
Soloshot: Automatically film outdoor activities without a camera operator - nazwa
http://shop.soloshot.com/
======
IanDrake
I've had the SoloShot 2 for almost a year now. I use it for surfing, but just
got a small racing dinghy (RS Aero) and will probably use it for that too.

The device paired with the recommended camera works fantastic. If you're using
it to review your technique, I think it's better than a go-pro.

My only complaint is that the arm band isn't really ideal for surfing. Before
I ever used it, I emailed solo shot saying that it would easily fall off and
was assured their user base didn't have a problem. Sure enough it fell off on
a closeout barrel the first time I used it. That's a $150 replacement part.

I've since customized the arm band so that it can't come off. Let me know if
you have any questions about the unit.

~~~
danielweber
Shouldn't the camera let you track exactly where it is so you can find it?

~~~
IanDrake
The transmitter is normally on your arm (above water) to keep a signal with
the base. As soon as it goes underwater the signal is lost.

They asked me if I had a floaty on it. So I asked them which floaty? The one
you didn't include with the product, or the one you don't sell on your
website?

~~~
dredmorbius
Floaties are quite readily available aftermarket. Most boating / marine / rec
stores.

Or on this newfangled thing called "The Internet" via "electronic commerce":
[http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&field-
keywords=key%20float&i...](http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&field-
keywords=key%20float&index=blended)

~~~
IanDrake
I just checked it out! That Internet thing is pretty cool!

However, I saw nothing in your hypertext link that would easily attach to the
armband and not interfere with my stroke.

SoloShot should sell a floaty or provide one of those new-fangled affiliate
links I hear the kids talking about these days to a compatible 3rd party
floaty.

~~~
dredmorbius
Surfing, right, we're not talking marathon swimming or similar?

Having stuff dangle off your arm is a PITA, I'll allow. But some way for
attaching _something_ buoyant to the strap (not sure what it looks like my
apologies), might be possible.

The drink -- she claims many toys....

~~~
IanDrake
Indeed. Ended up putting a button whole in the arm band and putting a button
on my wetsuit.

------
traviswingo
This is badass. As an athlete whos heavily into extreme sports I'd buy one in
a heartbeat.

I think you've got some JavaScript issues going on with your page, though, It
keep jumping to the top of the page when I'm scrolling down.

~~~
monk_e_boy
We kitesurf and use GoPros, often on tripods on the beach. People come up and
take them as soon as we're more than 200m away. It's quite easy for us to spot
them, confront them and get it back. But it happens _all the time_

No. 1 rule - don't leave anything of value on the beach.

~~~
IanDrake
>People come up and take them as soon as we're more than 200m away.

I don't have this problem where I surf, but here's some thoughts I've had
about it...

\- Attach a motion alarm (made for purses and such) that will go off and at
least attract attention if someone moves it.

\- Put a sign on it that says "Do not touch. My buddy is watching this
camera." or "Due to recent theft, I have a HIDDEN camera recording this
camera."

~~~
nadams
I wonder if you could put up a sign that says:

"If you steal this camera you agree to pay a $200 fine" \- just having a sign
is a deterrent but not a strong one.

Though, a better idea is to attach a speaker to it and when someone steals it
blast vulgar sounds through it like "I'M A MOFO THIEF LOOK AT ME HAHA". I
doubt any thief would want attention drawn to what they just did.

I've been wanting to do a social experiment where I leave a laptop out with a
GPS tracker and a note with my information and see what happens. My guess will
be that many people will attempt to steal it.

~~~
TheGRS
This sort of candid camera experiment has been done many times, there are many
who will return the items and some who won't. If you truly don't want your
things stolen then you just need a buddy to watch your stuff.

------
Animats
There was AIMe [1] which was supposed to do much the same thing. But then,
instead of shipping the $299 version they still advertise on their site, they
decided to market a $5000 "professional" version instead.[2]

There's Pixio, which has a kickstarter.[3]

Soloshot is $399 on Amazon, with customer reviews, so it's a shipping
product.[4]

Reviews of Soloshot indicate that it has a minimum range. You have to be at
least 30 feet from the camera before it tracks properly.

