For a lot of users, wearables are not an essential product. They're certainly nice to have, but not as necessary for day to day life as a smartphone or laptop. I've personally used a Pebble, a couple Android Wear watches, and a Vector Watch before giving up on smartwatches altogether a few months ago. Google Glass is another interesting concept, but only focused on the enterprise for now and too expensive to justify for most people.
Now Ubiquiti, makers of the excellent Amplifi mesh Wi-Fi router, has announced the FrontRow (via Android Police), a necklace wearable that looks pretty interesting. The FrontRow features a round touch display (there is a flat tire), with two cameras for live streaming events to YouTube Live, Twitter Live and Facebook Live. The battery in the unit is said to be good for about 1 hour and 50 minutes of either recording or live streaming, or 50 hours of standby. When the battery is dead, the device can be charged over a USB Type-C connection with USB-PD fast charging.
The main camera on the device is an 8-megapixel, f/2.2 lens that can record up to 2.7K at 30fps and a 151-degree field of view. Most importantly, the main camera features optical image stabilization to combat shaky cam footage. The rear camera features a 5-megapixel, f/2.0 sensor that can record up to 2K at 30 frames per second and an 85-degree field of view. As for audio, the unit has stereo microphones for recording and a mono speaker for playback.
The device includes 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, an unspecified quad-core processor, software based on Android, and Bluetooth 4.1 and Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n/ac for offloading video to a smartphone. The Frontrow is available in both black and rose gold, with the black option available now on Amazon, and the rose gold version coming September 15th. The FrontRow will work with both iOS and Android devices.
Curiously missing is support for Instagram and Snapchat, along with any mention of dust and water resistance. The latter would be especially important for a livestreaming wearable like this. I have reached out to the company about these features and will update the post when I hear back.
Are you interested in the FrontRow? Let us know down below!
