The rise and tumultuous fall of Google Glass was a case study in dealing with a product that was too progressive for its time. Outside of the privacy concerns it generated, one of the more widely appreciated features was its ability to take pictures with a single tap of the finger, leading to more natural and candid shots of friends, family and other important moments.
The Blincam takes this feature and makes it central to what the product does. Designed as a super lightweight wearable that clips onto any pair of glasses, all it takes is a single wink for the Blincam to take a photo. Then, through a Bluetooth connection, it will send those photos to a paired smartphone for storage and sharing. The product boasts 32GB of storage and an eight-hour battery life, so it’ll take many, many winks to take it out of commission. Each Blincam will eventually retail for $199 but is available through its Indiegogo campaign for $179. It’s slated to ship in April 2017 should the campaign raise $30,000 by November 10th, 2016.
Again, those comparisons with Google Glass will inevitably be brought to anyone’s mind. While the Blincam does well in eliminating all the more intrusive qualities of Glass, photo taking is still a touchy subject no matter how harmlessly its presented. Still, the tech world is far beyond that point, possibly making this a great time peddle a product like this — especially considering Snap Inc.’s upcoming Snapchat Spectacles.