Our New Toy: Swivl

With all of the work that we do with video and different types of media, we were naturally drawn to a product that is just coming on the scene… the Swivl. The company describes it as “your own personal cameraman.” More technically speaking it is “…an interactive motorized tripod with a wireless mic for your iPhone or pocket camera.”

The idea of this product is super easy and I would even venture to say brilliant. Let’s say you’re getting ready for a presentation, or to teach a class, or to demonstrate a “how-to” of some kind… and you have an iPhone, iPod, or small camera but you don’t have anyone to do the videotaping for you. The Swivl is there to be your cameraman. There are two parts to the Swivl product – the base (that holds your camera) and a marker (like a little tracking device that you carry around during taping).

When testing it out, all we had to do was download the Swivl app on to our iPhone or iPod, then hook it up to the Swivl base… think of it as an automated Lazy Susan of sorts. Then, turn on the marker and clip it to you using either the clip or lanyard that comes with it. Once the two products make the connection you can begin recording! You can walk around and it will record you as you move around.

One immediate question that our team members had was about audio. We work in a lot of dynamic and energetic environments and knowing that you could hear the presenter is important. Swivl has an answer for that. The marker that you wear has a built in internal mic. Once we tried it out and found that we could hear the presenter… we were pleasantly surprised. Only catch is that it has to be recorded on your iDevice. If you have a Flip camera, the audio from the lanyard mic does not record in to your recording camera unles it has the app on the device.

All in all, we look forward to using this product and providing more feedback on how it’s working out for us. Our only suggestion is to make sure you are up-to-date on your operating systems before getting started… this will ensure that you are set and ready to go.