The Apple Watch is one high-end smart device on the market, but its users feel the need of having a camera that would allow them to click pictures, take selfies and record videos. The likely reason the company refrained from endowing it with a camera is that it would affect the battery life, but now, the Israel- and Bay-based startup Glide has come up with a solution.
No need of iPhone to take pictures
Glide has created the CMRA, which is essentially a smartwatch strap that will enable users to click pictures and selfies and record videos. Glide’s CMRA adds a 2-megapixel selfie camera and 8-megapixel watch-front camera.
Glide CEO Ari Roisman told Recode on Tuesday, “The camera is only valuable when it is out and ready to take a photo or video. Our phones live in our pockets.”
An Apple Watch app launched last year was set up as a companion to the iPhone app; ot notifies users of live Glides, lets them watch videos on their wrists and informs them of missed messages. Now the CMRA frees users of the need of using/carrying an iPhone for clicking pictures and recording videos, notes MacRumors.
“The camera is only valuable when it is out and ready to take a photo or video,” says Roisman. “Our phones live in our pockets.”
Apple Watch band comes with several features
The Apple Watch will serve as a viewfinder for the CMRA but will work even when the device will be switched off. Just a tap on the button built into the band is needed for capturing crisp images, and for HD videos, users need to long-press it. The hardware will be able to click hundreds of photos or record a 30-minute video on one charge. The hardware has 8GB of built-in storage.
Switching between the two cameras is easy too, with just a double-tap of the sole button housed on the band. Seamless integration of all the pictures and videos taken with the band is done via Apple’s stock Photos app, thus making it easy to share, store and edit those images and videos, notes MacRumors.
Glide’s band includes several features such as pixel optimization, lens correction, tilt-balancing and noise reduction to enable users to get enhanced shots. There is a video conferencing feature as well that uses Glide’s iPhone and Apple Watch chat app for enabling users to talk in real-time and exchange recorded video messages.
Already up for preorder
Roisman said the company has been working on the CMRA for 18 months and has completed the preproduction units with final components. The company will start accepting preorders for the hardware, which will be priced at $249 when it’s launched, beginning Wednesday. However, it will be available for $199 at preorder and $149 in the early bird offer. Glide is taking preorders months in advance, as the CMRA is expected to launch in Spring 2017.
When asked about taking orders so early, Roisman had a pretty standard answer: “It needs to know how many to build, and the best way to do that is to sell them publicly before the first units roll off the manufacturing lines.”
