Olloclip Filmer’s Kit review

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Olloclip Filmer’s Kit

When it comes to convenience and affordability, the smartphone camera reigns. But these multifunctional, pocketable devices lack the flexibility of standalone cameras. Smartphone accessory lenses aim to negate some of these limitations, but can also decrease the convenience and portability factor of using your phone as a camera.

Olloclip’s iPhone lens collection aims to offer the best of both worlds, all while keeping the price hovering around $100 for each lens kit. The Olloclip Filmer’s Kit takes that even further, shaving off at least $70 from the combined individual prices by bundling everything together, along with an ergonomic grip, into one case.

No amount of specialized glass is going to turn a smartphone into a DSLR — but the Olloclip suite of lenses makes previously impossible shots not only possible, but good. It opens up a range of focal lengths, and can even create some of that highly sought-after bokeh.

The clip in Olloclip

Olloclip lenses sit inside a clip that simply slides over the top of an iPhone, with two different sizes to accommodate the iPhone 7/8 and iPhone 7 Plus/8 Plus. Olloclip says the case will support most screen protectors, but it will not accommodate cases.

The lenses screw onto a base, which sits in a gap in the clip secured by two pegs. A button retracts one of those pegs, allowing the lens to be swapped out of the clip. The design makes switching lenses easy, though not foolproof, since it’s possible to install the lens backwards where it won’t sit over the iPhone camera. Once connected, the only time you’ll need to screw a lens in and out of the base is to use the two-in-one Fisheye and Macro. This design helps minimize the chance of getting finger prints on the lens.

Olloclip’s simple clip design makes adding and removing lenses straightforward and quick.

The clip is also double-sided, which means you can have one lens over the rear-facing camera and another lens over the front-facing camera. The clip is designed to have one lens on each side — if you want to only mount a single lens, you need to add what’s called a Blanking Base on the other side to prevent the clip from moving. Without that base, the lens will wiggle, exaggerating any camera shake while shooting video.

Although it just sits over the top of the phone, we weren’t worried about the clip falling off — it holds on pretty well, even when bumped.

The plastic piece that stores the lens clip doubles as a phone stand and tripod. Olloclip also includes a wrist strap and carabiner for keeping the clip handy.

Olloclip Filmer’s Kit Compared To

Merge Blaster

TimeFlip Magnet

Insta360 One

Samsung DeX Station

Oaxis InkCase i7 Plus

Ampy Move

Neo Smartpen N2

Motrr Galileo

Typo keyboard case

Moga Mobile Gaming Controller

Hasbro My3D

Iomega SuperHero

BlackBerry Presenter

Callpod Chargepod

Griffin Elan Holster

One downside is that the clip covers a small portion of the screen at the top. When using the iPhone’s default camera app, we were unable to access the options for HDR, Live Photos, or the self timer without first removing the clip.

The Core Lens Set

Olloclip’s Core Lens Set includes three lenses. The super-wide and fisheye sit in the usual plastic base that attaches to the clip. The macro lens, however, is hiding inside the fisheye clip. Unscrewing the fisheye reveals the small macro lens in the base. The Core Lens Set is included inside the Filmmaker’s kit for $199, or can be purchased separately for $100, a fair price consider that it includes three lenses and the clip.

Macro

Macro lenses are always of our favorites out of every smartphone accessory lens system we’ve tried, and the Olloclip’s is no exception. The smaller sensor of a smartphone makes it much easier to create a close-up lens compared to a macro lens for a DSLR or mirrorless camera. In fact, a 15x lens is simply unheard of in the camera world, but the Olloclip 15x macro gets crazy close — for less than $100.

A 15x macro is a pretty extreme close-up — think photographing ants or very fine details. Getting in that close creates a narrow depth of field that’s not typically associated with a smartphone camera, an effect that is a double-edged sword.

A 15x macro is a pretty extreme close-up — think photographing ants.

To keep your subject in focus, the lens has to be held at just the right distance. There’s a very small sweet spot to hit, and getting a macro video of a moving subject is nearly impossible — every time you get the subject in focus, it’s already moved out of focus. We should note that this is simply the nature of macro photography, not anything specific to the Olloclip lens design itself.

When you nail focus, the lens is pretty sharp for a smartphone lens, allowing for capturing a good amount of detail. The edges of the image are fairly soft, but since the depth of field is so narrow, you might no even notice the softness unless you’re shooting a perfectly flat surface.

