Swivl

Personal Cameraman

Swivl Personal Cameraman - Hands-Free Control with Wireless Mic for iOS Devices or Pocket Cameras

Swivl removes the challenge of capturing yourself on video and lets you focus on sharing your ideas and life with the world around you. It's compatible with both Apple iOS devices and our beloved Flip cams. And it comes in a portable package you can carry with you anywhere,...More

Under the hood, Swivl is a sensor enabled and motorized base for your mobile video device with a paired marker. You can hold the marker like a remote control or wear it and forget it. The sensor connection allows the base to "follow you" and keeps you in the camera field of view. This technology combination is ideal for capturing video of yourself for work, play, sports and more.

But it's also the basis for much more. We're developing mobile applications to improve the video capture experience and post production, and for deployment of the product in other market uses. The Swivl accessory is the foundation for much more.

In the home

Make your own how-to videos, do FaceTime with family, or just capture time spent with your kids.

For instruction

Easily create video of your lectures, presentations and working sessions for sharing with others.

Features

iOS Digital Microphone

Capture high quality digital audio through a lossless wireless connection to the marker. This enables you to capture the audio you want, even in noisy environments. See our video demo here. Only iOS devices. Not included in Swivl-it.

Automatically Follows You

The base automatically follows the marker and you up to 33 feet (10 meters). It swivel’s 360 degrees horizontally and +10 / -20 degrees vertically when commanded from the Marker. Now you can frame your shot from anywhere.

Tripod Compatible

In addition to iOS devices, it works with any tripod mountable pocket video camera, or point and shoot camera under six ounces. The Swivl also mounts onto most standard tripods through a standard tripod nut.

iOS Controls

This App currently provides basic remote controls of video. But there is much more on the way with our SDK. Swivl can be customized for telepresence, monitoring, panoramics, time lapse and more.

Mounting flexibility

The grip is designed to hold your iOS device in various orientations to suit different uses. This allows you to use it with the front facing camera for Facetime or the rear facing camera for HD video shoots.

In the box

The Swivl and Swivl-it come with a tripod accessory, lanyard, batteries and USB cable. The lanyard is for wearing the marker for best audio performance. The USB cable is for firmware updates and power.

Battery or AC Adapter Operated (with iPhone charging)

The Base operates on two AA batteries and provides you with four hours of action capture. It also can be operated with a separate AC Adapter accessory. The Marker operates on two AAA batteries and provides you with up to 10 hours of operation. With AC Adapter accessory, your iPhone/iPod is charging while you are using Swivl.

iOS Compatibility

Compatible with the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, and iPod Touch (4th Generation). Also iPhone 5, iPad Mini, iPod Touch 5th Gen with Apple Lightning adapter and in landscape mode only. Not compatible with iPhone 3GS or older, iPod (non-camera versions) and iPad.

Gesture Controls

The marker comes with gesture control sensors built-in. Now you can control your Swivl with the sweep or the pointing of your hand. This feature is only available for SDK partners currently.

Android Devices

Product is not enabled to work with Android software at this time. However, our basic following capability will function without any mobile phone software. Our phone holder is compatible with Android phones under 11mm.

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Reviews

Review added on January 07, 2013 by Stephen Svajian

Wife can finally be in videos!

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There are definite use cases for this product. For example, my wife is almost never in videos unless she awkwardly stretches herself so that her arm holds her phone and camera out in front of her and she sneaks a shot with the kids. Pros - It works as advertised. Very minimal lag time, and it keeps you in the middle of the shot. It's also pretty easy to use. Drawbacks - the setup can be a bit of a challenge. Especially at first. Once you figure it out, it's fine, but it should be a little easier to get going. What you should know before buying - Make sure you have a use case. Teachers, parents and people that frequently FaceTime are all good candidates. You should also be patient with the first set up. Take the time to actually set it up. Once you do, it's a breeze.

Christopher Stumph

Was there any way to take still shots with this? Would be great for alleviating bad facebook photos if so...

Stephen Svajian

Not sure. I mostly use this for video.

Review added on March 16, 2013 by Tyler Archer

Great Classroom Tool

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The Swivl was a fantastic product for classroom use. I used this product in my middle school classroom to film lectures and I found that it was extremely easy to use and would recommend it to anyone looking to film presentations. The remote/microphone was a great feature, which helped produce higher quality video. Excellent product.

Review added on May 08, 2013 by Shawn Bercuson

Cool gadget with a few use cases.

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Overall, great product and easy to use. The directions are super-helpful to get you started. I, personally, have two major use cases, one for business and one for personal reasons. I work in technology and often have skype meetings. Swivl gives you the ability to have a meeting without the awkward blank screen moments and allows you to move around a room beyond arms length from your screen on your mobile device, making for a much more professional experience. In my personal life, Swivl is a great tool that allows you to communicate with your loved one(s) from afar while cooking or doing other things around the house. If you are asynchronously sharing videos, the Swivl software makes it easy record videos and upload them to YouTube. The one product flaw that I'd mention is that it can be difficult to open the battery casing on the remote - I felt like it might break (it didn't) when I was trying to open it but ended up skinning my thumb when I finally pried it open. That said, a small flaw in an otherwise terrific product. I would highly recommend this product to people who often use skype or facetime in their business or personal lives.

Stephen Svajian

Great review. Sorry to hear about the thumb-skinning. You get our first purple-heart superhero beta badge!

Review added on May 10, 2013 by Crystal Gibson

Swivl for Vlogging - Two Thumbs WAY Up

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Swivl exceeded my expectations! The way it follows the marker and keeps the shot framed correctly is amazing. The mic has incredible sound quality...even when my dogs were barking! It's perfect for Vlogging. Offering a hands free approach reduced editing time. The stability increased video quality. The sound quality was great since the mic was on my person. It's fab! Overall I was highly impressed as was anyone that would sit still long enough for me to show them Swivl! I can't say enough good about it.

Review added on May 10, 2013 by Heather Miller

Swivel pretty cool

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nice little idea the way it follows you around everywhere you go with tthe sensor, was expecting it to be more compatible with other devices byt the video, ut only thing that really hooks to this is the iphone or ipod nothing else will work with it so you should market this toward only the iphone users with that being the only device you made it usable with, you should have done a usb 2.0 jack on it so you could use your data cable from other devices to be able to sync it with like say the nexus, the ipad mini, other smart phones ect, great idea but poor thought with everyone else making everything so compatable with everything you have to stay up with competitors!

Vladimir Tetelbaum

Thanks Heather. We actually can work with iPad Mini and iPod/iPhone 5 using Lightning Adapter. You are correct on the Android though -- it will not work. We are working on a next generation model which will support Android.