[1] [http://www.jebiga.com/aime-automatic-tracking-camera-
mount/](http://www.jebiga.com/aime-automatic-tracking-camera-mount/) [2]
[http://www.jigabot.com/launch/](http://www.jigabot.com/launch/) [3]
[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/world-s-first-indoor-
outd...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/world-s-first-indoor-outdoor-auto-
follow-cam#/story) [4] [http://www.amazon.com/SOLOSHOT2-with-Base-and-
Tag/dp/B00DSGI...](http://www.amazon.com/SOLOSHOT2-with-Base-and-
Tag/dp/B00DSGIS2A)

------
brianstorms
It's very cool, but the demo videos suggest that the tracking isn't ideal yet.
Which susprises me, because we only have what, 50+ years of R&D with tracking
moving targets. As in, if you can figure how how fast the target is moving
across the field of view, you should be able to predict where it is going to
be in the next frame, PLUS, take into account the latency of the Soloshot
motor, and calculate that all together in real-time such that the target stays
as close as possible to the center of the field of view. Right now, based on
the demo videos, it appears that either the CPU is slow, or the Soloshot motor
is slow, or both, with the result being that the target gets ahead of the
Soloshot and gets to the edge of the field of view regularly, making for less
than optimal viewing afterward.

Seems like a totally, well, 99% fixable problem, and given Soloshot's been out
for a while I'm surprised the demos aren't more stellar.

Still, it's impressive and I'm surprised GoPro hasn't acquired the company
already.

~~~
IanDrake
In practice, tracking has never been a problem for me. Have you seen the demos
of it tracking quad copters?

~~~
bitJericho
The skier video on the website is just plain bad. The camera should zoom out
slowly and smoothly, instead it was jerky.

~~~
IanDrake
Yeah, that one is bad. If I had to guess, I'd say that the further away you
are, the more the camera is zoomed in, the more jagged the panning will seem,
as the distance in one degree of arc at 100ft is much less than 1000ft.

I imagine this could have been easily taken out in post production.

------
radiorental
No cameraman? No problem

30 minutes later,

No camera, problem.

~~~
ape4
Needs to be able to fly away when being stolen ;)

~~~
Jemmeh
Andddd we're back to flying drone cameras.

------
jredwards
It seems like you'd still need to solve the problem of convincing anyone to
leave their two thousand dollar DSLR unattended.

------
ggrothendieck
Not the same but there exists a microphone which can be thought of as an audio
version of this:
[https://www.acousticmagic.com/](https://www.acousticmagic.com/) It senses the
direction of the speaker and outputs audio from that direction filtering out
audio from other directions. As different speakers in different locations
speak it changes the direction it uses. It also outputs a location signal that
can be used by software to, for example, have a computer position a camera
toward the current speaker. (I don't have one - this is just based on the
material I have read.)

~~~
apaprocki
You can also get entire rooms wired for this as well. I recently helped design
one of our presentation rooms where the system (with the help of a lot of
array mics) processes who is speaking and if the speaker puts the room into
Q&A mode it will focus on / boost whoever is speaking. The intent was to get
rid of the "could you repeat the question" issue (anyone who has ever been to
a NYTM knows this one :)) or awkward pauses as an entire room waits for
someone with a mic to walk over. It helps make recordings of Q&A much more
natural and fluid.

~~~
DenisM
Did that end up working well when you were done with setup?

~~~
apaprocki
Yes.. it works remarkably well and is tuned so your brain doesn't even notice
the amplification. If, for example, the reverb is jacked up to make the room
sound like a cathedral then your brain immediately knows it is "fake" \-- but
under normal settings unless the system was explained, someone in the room
would not notice what is going on.

