Wristcam Gives Apple Watch a Camera

The Apple Watch is one of the most useful devices for all around hands-free computing

Whether you need to make a phone call, send a text message, pay at the store, or just check your calendar, having all that computing power right on your wrist without needing

to set everything else down is super convenient. But one thing the Apple Watch still can't do, 6 years after its original release, is

take a photo. That is, until now

What's going on everybody, Ian here for Cult of Mac, and this is Wristcam, the first and

only made for Apple Watch band that packs not one, but two cameras right inside the

device, allowing you to take pictures while you're on the go, all from your watch

And it's a super genius product. The band itself is made out of a nice rubber material, very similar to the Apple Watch

support bands, and within that is the camera module itself, which is IP68 rated, and packs

its own battery for more than a day's worth of photo and video taking, and all of it is

controlled directly from your Apple Watch, completely wirelessly. Now using the Wristcam watch app allows you to take photos or videos, change settings

and everything, all while using your Apple Watch as the actual viewfinder for what you're

looking at. You can simply launch the app, and you can start pointing your wrist at different things

and whatever is in frame will be what you can take a picture or video of. You can also change from the front facing to rear facing cameras, just by simply tapping

the toggle in the corner, you can switch between different photo and video modes, or different

aspect ratios depending on what your needs are. And the entire thing can also be controlled using Siri shortcuts, allowing you to say

things like, take a selfie with Wristcam, or take a video with Wristcam, and it will

start the app on your watch, and switch the camera to the right mode, and be ready to

take that photo or video. And if that's not enough, Wristcam also does feature a dedicated shutter button, for those

really spur of the moment things where you don't want to wait for the app to launch on your watch, or you can't quickly navigate to that app from your watch face

And by using the shutter button, it will use whatever the last known setting was, so whether it was front facing or rear facing, you simply click it, and it will take a photo, or press

and hold, and it will begin taking a video. Now my testing actually did find the shutter button on the side of the Wristcam to be my

most preferred way to take photos or videos, because it's those spur of the moment things

where I want to capture a photo or capture a video of something while I'm in the moment

and I don't have time to fumble with opening the app. The one drawback being that you can't actually view what you're taking a picture or video

of when you're just using that remote shutter button, but you can launch the watch app after

you've started recording a video, and it will actually just pick up wherever you are, so you can make sure that you do get things in frame, but you also don't miss those first

few seconds of video while you're waiting for the app to load

Now once you have your photos or videos taken, you can simply import them directly into your

camera roll thanks to the iOS companion app, which will actually start importing photos

from the Wristcam as soon as the Wristcam module itself is connected to a charger, allowing

you to quickly pull those photos in directly to your camera, and use them to share on social

media or save for your memories. On top of that, if you want to save something before you connect to a charger, you can open

up the Wristcam app, choose any of the photos, and download them directly to your device

allowing you to share them on social media and share those spur-of-the-moment things from your Wristcam as well

Another feature of the Wristcam is the brand new Wristcam Messenger app, which allows you

to, in real time, send video messages directly from the Wristcam on your watch to your friends

through Wristcam Messenger. Now on top of that, your friends don't actually have to have a Wristcam to use the Wristcam

Messenger app, they can just use the iOS app and they can both view and respond to your

Wristcam messages or your Wristcam videos with their own, shot directly from their phone

Now ultimately for me, Wristcam is all about the always available camera without the added

friction of having to pull my phone out of my pocket. It's super convenient, it takes pretty good photos and videos, and on top of that, it

allows you to go completely untethered from your phone, just taking your Apple Watch with you knowing that if you have a cellular Apple Watch, you can receive calls, you can receive

texts, you can still check on other important things, and you can take pictures all without

needing to have your phone or another camera with you. The Wristcam is available in both the 38 slash 40 millimeter size and the 42 slash 44 millimeter

size with the black band for $299 from Wristcam.com, as always, link down in the description

Let me know what you guys think in the comments down below. While you're down there, give the video a thumbs up, subscribe if you're not already

and until next time, I'm Ian for Cult of Mac, I'll catch you in the next one