PREVIEW: Sony Xperia Eye
#MWC 2016, Barcelona: Could this wearable camera with face recognition stop travellers being slaves to their phones?
You see some strange things while strolling around the huge floors of Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress. One is Sony’s Xperia Eye, a clip-on camera that’s designed to be worn around your neck, or clipped on to clothes.
Hands-free photos
The concept is simple; why bother taking those in-the-moment photos when all you get is a badly posed shot? Not to say time wasted on fiddling with a phone or camera. Or just staring at the damn things. So the Xperia Eye just rattles off shots for you, ostensibly of whoever you’ve trained it to recognise. It even detects smiles.
Wearable cameras
Unlike similar, dumber ‘wearable camera’ concepts from the likes of OMG Autographer and Narrative Clip (as well as the new next-gen version) that take pictures every 30 seconds, Sony’s Xperia Eye only snaps when it sees specific people – likely your kid or spouse.
Life-blogging?
Thankfully, it also works on cats and dogs, but that’s not why we like the Xperia Eye. It’s been criticised as a life-blogger, but it will have genuine use while travelling; how many times have you returned from a trip to find that whoever carried the camera/has the best phone camera isn’t in any of your holiday snaps? Put the Xperia Eye on one of you, and it’s problem solved.
Phone-slaves
It could also solve the biggest problem modern travellers have; they stare at their phones CONSTANTLY. Seriously, aside from its short battery life of just a few hours, the Xperia Eye could have legs.