------
s_dev
This seems much more
useful:[https://www.lily.camera/](https://www.lily.camera/)

However - I'll wait till the separate approaches are priced accurately before
I form an opinion on which is better.

~~~
simonk
lily only lasts at best 18 minutes.

------
thenomad
This is a fascinating product - I wrote about it a while ago over at
[http://www.strangecompany.org/will-your-next-cameraperson-
be...](http://www.strangecompany.org/will-your-next-cameraperson-be-a-robot-
maybe-yes/)

I'd love to get hold of one to do a practical test, actually... It strikes me
as a much more immediately usable technology than the follow-drones, because
the latter just look like they're _certain_ to run into trees, and that's not
a problem a tripod has.

------
adpd
From the FAQs:

 _Does SOLOSHOT2 work indoors?_

 _Not yet. SOLOSHOT is currently an outdoor only product due to some of the
technologies involved._

Anybody know why this is the case?

~~~
StavrosK
I would theorize that they have GPS in both units, and the tag sends its
position to the base. Along with a compass, you can pretty accurately tell
where the camera is looking, and you can probably gauge the distance between
the tag and camera by the time it takes for the signal to travel to the
camera, but I'm not sure how that's useful.

~~~
arianvanp
Why not use bluetooth low-energy for this stuff? Or would you need to have
three beacons to triangulate?

~~~
cbhl
1) range 2) clock precision (you can't measure time fast enough to actually
measure position using bluetooth)

~~~
tripzilch
> clock precision (you can't measure time fast enough to actually measure
> position using bluetooth)

Interesting, why is that and how fast would that be, then?

Also what's different about triangulating via WiFi APs signals, that bluetooth
doesn't work?

------
pcardoso
I could see this being used as a hands-free iPad stand for FaceTime, so it
always points in the direction of the speaker.

------
vog
From the site:

 _> Range: 10-2,000 ft_

 _> Cameras: Supports up to 5-lbs_

Is this meant to be for the US market only? If not, I'd recommend to provide
internationally recognized units (mostly SI units), such as _m_ and _kg_.

~~~
vog
To those who downvoted this: Do you care to explain? What's wrong with
criticizing overly US-centric business? In the world wide web, being more
international should be good for companies as well as customers.

Did I miss something?

~~~
andrewchambers
I'm from a country which uses Kg and meters. I can read the US units no
problem.

~~~
tripzilch
I like to think I'm pretty good at mental arithmetic. Converting feet (0.3)
and inches (2.5) are easy enough to do with good accuracy, but lbs requires
multiplying the number by 0.45 in your head. Sure I could do that, but it's
hardly what I'd call "read the US units no problem", and definitely not
something to expect of your general customer base.

The other option would be to try and get a mental "feel" for the size of a
foot, 10 foot, what's 5 lbs of water look like, etc. I did something like that
back when we switched from Dutch Guilders to the Euro, cause I knew it was
going to stick around, so keeping a conversion in my head was just holding me
back.

But with US units, nobody's switching, and further, there's no ubiquity in my
IRL day-to-day life of things that are supposed to be exactly 1 lbs, 5 lbs, 1
gallon, 10 foot, etc. to calibrate with. The only time I come into contact
with inches is in the abstract space of the Internet, where they mean nothing
except a quick mental arithmetic puzzle getting in the way of what I actually
want to know.

------
davnicwil
Looks to be an amazing piece of engineering but seriously, what's the usecase?
It looks to be targeted at the amateur market ('shoot like the pros') and I
just don't see the demand or workability in this space.

To pick on a few hinted at on the page:

A game of football: Leaving a camera on a tripod on the sideline while I'm
focused on the game? Not in any park I've ever played in. Taking the stick
from my teammates for being enough of a nerd to set this up?

Skiing: Putting a camera on a tripod, unattended, on the piste? Then get the
lift up to the top so you can ski back down towards the camera? Again, I can't
see this ending well for the poor old camera.

Dirt biking/other extreme sports: because people often do these alone, and so
need an automated cameraman to get any filming done?

