Hands-On With The Swivl Motion-Tracking Camera Dock

John Biggs

Biggs is the East Coast Editor of TechCrunch. Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here and G+ him here. Email him directly at... → Learn More

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011

We saw an early version of Swivl a month or so ago and the $159 device is now ready to ship. It’s basically a camera dock with a twist. Instead of holding your camera still, the Swivl will follow you around the room, tracking you as you move around on stage or in front of an audience. Why is it good? Well, it keeps the camera on you at all times and, more important, you can control the swivel speed and tilt using a small hand-held remote, thereby turning you into a one-man (or one-woman) film crew.

Swivl’s utility, while limited to a few specific use cases, is quite impressive. It can, for example, record on-stage presentations with ease, following you from one side of the stage to the other with aplomb. It can also grab tracking shots at multiple speeds, from slow to lightning fast.

The kit is shipping soon and is available for pre-order now. They are working on a number of improvements including a computer controlled system that will allow you to program motions into the Swivl, allowing for clever pans and tilts.

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Company: Swivl
Website: swivl.com
Launch Date: 2009
Funding: $500k

We believe in the power of video to improve education and learning. And we believe the digital revolution should be focused on instructors. We make hardware with connected apps and services for instructors to create media rich video from anywhere with a mobile device.

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