See It Now!

Everybody loves to post fun videos of the cool things they’re doing on Facebook, YouTube, and even Twitter. Sometimes, though, you miss the coolest, funnest stuff because it’s hard to record all the time. But wait. What if you could? Say hello to Looxcie, the first wearable Bluetooth camcorder system ($199; looxcie.com), which pretty much does just that.

Here’s how it works. Put on the Looxcie earpiece, and the attached camera records almost exactly what you see. Wherever you look, that’s what Looxcie captures. It can hold up to 5 hours of 480p video (not high-end, true, but better than average). When you see that awesome moment — kittens playing together, a towering home run, Lady Gaga at the beach — press the button, and a 30-second clip is saved to your Android or iPhone app. After 5 hours, it’ll start dropping older video to store what’s new, so you need to keep that in mind if you’re not religiously saving clips.

I paired the Looxcie with my Droid 2. I had to download two apps — one to see the video streaming, the other to save the clips I liked. I wish this could all be done with one app, but I have a feeling that might change in the not-so-distant future. Currently, Looxcie is available for both Android (2.0 and greater) and iPhone (iOS 4.2.6 or higher).

Getting the Looxcie attached to my ear properly took a little time. It’s bigger than the average earpiece (it has a camera, after all) and comes with three sizes of hypoallergenic earbuds. A lot of bending and twisting was involved to get it to sit just right. The folks at Looxcie know this, so they have a video on their site to help you get the correct fit.

Once I found that perfect fit, I connected Looxcie to my phone via Bluetooth. This was as simple as pairing any other Bluetooth device. Then I was off and recording video. I did find a bit of a learning curve. The Looxcie recorded what I saw, but I wasn’t always looking where I should have to get the best shots. When I looked down to see if I was capturing the video correctly, I got, er, a great shot of my phone. (Grrrrr.) With a little practice and some adjustments, I was able to get it right. I saved a clip of my dog playing with my two cats and another clip of my kids acting goofy, and before I knew it, I was mastering the camera.

Now I was ready to use Looxcie for something more substantial: when my family went skiing. I was able to get a very cool POV clip while I attacked the expert slopes. And I did it hands-free!

Think of what you can capture — and share — with Looxcie. To the grandparents, you can send a clip of their grandson playing the big tympani solo about 45 seconds after it happens in the band concert. Or instantly post that golden sunset of your tropical vacation to Facebook for all your friends to see back home.

I don’t think of Looxcie so much as a video camera as I do a way to capture video for hours until you find what you need. Kind of like editing your own reality show on the fly, as it were. And that’s pretty cool, right?

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