EDIT: reading some of these comments my opinion has changed, there are more
compelling use cases for this than I first thought of (like letting the person
who would have done the filming relax and watch the event, whilst still
attending to the camera, that's a great one). This is amazing tech but the
main limiting factor for now is the risk of leaving such expensive equipment
unattended. When the price falls I have no doubt this will be an extremely
widely used tech, as widely used as cameras themselves are now.

~~~
ctdonath
Immediate use: presentations, accurately tracking the speaker without having
to hire someone to keep camera on subject the whole time. Even moreso when
multiple cameras. Just need one A/V control booth person, much cheaper to buy
several of these than hire several cameramen.

Think TED Talks, Apple Keynotes, anything fairly big-budget where chasing the
random motions of the speaker just doesn't look on par with the money going in
& out of the presentation.

~~~
superuser2
Live production is ALL about reliability. A boring lights-up lights-down
corporate show ALWAYS has 2 $100,000 light boards in active/hot standby even
though one $50 DMX controller would do.

We always opt for wired where possible, even if wireless exists. We are
paranoid about secure and safe cable runs. When wireless is necessary, we
transmit on multiple frequencies with smart frequency-hopping algorithms so
that if two of them get interference, the content still comes through on the
third.

We have a visceral distrust of rechargeable batteries. We swap out AAs and
9-volts (only the brands we trust) obsessively. A good sound engineer is made
very uncomfortable by (and thus obsessively monitors) battery-powered devices
in the critical path.

In short: there's no way you're going to get respectable production companies
to trust this thing. One, it flies, Two, it's battery. Three, it's RF. Under
these circumstances, we proceed with EXTREME caution. We'd much rather build
truss to get a camera where it needs to go, run cables to it, mat and tape
them as appropriate. Automation is okay, but there is existing, battle-tested
camera automation and it's not even that widespread yet.

Film production, maybe. A blown take isn't free, but it's pretty cheap. A
flying camera at WWDC hitting battery starvation, motor failure, RF
interference, etc. _is_ the end of the world in that line of work.

~~~
tripzilch
Ok. Just noting that the product discussed here, doesn't actually fly. It's
not a drone.

------
iamthepieman
This is begging for an API or open source firmware. Impressive technology
applied to something with limited practical usefulness.

For starters, I'd like to decouple the tracking system from the tags.

~~~
thenomad
I'd cheerfully pay sticker price for just the tracking system, no tripod
required (assuming I hadn't overspent on media gadgetry already this quarter,
anyway).

~~~
iamthepieman
I would too, but I want to track things I can't put a tag onto. Wildlife, cars
speeding past my house. If I could hook it up to an arduino with infrared
sensors that would be awesome.

------
Dwatson783
I've seen some interesting points in this thread about target users of the
product and the big issue seems to be:

\- Target user group is unlikely to spend this much on the type of equipment
and/or isn't technically inclined enough to leverage it.

At first glance I'd say this is fair, based on traditional markets and camera
use but I'd argue 2 things:

1\. The demand of this type of product is likely to rise. As self broadcasting
goes up, the demand of this type of ingenuity will rise. What Twitch is doing
for gaming, this could help bring along for many other areas of interest.

2\. Through internal development or by going open source, the development of
tracking could be increased to support a number of different objects.
Pucks/Balls in sports in particular could be very interesting to automate the
recording of sporting events.

With these 2 points noted, I can imagine the use of these in a number of
scenarios- for consistency of an argument, I'll take the use case of hockey.

If I'm a minor league hockey team, if I can obtain the proper quality of
cameras at a reasonable enough price to surround my rink, along with the
proper tracking system applied to each player and devices of the game (pucks,
nets), and if I can coordinate this with software to turn on which devices I
follow per camera at any point, I could create a system for broadcasting a top
quality version of my game online without the cost of camera men as well as
the space that may be required for the setup.

Additionally, if I'm the team, I could use this in practice to follow each of
my players setting a camera to each so that I can review their particular
actions and do video review with each - without having to limit what gets
taped for each guy or having multiple camera guys at each practice.

Add this to object recognition software and I could start using the cameras to
collect more about where people are on the ice during games and plays and push
along my ability to analyze what is happening and how I can work on
tactics/strategy to manage it.

Again, a lot of this is relying on additional software/tracking/processes but
I believe as a technology, it's empowering. I'm not sure the current use
case/expected market is ready for this (or at least not in the form it's
likely to have technically) but I believe in a few iterations, we'll see
something that serves a significant market share, especially if the product
roadmap includes abilities and integrations to further its use with other
software and mutiple unit tracking capabilities.