If you zoom in far enough, you can pick up a little chromatic aberration — or color fringing — but not at an amount that’s obvious or distracting from the image itself. The lens also doesn’t create any noticeable vignetting.

Fisheye

Screw the top piece of the lens back into the macro base, and you have a fisheye that captures almost a 180 degree view in a single shot. The lens is a circular fisheye, which means the resulting image is a circle on a black background. However, since the iPhone’s video mode is cropped compared to photo mode, this effect doesn’t carry over into movies, where the view isn’t quite as wide.

All fisheye lenses create distortion from that extremely wide view; that’s part of the charm. At the edges of the frame, straight lines will appear to bend in and if you try panning with it, you’ll create a psychedelic effect where different parts of the image distort differently as the camera moves. The lens is so wide that you have to be careful about where you hold the phone or your fingers will show up in the edges of the shot.

Out of all the lenses in the kit, the fisheye is the softest. The center isn’t quite as sharp as the other lenses and the edges of the image are noticeably blurred. The lens also causes some colored blue and green fringing that you might notice without zooming in, especially on a high contrast shot. Point it into the sun, and you’ll get a noticeable flare, but these usually show up as a tiny green dot that’s easy to edit out.

Super-wide

The Olloclip super-wide captures a wide view without the distortion of the Fisheye. It captures about a 120-degree angle of view, making it less wide than both the Fisheye and the ultra-wide lens that’s not part of the Core Lens Set but is included in the Filmer’s Kit..

The super-wide is also the most uniformly sharp lens out of all the Olloclip lenses we tested, with only slight curving in the edges. Unlike the fish-eye and ultra-wide, the edges of the image aren’t as noticeably blurred. The center may not be quite as sharp as the macro or telephoto, but the super-wide gets points for having greater consistency across the frame.

The lens will capture some blue color fringing, but only a minor amount that’s not noticeable without pixel peeping. Like the other lenses, it will flare when pointed directly at the sun, but as with the fisheye, this can usually be removed in post quite easily.

The Active Lens Set

The Olloclip Active Lens set includes a 2x telephoto and an ultra-wide lens that captures about a 155-degree angle of view. The set is included in the Filmer’s Kit, or retails on its own for $120 including the clip.

2x Telephoto

Olloclip’s telephoto lens was a close second favorite after the macro as it also makes it possible to blur the background beyond what’s normally seen from a smartphone camera. A 2x zoom isn’t anything crazy, but it helps you get a bit closer, while the slight decrease in depth of field helps isolate your subject.

The telephoto is decently sharp at the center, but the edges of the image are noticeably softer. Chromatic aberration is minimal, with few colored artifacts on the edges of high contrast areas.

The lens does vignette a bit, darkening the corners of the image, and like the other lenses, pointing it towards a bright light source will create a flare. Flaring is generally minimal, but the telephoto lens did occasionally produce larger flares not characteristic of the other lenses.

Ultra-wide

Ollclip calls the 155-degree view from the ultra-wide an action-camera-like lens. It is wider than the super-wide but not quite as wide as the fisheye and still creates a rectangular image.

With the 155-degree view, there’s some expected distortion that’s exaggerated in any objects that are closer to the lens. Straight lines will appear to curve but that’s expected for such a wide lens on a smartphone.

Center sharpness is about average, a good quarter of the image at the edges is blurred. Both vignetting and chromatic aberration are minor, however. Lens flares are also small and in most shots would be easy to edit out.

The Olloclip Filmer’s Kit Accessories

Along with the five lenses, the Filmer’s Kit includes an ergonomic handle called the Pivot and an Incase case to keep everything organized.

The Pivot offers a more comfortable to hold your phone for longer shoots. It comprises a handle and a spring-loaded phone cradle, with a rotating base in between allowing for 225 degrees of motion, with a button on the handle to easily adjust the angle of the smartphone.

The 2x zoom isn’t anything crazy, but it does bring you in closer and helps soften the background.

Constructed from plastic, the handle doesn’t add a lot of weight to the setup. Still, the Pivot still feels nice in the hands and doesn’t feel like it may break easily like some cheaper plastics. While the handle folds up, calling the Pivot “pocketable” is probably a stretch — unless you’re wearing cargo pants.

The top of the smartphone cradle also houses a cold shoe mount for adding an accessory. The cradle can be twisted off and replaced with a GoPro mount to convert into an action camera handle.

