ContourGPS Uses Your Smartphone As A Viewfinder

Hey, people with ContourGPS sports cameras: CONGRATULATIONS! YOU’VE WON A PRIZE! That camera you’ve got strapped to your helmet has been hiding a secret Bluetooth chip, which you’ll soon be able to use to stream live video to your smartphone.

By applying a firmware upgrade for the camera and downloading a free phone app, Contour GPS users can stream their cameras’ view to their smartphones over Bluetooth. Having a viewfinder for one of these cameras is a huge deal – it’s easy to end up with a poorly framed video with one of these cameras, since you typically can’t preview your shot before recording – but with a range of 10m, there’s a lot of room for creative use (Think super simple surveillance, a rear-mounted car camera, confessional-style video, etc.) Here’s how it works:

The Android app should be available in a few months, and the iPhone app should follow soon after. Unfortunately, due to differences in Bluetooth handling between Android and iOS, the iPhone version will require a $US30 transmitter that slips into an expansion port on the ContourGPS camera.