Nova: Off-camera wireless flash for iPhone/Android (Kickstarter ending soon)

[joewalnes]

Nova is an off-camera wireless flash for iPhone and Android (4.3). It communicates with BluetoothLE and is slim enough to fit in your wallet so you can carry it with you all the time.

The goal of Nova is pretty simple: to get rid of those awkward washed-out-deer-in-the-headlight style photos that the you get with the flash built in to phones. Like the 5S, it has two-tone flash, but it has 40 LEDs spread out behind a diffusing panel which makes the light much softer and more natural looking.

You can see some examples of how it improves photos, what it looks like and how it was created on the Kickstarter page.

I created Nova. I'm a software developer, hardware hacker and designer. So please hit me up with any questions you have.

I'm also planning on releasing open source SDKs to allow other app-developers to use the hardware.

It's on its final 3 days of Kickstarter (nearly 3x funded already). If you're thinking about backing the project to get one, move quickly.




Post modified to remove links
While the Anandtech forums welcomes a technical discussion of technology, it is the view of the moderator staff that self-promotion of Kickstarter projects is no different than any other kind of spam. Spam is spam.

We'll leave the post up for now - pending a discussion with joewalnes.

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Moderator TheStu

 

[darkswordsman17]

Nice idea, but I think a "dumb" version with a button/switch to turn it on would be better. You could light things up before taking the actual picture instead of the surprise flash (something I find kinda annoying personally), no worry about using a special app/syncing, plus you'd be able to use it as a flashlight. Would also be beneficial for when you shoot video.

I'd take it even a step further and integrate the flash into an extended battery that you can tether to the phone, this way plenty of battery, some extra juice for your phone in a pinch (or the phone could even provide some extra juice for the flash if you drained it). Granted that'd hit the size harder, but it would up the usefulness factor a lot. Or something that could enable extra storage, that would be a huge deal for iPhone and Android devices with no memory card slots.

But that's just what I'd want out of something like this.

Even better if you can integrate it into a free iPod.

 

[joewalnes]

Dumb version: It's a good idea - a few people have asked for this. One of the early prototypes had a button but I took this out because it added a lot of complexities to the manufacturing, which would delay it and increase cost. It may be something I add again one day, but for the moment I just want to stick to getting one thing right.

Extended battery: There's a micro USB port which you can use to power it from anything that can provide power on the go. The battery life is (well, will be) pretty good with the built in battery for the size, but if you want to carry around an external battery, that's also possible.

Thanks for the feedback! And yeah, free iPods would be cool

 

[bearxor]

I have to agree that it needs a manual on/off switch. If I'm getting the jist of this right, you have to use the Nova camera app in order to have the flash fire.

Personally, I'd prefer to turn it on, position the light with it on and snap the picture using my camera app of choice. I already kind of do this when i take portraits. I'll use a second phone, turn the flashlight on, and hold it far enough away and in the right position to get the right balance.

I'd really like a manual on/off and control over the brightness and the color balance modes. I might be a little off base here, but is that not something you could code in to the app directly? Fire up the app, turn it on, adjust your brightness, get out of the app to use the camera app you want to set up your shot and fire away.

 

[jpeyton]

For a dumb (manual) version: http://www.amazon.com/Neewer-CN-126-.../dp/B004JZI78O

 

[joewalnes]

Personally, I'd prefer to turn it on, position the light with it on and snap the picture using my camera app of choice.

If you back it, I might add this feature

 

[tvdang7]

This is pretty cool sounding.