~~~
trdrake
...and if you're the facility, you're renting the film to the team.

Also, from experience an increasing amount of the coaching of youth soccer is
outsourced to coaching companies (like QuickStrike or PlayersEye), and some of
them are starting to include video analysis in their packages.

And then there is, for what it's worth, recruiting films. There's a lot of
people trying to video their kids and putting together a college recruitment
highlight reel.

People doing that would be happy to drop what is, in reality, not very much
money to help put together something they hope will save them $10Ks in tuition

------
nathan_f77
Awesome, I always wanted to make one of these. I had the idea about 10 years
ago, when I was really into making stunt videos and timelapses as a teenager.
This was way before Raspberry Pis and Arduinos, so I think it would be a lot
easier today. Of course there's a huge difference between a hobby project, and
a commercial product. But watching all of those Youtube videos was like seeing
my idea come to life.

------
biturd
Seems to me the Lilly is a better product and can do what this one does more
or less, check it out, I love it, wish I had the money to get one. They are
several discounted if you pre-order, around 600, then almost 1000 when they
are officially on sale.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWrApA8oRbI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWrApA8oRbI)

~~~
ntaylor
Not sure if it's necessarily _better_. The Lilly also requires a tag to work,
but it can only handle 20 minutes of battery with no way to insert a backup.
This is relatively low-tech and seems to be capable of enhancing your existing
hardware, rather than replacing it. That's a big win.

Still, the Lilly is really cool.

~~~
kristinac820
Different use cases. Soloshot lasts for 4 hours. If you are doing an athletic
endeavor you are likely doing it for longer than 20 minutes

------
c-slice
Seems like some serious tech. It looks to be using GPS and some wireless
signals to determine distance and direction?

Im guessing GPS because their user manual says it can only be used outdoors.

I wonder if it can be miniaturized in future versions- seems like you could
eliminate GPS if you used a synthetic aperture bluetooth or wireless receiver
to determine direction and ranging for tracking.

------
josefresco
Site is crawling for me - cdn.shopify doesn't seem to be handling the traffic
well.

The waterfall shows one image occupying almost the entire load time:
[https://gtmetrix.com/reports/shop.soloshot.com/JKiP7lSv](https://gtmetrix.com/reports/shop.soloshot.com/JKiP7lSv)

~~~
thenomad
Search on YouTube to get some practical demos. They're pretty cool.

(Not OP but I follow this sector pretty closely.)

------
dbuxton
I can see even school sports teams using these for player video tracking -
imagine being able to analyse every player individually even as an amateur.

Although that would probably require some nifty software to make the 16-odd
hours of footage resulting from a single football match useful...

Also that's a lot of DSLRs.

------
joshu
As a hobby, I drive racecars. I have been thinking about something like this
near the track to video me going by. (Far away vantage points look boring.)

It seems like for much less than $500 you could build an RPI and just track
moving objects via optical flow (assuming you are alone on the track.)

~~~
rickr
LeMons racer? That's the first application I thought of but when are you ever
alone on track?

You could throw one or two of these in common passing places and combine that
feed with in car video. You could get some really neat video.

~~~
joshu
SCCA Spec Miata. I rent the track privately sometimes.

This would have been much more exciting if it were closer:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfQC0135Vfs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfQC0135Vfs)

------
markbao
Does anyone know how this and the other cameras in this field (e.g. Lily) do
subject tracking? A few people have commented in this thread that it might be
a combination of GPS and inertial tracking, but does anyone know any
specifics?

------
nicklovescode
Would it be possible to mimic these features in post prod? Essentially gather
a giant high res shot, using the money spent on fancy feature on higher res.
Then run the same algorithms in post to get a similar video?