The Incase case has a rigid outer shell for keeping the lenses safe and a foam insert keeps everything protected and organized. The insert is cut for the iPhone Plus clip, so the standard-sized iPhone clip doesn’t fit as well into that slot. Under the lid, a mesh pocket can house small accessories. The zip case doesn’t have any sort of handle, but it’s small enough to slide into pretty much any messenger bag, backpack or even most purses.

The accessories in the Filmer’s Kit are well-built and easy to use — but that’s not the best part. With the package pricing, the case and Pivot are essentially free. Individually, the lens kits cost $99 and $120, which is already over the $200 cost of the Filmer’s kit, even before considering the $50 Pivot and the bespoke case.

Warranty

The Olloclip Filmer’s Kit carries a standard 1-year warranty.

Our Take

Smartphone lenses are tricky to get right because you’re placing a lens over an existing lens inherently makes the lenses more prone to flaws like soft edges and vignetting. While not immune to those flaws, the Olloclip lenses offer solid performance considering they cost less than $50 each. The individual lens kits make sense for users that just want a particular style of lens, like a macro or a telephoto, but the price of the Filmer’s Kit makes the set great even for still photographers that want all five lenses.

Is there a better alternative?

Accessory lenses are a category full of competition, but the Olloclip sits at a sweet spot between quality and price. Moment lenses are well known for their quality, but they can also be $90-$100 for a single lens — in addition to the required $30 case. The Bitplay is more in line with the Olloclip’s price point, and it has a better case compared to the Olloclip clip, but the lenses were more prone to large flares than were Olloclip’s. The mix of quality and price makes Olloclip a strong competitor.

How long will it last?

Olloclip’s clip design accommodates both the iPhone 7 and 8 along with both plus models. Even if Apple changes the the design of the iPhone 9, you should only need a new clip to keep using your Olloclip lenses on future phones. The priciest portion of the kit — the lenses and the Pivot — should last for years, provided you don’t lose or scratch one.

Should you buy it?

Yes. Despite the name, the Olloclip Filmer’s Kit isn’t just for making movies, and is very attractive at the $200 price. If you want more versatile shots and more bokeh without giving up the portability of a smartphone, it is an excellent option whether you prefer shooting stills or video. If you want to keep your phone in a case at all times, or need something with tack sharp edges, Olloclip’s set probably isn’t for you. But for many iPhoneographers, the set offers both versatility and value.

Samsung’s latest microSD card is beefy enough for your dash cam

Most microSD cards are perfectly fine for your smartphone. Your dash cam or home security camera, however? That’s another story — that non-stop video recording can be brutal on cards that aren’t designed for continuous writing. Enter Samsung with its Pro Endurance card. The new microSD range reportedly endures about 25 times longer than other “speed-focused” cards, handling up to 43,800 hours of 1080p video recording on a 128GB model. That’s five years of around-the-clock use, folks. There’s a chance your camera stops working before the card does.

All of the cards are water, temperature, magnet and X-ray resistant, and they come with a full-size SD card adapter for cameras and card readers that use the larger format. Samsung is unsurprisingly charging a premium for the Pro Endurance line in its 32GB ($25), 64GB ($45) and 128GB ($90) flavors, but they might save you money in the long run if you don’t have to burn through cards like they’re going out of style.

Source: Samsung

Xiaomi’s Hong Kong IPO expected to raise at least $10 billion

Xiaomi’s interest in listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange hasn’t exactly been a well-kept secret, and following months of speculation, the time has finally arrived. Today, the Chinese smartphone maker filed its initial public offering documents, and according to Bloomberg’s sources, this IPO is expected to raise “at least $10 billion.” This would make it the world’s largest IPO since Alibaba listed for $25 billion in New York back in 2014. Furthermore, Bloomberg said Xiaomi may see a valuation of “as high as $100 billion,” which is about one-ninth of Apple’s.

Xiaomi’s documents also shed light on some fine details about its fast-growing business. For instance, in 2017 Xiaomi generated a revenue of 114.6 billion yuan or about $18 billion — a 67.5-percent jump — though it ended up with a loss of 43.9 billion yuan or about $6.9 billion, which looks even worse against the mere 491.6 million yuan or $77.2 million profit in the year before.

Still, CEO Lei Jun emphasized in his open letter that following the declining smartphone sales in 2016, his company went through a transition and managed to rebound in 2017 — going from 55.4 million devices back up to 91.4 million, with a stronger focus on developing markets like India and Indonesia. The documents also refer to IDC to remind us that Xiaomi nabbed top position in India for Q4 2017 smartphone shipments, as well as reaching top five across 15 markets. The CEO added that his company pledges to cap its hardware business net profit margin at 5 percent, and that any excess will somehow be returned to the users.

