.

“For the past six months we have undertaken extensive beta testing and sought feedback to ensure that Autographer delivers all it was originally intended to and more. We’ve made valuable improvements to Autographer, including greater control of image capture frequency, improved functionality, the option to take pictures manually and an indicator displaying when images are captured.

“Autographer provides people with a new method of photography, Autography. Autography generates greater memories by capturing images of ‘real life’ – rather than ‘posed life’. People can completely enjoy and experience the moment without having to pause to take photos. This is perfect for live music events, more sentimental moments such as childrens’ first steps and much more. Autographer ensures that the best moments which may have otherwise been missed are completely captured. Over time, these moments gain sentimental value and with Autographer you can ensure you have both the memory and image to hold onto.”

Autographer will be available from July 30 through the Autographer website at http://www.autographer.com for £399.99 for UK and selected European* residents. A wider global release will soon follow. The Autographer app is also available now on iTunes and will soon be available for Android.

Technical specifications

• Glass hybrid wide-angle precision optics; 136^o field of view
• OLED display 
• 8GB internal memory
• Bluetooth
• 5 Megapixels
• Fixed focus
• Weight 58g
• Width 37.4mm (with side buttons); length 90mm (95.5mm with lanyard ring); thickness 22.9mm (with clip and lens)

*Autographer will commence shipping in the following European countries: UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland, Portugal, Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden

Additional images

Comments

Just a matter of time before somebody gets killed by infinite regression…

You come home with thousands of images from the day.
While you’re sorting through these the camera keeps taking photos, of you sorting through photos.
Then you have to sort through these, so the camera keeps taking pictures of you sorting through photos of you sorting through photos… which you then have to sort through.

It will keep some peeps very busy that’s for sure!

It will be a best seller because I’ve noticed that here in the UK half the country who don’t work spend all day watching TV shows of people working so this will fit right in.

“Live music events”? The Autographer is ideal if you like coming home to several hundred pictures of some hairy dude’s back.

I think it is great and will absolutely buy one!

A brilliant 2013 camera well fit in our “modern” society.
The best tool for lazy people who don’t care, nor have time to spend learning photography. Thank you OMG for this automatic drunken party masterpiece pictures makers.
Thanks to its 28K auto crappy trough-all-in pictures capability I guess we will be able to contribute easier to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or whatever to make sure the world keep a piece of our absolutely essential footprint on the web.
Since the world has never had so much active “photographers” thanks to the web I guess we could all say that the best camera in the world is the camera that is with you that’s for sure. I can’t wait to see all trendy “photojournalist” launching this new trade by advertising their amazing auto-skills while on duty on field work. lol !
Since in our day anyone with a camera can pretend being a photographer, I guess my dog will be happy to join DPR soon enough with this around its neck.
OMG !!! (not the company name)

Excellent. Every evening I’ll get to sort through a few hundred photos of me debating which camera has the best dynamic range on the DPR forums. Can’t wait!

A real saving of taxpayers money.
…

Yes, and anyone who doesnt wear such thing will get taxed at a higher rate.

And while we are at it, also my life insurance guys would love to have a video feed, so they can dynamically adjust my risk-premiums.

Fixed focus toy camera for stills only for the price of a real camera ! Really ? 100% fail.

Who needs Big Brother is Watching You? Hey guys, I will watch for you and guess what, I will tell you also alll the place I have been as I go along. That’ll make a lot of NSA guys redundant. Come to think of it – first you do not need any photo journalists any more, next we can get rid of all clandestine observation persons. A real saving of taxpayers money.

Don’t be so arrogant, you are not interesting to anyone.

This is not arrogance but irony. And I like it.

Wow nice 🙂 There just 2 problems
1.The pics are going to be crap- there way to many reasons to think so.
2.Hipsters like retro cameras:)

Is Ed Ruscha still alive? I know he wanted this. I think the plan was to attach a remotely triggered camera with an ultra wide lens to a dog’s collar. But it would probably work with a person as well.

more of the surveillance state

This will give the z-lister celebs the excuse to say, oh I forgot to swtich the autoigrapher off (while posing nude in front of mirrors, having sex, pooing etc..) Ewwww…..

This is not a camera. But what is it?

Definitely a toy for egocentric people who have enough time to sort 2000 pictures a day. Or a brilliant idea to boost hard disk drive sales…

The cameras will be taking pictures of everything else than the wearer – not sure how “egocentric” that will turn out to be…

Personally I do not feel the need to AUTOMATICALLY slice my life 2000 times a day with CRAP SHOTS for the sole purpose of keeping a memory of what I did or where I have been. I prefer to use MY BRAIN and a BETTER CAMERA to choose what, when and how I shoot. But I think that people who intend to use this device to upload pictures on social networks because they believe their “friends” may be interested by the places THEY visit, the world THEY live in, the events THEY attend to, are a bit egocentric IMHO.

I’m not sure why this shouldn’t be looked at the same way as Google Glass.

It’s nothing near a finished product, however it is an interesting approach to photography. I imagine most of the images being captured will be crap. Now, all it needs is an auto-upload to instagram feature (+ preselected filter) and people doesn’t even have to bother pressing a button anymore. Yay!

Give me two!

we definitely need WYSIWYG camera,
what you see is what you get, or
what you see is what you Google Glass.

It needs to have great low light ability … since a lot of the photos people will want are from parties, dinners etc … where light levels are typically low

I still don’t get why you would need this.

If you do exciting things you might want to share, if not then there is nothing to share

As technology progresses we will have such devices that records video and sound 24/7 of our lives. In Russia they use a lot of in car video cameras to prove their point in car accidents already so there are uses apart from just the ego/memory thing. But how do you prove that the camera and you was actually at place A when the police says that the camera might have been at place A but you where at place B?

GPS

“Autographer chooses the perfect time to take a picture, using its five on-board sensors to detect changes in light, motion, direction, colour and temperature:”

The perfect time? Lets face it is a camera for lazy people. They cannot say I “shot” this, but can say the camera shot this while I was walking. Also does it shut itself of when people go to the bathroom? I can see someone walking into the bathroom and the camera thinks this is the “perfect time” to shoot man sitting on a toliet seat.

Some old people would probably say that any photography that is not followed by some serious chemistry is for lazy people. Pah, digital! 🙂

I am apparently do not have enough photos of me sitting on a toilet seat. So I would gladly buy an autographer.

I remember seeing this demonstrated on a trip to Microsoft’s research campus in Cambridge UK several years ago. It has taken a long time to get to market, and doesn’t look any different to the demo unit I saw, though no doubt different inside.

A bit too big. Needs to be almost ‘invisible’ to others.

I’m tempted to get one of these and hang it around one of my kids neck so maybe next vacation there will be a few pictures of me too! <grin>

But seriously . . . if I remember . . . this thing was developed to help people with memory problems remember what they did? If so . . . cool use of tech.

And I could definitely see these things all bling’d up and worn like a necklace. 🙂

Not unless they become like four times smaller.

Too many questions and not enough answers:

Should I remove it when I go to the john?

I should not wear this to work so that my boss still thinks I am a hard worker rather than a sloth who surfs the web, posts on FB, and follows tweets all day?

I should keep this on during adult playtime?

…

OMG!!!

.

the answers are obvious

What is Adult Play time? LOL…

All it needs is a “Dial Me” WiFi, and the security people won’t even have to leave their offices any more.
I’m kidding. Or… well…