~~~
hellofunk
Not really. The level of resolution necessary is an obstacle. Additionally,
having a rotating tripod mount as part of the flow means the angle of view is
changing, as opposed to a static angle you describe. That said, it could be
faked, but wouldn't be the same.

~~~
nicklovescode
Makes sense. Thanks!

------
eggoa
The uncle from Napoleon Dynamite is super excited for this.

------
segmondy
Like many ideas I have had, I'm both happy and sad. I had this idea a good 5
years ago. Kicking myself, but then again, I' not a hardware guy.

~~~
nathan_f77
I had the idea too, maybe even 10 years ago. But don't worry, it's not like
you narrowly missed winning the lottery. Building a product like this takes
years of dedication and hard work.

------
Istof
Place a remote controlled gun next to that camera and you have a remote
hunting system? (probably illegal in most jurisdictions though)

~~~
lvs
Uh, one that shoots at you? How are you going to get the tracking beacon onto
your target?

~~~
MichaelGG
Setup system across from office entrance a month beforehand. Drop the tag into
the target's coat at restaurant coat check. Trigger remote system based on
proximity. Someone's probably already done this in a spy movie.

It'd be a much better idea to simply have a remote controlled system, using
tech that's been around for decades. Though I suppose if you're truly
paranoid, you might be worried about signals tracking. Maybe have it connected
to the Internet and use thermite to wipe out the evidence after shooting.

------
tmaly
I use a radio remote for my DSLR that gives me about a 100 meter range. I wish
there was a version of this for Iphones

------
Schwolop
My primary use-case for this would be to go back in time and replace my
wedding videographer with this robot.

------
estefan
That's so cool. How does it stop itself getting stolen? Oh wait, I guess it
just films the thief... :-D

------
ape4
I can see this functionality being integrated into some cameras.

------
JustSomeNobody
Does it have a built in anti-theft deterrent?

But seriously, this is one exciting piece of technology. Very, very cool.

------
benjaminjackman
For some reason the page keeps scrolling back to the top in my browser, very
annoying.

~~~
jamiethompson
If only they could solve that 200 year old problem of having a website that
you can actually scroll through.

~~~
adeptus
If only websites trying to be trendy could stop using eye popping font size 70
text that cause me to roll my chair back 10 feet to read the web page.

~~~
irln
Will all due respect, for an old guy, I like large fonts :)

~~~
marcosdumay
Then zoom-in your pages.

I'm not old, but I also like large fonts. Except for sites that completely
break if you zoom too much (like HN), there's not problem with designers using
small ones.

~~~
irln
If only I could time travel into the future and ask your 30 year older self
whether you agree with your 30 year younger self's comment. :)

------
justwannasing
It doesn't "film" anything and, yes, that irritates me.

------
comrade1
Ed powers is going to love this.

------
pj_mukh
Use a drone! :).

------
Systemic33
ShowHN?

------
Thaxll
It's a good product until your camera weights more than 1kg...

~~~
michaelbuddy
that won't matter for most use cases. the heavier the camera setup the more
likely manual control is desired or required anyway. this is more for set-and-
forget kind of shooting. On the video they've got a good size DSLR with an
autofocus lens on it. If it can carry that, it's gonna work for people.

------
gmvidr
Wow, I've been making professional and entertainment videos for over 12 years
(I'm not a camera man), and I would never use this. You can't replace human
skill with this. At least not if you want to produce something really
outstanding. I suppose this is fine for mediocre content, but then why bother
in the first place?

~~~
damoncali
You can replace nothing with this, though, which is what most people have
access to. I don't think anyone expects these to spit out Kubrick films. But I
bet it records better than _I_ do.