Of course, this also suggests that Xiaomi is making good money through its internet services — mainly ads and value-added services. In December 2017, Xiaomi counted 170.8 million active users on its custom Android platform, MIUI, with each user paying an average of 57.90 yuan or about $9.10 for the company’s internet services, totalling a $1.6 billion revenue for that month alone. In March this year, Xiaomi’s count went up to 190 million monthly active users, but the report doesn’t have a corresponding revenue figure.

While Xiaomi continued to expand its product portfolio to include more smart home devices and lifestyle products, it had also been working hard on expanding its physical presence around the world. In 2017, Xiaomi’s Mi Home stores made 240,000 yuan or about $37,700 in annual sales per square meter which, according to iResearch, is “the second highest average sales per square meter amongst retail store chains globally.” Still, the company warns that its retail store operation requires a substantial investment.

As of end of March, Xiaomi has 331 self-operated Mi Home retail stores in China alone, along with a handful of both Mi Homes and authorized stores around the world. Following the Taipei Mi Home store opening last month, Xiaomi is opening its third Hong Kong Mi Home store (pictured above) at a prime location tomorrow — very fitting given the timing of the IPO filing. Xiaomi also has plans to break into the US as early as end of this year, but given the recent mishaps with Huawei and more so with ZTE, it’ll be interesting to see how Lei Jun’s team will succeed, if at all.

Source: Bloomberg

Just who saw that post anyways? A guide to Facebook privacy settings

Unsplash / Thought Catalog

After the Cambridge Analytica scandal and new privacy laws in Europe, Facebook’s privacy settings may not look like they did when you first created an account. And on top of that, Facebook’s privacy settings are divided up into several different locations, and paired with a long legal privacy agreement. If you haven’t visited your privacy settings on Facebook, or have no idea even where to find them, it’s probably time for a privacy check-up.

Facebook Privacy 101

Everyone can see your name, your profile photo, and the names of work and school networks you’re part of. Ditto for pages you are a fan of. You can’t tell Facebook you don’t want those publicly listed — so if you are uploading a profile photo, the only privacy option is public. If you are worried about a potential employer finding out about a quirky fetish or unorthodox political leaning, avoid becoming a Facebook fan of such groups. Your gender and current city are also available if you choose to specify them. You can uncheck “Show my sex in my profile” when you edit your profile, if you don’t want it listed, and you can leave “Current City” blank.

Facebook is equipped with various privacy levels

Facebook boasts a slew of privacy levels pertaining to different content, whether it’s your friends list, status updates, or photos. Users can adjust the privacy settings and limit profile access at any time, allowing greater specificity when choosing who can view selected content.

• Everyone: Grants access to anyone on the Internet.
• Friends: Grants access to only those who are your friend on Facebook.
• Friends of Friends: Grants access to those who are your friend on Facebook, as well as their friends.
• Friends Except: Grants access to all friends except for a specific group or individual users that you choose.
• Specific Friends: Grants access to only the friends you choose, either individually or through friend lists.
• Only Me: Grants access only to you. Helpful if you want the post to show up on your Facebook Memories in a year or if you have to grant an app access to post on your behalf.

Alexa becomes a playtime storyteller for Lego Duplo blocks

It’s not just Amazon setting out to make Alexa kid-friendly. Lego has unveiled an Alexa story skill that guides younger children (aged 2 to 5) through playtime with Duplo blocks. Kids and their parents can walk through customizable stories themed around animals or vehicles with Amazon’s voice assistant encouraging “constructive, exploratory and roleplay” experiences. It can ask them to build creatively and recognize colors, for example.

The skill is available in the US and UK on any Alexa-ready device, and works with existing Duplo sets. There’s no doubt that Lego sees this as a clever sales strategy (you’ll just have to get enough kits for all these stories, won’t you?), but it’s also a rare experiment in combining a voice assistant with playtime. Lego sees this as a way to spark more learning and creativity for kids who are often too young to read.

Source: Lego (1), (2)

Apple taps into true crime hype with new series order

Among the shows Apple picked up in the last year was an adaptation of the true crime novel Are You Sleeping? starring the ineffable Octavia Spencer (The Shape of Water, Hidden Figures, The Help). While the tech giant acquired the rights in January, it just issued ordered a ten-episode run for the show.

