Belkin is releasing a mount for the iPhone 12 that’ll track your face and automatically move with you. At just $65, it only costs a fraction of the cost of Amazon’s Echo Show 10 (which has a similar tracking feature and costs $250) and, oh yeah, means Amazon isn’t placing a camera in your home.
The Magnetic Phone Mount with Face Tracking can rotate 360-degrees horizontally, so you can set it up on your kitchen counter or in your home gym and it’ll automatically follow you while you cook, clean, or workout. You’ll have to make vertical adjustments manually, however, though it lets you rotate it from -15 to 30 degrees. It makes use of Apple’s MagSafe technology, as well, which is convenient, but that does limit it to the iPhone 12 line and future compatible phones (and there’s no current option in sight for Android phones or even older iPhones).
While the mount’s cordless design means you can place it literally anywhere without being tethered to an outlet, it still requires three AAA batteries to power the motor. If you’re planning on using it on a regular basis, there’s the chance you’ll be going through a lot of batteries, as well which could be a bummer if you’re aren’t on the rechargeable battery hype train.
Perhaps the device’s biggest downfall, however, is its reliance on your phone’s front-facing camera for tracking your face. This means that camera won’t be able to record video or allow you to take video calls. However, Belkin is offering a clumsy workaround: an as-of-yet-unreleased companion app that’ll manage the face-tracking and somehow also let you record videos and stream content from social media sites (but still no video call option). It’s also optimized for a single face on the screen and isn’t recommended for group video recordings.
via Gizmodo