Narrative Clip

And now for something completely different ... If you're not into geeky gadget reviews, move along, nothing to see here.

When I learned about the Memoto camera last spring, I was intrigued. I placed my order in May and looked forward to wearing it at some late summer/early fall events.

Start-ups being start-ups, stuff happens. (And doesn't happen.) Production was delayed, and delayed again. Naming difficulties morphed the catchy “Memoto” into the “Narrative Clip.” I was excited when, at long last, the little orange square arrived this month. The battery charge registered at more than 50%. I improvised a way to mount it on my bike and pedaled home from work.

tl;dr More than a few kinks remain in the product and it is poorly suited for capturing photos while in motion.

Fail #1: My first attempt captured nothing. The start page says:

The photos are stored in the built in flash drive until you connect the camera to your computer.

Maybe there is a requirement to initialize the device first, by connecting it to a computer, before it will store photos? The Narrative Uploader reported 0 photos when I connected the camera to my PC, post-ride.

Fail #2: The uploader then insisted that a new firmware version was available, but every attempt to update the firmware failed. The device reported version 0.7.5; the “new” version was 0.7.2.

if device_version < new_version
then update
else exit

Fail #3: The old firmware has since forced itself onto my device, downgrading it to 0.7.2. If the downgrade was intentional, I guess 0.7.5 was released prematurely. If the downgrade was unintentional ... more sloppy coding.

Fully charged and (apparently) initialized, I mounted it to my bike for Sunday's ride. Regrettably, it was pointed at the sky when a memorable interaction transpired, so it didn't capture a photo of The Morning Wacko.

Fail #4: Smartphone app required. Narrative's model is that you will upload all your photos to their cloud (free for the first year). But there is no web interface to interact with your photos; apps are available for Android or Apple devices. When the Android app asked for permission to “read sensitive log data,” I would not press “install.” [Turns out this permission will only work on older versions of Android or rooted devices, but the app simply should not request this.]

Once the device was attached to my PC, the uploader started uploading photos. Without the Android app to view them, this upload would be a waste of bandwidth and space. While it was running, I configured the uploader to save the files only to my local disk. Maybe that confused it? It would ultimately freeze; restarting it did not solve the problem.

I have always had a knack for breaking things.

Fail #5: Lost photos. The last photo saved was taken about an hour before my ride ended. Either the device stopped taking photos or the confused uploader reset the flash storage before it finished extracting photos. We'll never know.

Fail #6: Photos of blackness. The device has no on/off switch. It will only stop taking photos if you place it face down. If you put it in a dark place (e.g., a pocket) it will wake up periodically to check for light. While it is easy enough to delete these, capturing them drains the battery for nought.

Fail #7: Battery life. The claim is 24-30 hours. I was out and about for less than 6 hours, stashing the Clip in a pouch at the end of the ride. When I attached it to my PC, the app reported 17% charge remaining. The charge seems to drop about 13% per day when the device is left face down on my desk.

The photos appear to be sensibly named with a timestamp, in GMT. The rate of photo-taking is unpredictable. My outing lasted ~340 minutes, which should have captured about 680 photos (at the default rate of 2 per minute). Instead, the Clip captured at least 2,000 photos. My hunch is that the “double-touch” (take a photo now) feature is sensitive to vibration on the bike.

Without post-processing in Narrative's cloud, I needed to rotate all my photos locally either 90 or 180 degrees (I tried two different mounting orientations). Most would require straightening, as well.

The photos themselves? Precious few are worth a first, much less a second, look. Five of the best are featured in Scenes from a Commute. I'll share some odd ones tomorrow.