Are You Sleeping follows the novel’s story of a woman returning home after a true crime podcast explored the details of her father’s grisly murder years before. It’s an examination of the vogue for podcasts like Serial, whose creator and producer Sarah Koenig will consult on the Apple show.

Nichelle Tramble Spellman (The Good Wife), who created the Are You Sleeping concept, will serve as showrunner. The series is one of several backed by Reese Witherspoon’s production company Hello Sunshine to get signed in recent months. Apple acquired two, a Kristin Wiig comedy and drama written and created by Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston, and Hulu snatched one based on Celeste Ng’s bestselling novel Little Fires Everywhere.

Source: Variety

Google Pay makes its way to the web

Google Pay is no longer confined to smartphones. As promised, Google is rolling out its rebranded shopping experience available on the web for both PC and iOS device users. It’ll seem very familiar if you’ve used Pay With Google (since it’s largely the same), but that’s not a bad thing — it’ll still speed up the checkout process, particularly if you live in a household with both Android and iOS gear. The feature is independent of browsers as well, so you can shop with Firefox or Safari if you prefer.

As on your phone, this is as much about cementing Google’s presence in e-commerce as it is ordering . It’s partly an answer to Apple Pay, which has been available on the web since 2016. This puts Google’s foot in the door when dealing with newcomers, and gives existing fans a reason to stay inside the ecosystem.

Via: 9to5Google

Source: Google

Facebook teases new Oculus prototype with mechanical ‘varifocal’ lenses

VR is still maturing as a platform, and Oculus is fully aware of its inherent issues and limitations. Today, May 2, at Facebook’s F8 developer conference, Oculus unveiled a new prototype designed to combat some of the most pernicious issues people have had with the visual quality of VR headsets so far: focus and field of view.

Oculus’ head of Core Tech, Maria Fernandez Guajardo, unveiled the new “Half Dome” prototype as part of a presentation on the future of VR. The new prototype is designed to tackle these two issues head on. First, Oculus is using its previously described “varifocal” lenses — think mechanical autofocus but for your eyes — to track what you’re looking at and dynamically adjust focus to compensate, just as your actual eyes do.

In VR this has been something of a problem because software can only go so far toward simulating depth of field and focus, especially when something is right up close to your face. Oculus’ varifocal lenses work with software and hand tracking to determine when something is close to your face in VR, and will adjust the physical focus of the internal lens array accordingly.

The mechanical “varifocal” lens assembly via Facebook

Additionally, the new lens assembly features a much wider field of view than the original Oculus Rift. The Rift has a field of view of 110 degrees, which means if you look around inside the headset, you’re going to see the edges of the screen pretty frequently. The Half Dome prototype on the other hand reportedly boasts a 140-degree field of view, much wider than the original Rift.

This new field of view encompasses your traditional field of view, but also your peripheral vision, which is an important component of how we perceive environments. Whether or not it will have a significant impact on immersion remains to be seen, but it’s still an impressive improvement, and when coupled with a dynamic “varifocal” technology, it’s easy to see why the Half Dome prototype could be an important addition to the Oculus family.

“Our advances are helping to bring the future into the present,” Guajardo said. “We are proud of the progress so far, fascinated about the work we are doing, and excited about the possibilities to come.”

At the end of the keynote, Guajardo continued, reiterating Facebook’s — and by extension Oculus’ — devotion to bringing people together. Guajardo highlighted the social potential of VR, and how overcoming technical hurdles that make VR less than immersive will pave the way for more realistic social experiences in VR going forward.

Editors’ Recommendations

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Oculus confirms second-screen support is coming to Oculus Go

Oculus VR Chief Technology Officer John Carmack confirmed on Wednesday, May 2, that the Facebook-owned company is currently working on a second-screen component for the recently launched Oculus Go virtual reality headset. He said a demo is already available but getting it into the companion app for iOS and Android “will take a little while.” 

The idea is to enable friends and family to view your VR experiences on a nearby TV or streaming device while you’re deep in the virtual realm. Google’s Daydream View already provides a similar feature, as owners can click on the Cast icon at the bottom of the interface to cast the current experience to a Chromecast-enabled device. 

Likewise, you can cast VR experiences from Samsung’s Gear VR headset to a Chromecast-enabled device, too. As with the Daydream version, simply click on the Cast button to display your experiences on a Chromecast-enabled device. All you need is the latest version of the Oculus mobile app and Android. 

The Oculus Go is the latest VR headset from Facebook, joining the popular Oculus Rift for the PC. In Facebook’s overall VR assault, the Oculus Go serves as an affordable low-end headset with standard head tracking that competes in the mobile VR space. The company’s upcoming mid-range platform dubbed “Santa Cruz” will rely on six-degree inside-out tracking for total, tether-free movement. The current PC-dependent Oculus Rift serves as the “high-end” premium device. 

Both the Oculus Go and Samsung’s Gear VR are powered by Oculus technology, but what sets them apart is how they are designed. The Oculus Go is a self-contained device that doesn’t rely on a smartphone or a tethered PC. Meanwhile, Gear VR requires one of 12 Galaxy-branded smartphones ranging from the S6 to the current S9. But because both platforms are powered by Oculus, Gear VR experiences work on the Oculus Go. 

Even if you have a Samsung Galaxy-branded phone and were considering the Gear VR, the Oculus Go may be your best bet for mobile VR. That is because the Oculus Go is optimized for VR and doesn’t have all the phone-related processes running in the background, bogging down the processor as it struggles to render your experience.

But the big drawback to VR is that it can be isolating. Unless you’re playing a social-based or multiplayer game, you can feel alone in the experience. Fortunately, the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive provide means for mirroring your adventures on an external display for friends and family to enjoy. Chromecast support now provides a similar shared experience for mobile headsets, and eventually, you can do the same with the new Oculus Go headset.  

At launch, there are more than 1,000 experiences available for the Oculus Go, part of which were already available for Gear VR owners. Oculus said developers have worked around the clock to update their Gear VR apps since this time last year so they run optimally on the Oculus Go. The platform also has many exclusives you simply can’t play on the Gear VR. 

Editors’ Recommendations

• Oculus Go hands-on review
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Vayyar Imaging’s new 3D sensors double down on ‘Superman vision’

In a field where its technology has already changed the game for a lot of industries, Vayyar Imaging is doubling down on its innovations in 3D sensors. On Wednesday, May 2, the company announced that its next generation of advanced radio frequency sensors is about to hit the market, complete with smarter and more powerful capabilities for a wide variety of applications including construction, elder care, retail, and smart home technology.

The trick to the new sensors is integrating more antennas onto a single chip, making them more advanced but also lighter and smaller; the new chip is the size of a matchbox. The new chips contain 72 transmitters and 72 receivers in a single chip that covers imaging and radar bands from 3GHz to 81GHz. Essentially, Vayyar has created a wildly powerful platform for mmWave 3D imaging — and, importantly, one that doesn’t require an external CPU to execute complex imaging algorithms.

In practice, Vayyar’s technology turns the world invisible, an application the company sometimes calls “Superman vision.” The new sensors can differentiate between objects and people, determine location even when mapping very large areas, and create a 3D image of the environment in real time.

The practical applications of the technology are wildly diverse. In an elder care setting, Vayyar sensors could monitor residents’ location, movement, height, posture, and vital signs with no wearables or cameras. The sensors might also monitor the composition of materials, allowing sensitive users to monitor the fat, protein, alcohol content, and other percentages in food and drinks. In smart homes, Vayyar can enable the monitoring of people’s location, the presence of intruders, and the presence of people in emergency situations.

The technology also has practical applications for other industries. Automotive manufacturers are looking to Vayyar sensors to augment not only interior movements in a car’s interior, but also identifying trajectory and classifying objects in the surrounding area for collision avoidance, autonomous driving, and parking assistance.

The technology could also provide huge opportunities to the retail and industrial sectors. Retail operations are already using managed video surveillance and smart algorithms to track, analyze, and influence consumer behaviors. Vayyar can gather the same insights and generate retail strategies without altering store aesthetics or invading the privacy of shoppers. Similarly, offices and factories can identify a human presence, count people, and provide real-time, location-based data for automation and energy efficiency purposes.

“Radio wave imaging is a powerful technology, which was dormant for decades,” Raviv Melamed, co-founder, CEO and Chairman of Vayyar, said in a statement. “Vayyar’s new sensor is finally unleashing its potential. Together with the chip, we provide our customers with a full suite of software and advanced algorithms to expedite their ability to develop products based on our technology. This has created a synergy that is propelling an accelerated path to market for a wide range of products that can help people to better care for their elders, detect cancer at an early stage, make our homes more secure without compromising privacy and improve car safety in every weather condition.”

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