In September, Ohanian sent out a trial balloon. The founder of 776 wrote that they backed a team from Apple, Beats, and others. The quality is mind blowing. Welcome to 2021.
The message was accompanied by an open box with a few identifying details missing. The company and product's name was printed in white on the border just above the lens.
Reaction was swift. Gifs flowed after the "shut up and take my money". It was, after all, a handsome device. It arrived at a technological pain point that has been universally acknowledged. Webcams are not good.
Brian Heater is the image's author.
That is not a revelation. It is not like they just started sucking. It has been a thing that we have been able to live with. You begin questioning the nature of the world by the 50th time you peered into a CNN correspondents apartment.
You don't have to appear on cable news every night to get an upgrade. Maybe you spent a lot of money on a jury rig for a DSLR. Both cases expose a huge under-addressed market. At the beginning of the Pandemic it seemed like a blip, but it is clear that there will not be a normal going back to.
We seem to have turned a corner on the question of remote work, as corporate offices have dragged their heels. It has become more of a rule than an exception, leaving many asking the same question: Where is the iPhone of webcams? It seems simple. Take all the learnings from the phone and apply them to a stagnant market.
2020 iMac Webcam, Opal C1. Brian Heater is the image's author.
It doesn't seem to be from Apple. Not in the near-term. Digital image processing on its M1 chips and the upgrade of the built-in sensors have made some strides for the company. Better isn't good enough for many. That was the thought that sent the Opal's founders down their path.
By the time Ohanian sent out his message, Opal had been working on the C1 for seven months. They had a nice looking piece of hardware in nice packaging, with an air of VC mystery sprinkled in. The company says it has 16,000 people on a waiting list.
The response was overwhelming, says co-founder and president. It was gratifying to see. We are the two most bullish people on the project. The need was very deep and we felt like the market is big. Millions of people would buy this. This is important to the people that are doing this for their job. This is how they communicate.
Brian Heater is the image's author.
In November of 2020, a simple question began the journey of Opal.
The co-founder and CEO of the company asked what technologies were available to them that would make an iPhone as close to a DSLR as possible. We did a lot of research, talking to people in the industry, talking to people who worked at competitors, and talking to users. The overwhelming response was that the technology needs to look very different than before.
A month after raising an undisclosed seed round, the team began building a team of designers and engineers who had previously worked for companies like Apple and Magic Leap.
The $300 piece of hardware has a 7.8mm, 4K Sony sensor and a built-in mic mesh array. It is the best-looking webcam I have tested. I know it isn't saying much, but I spend a lot of time staring into one, so it might as well be nice to look at.
Brian Heater is the image's author.
It may end up being the most capable. I hedge my bets and tell you that my hands-on time with the product has entered me into the testing stage. For a company that only recently celebrated its first anniversary, it is well on its way to an out-of-the-box, plug and play experience.
I will be more comfortable reviewing the product as we push closer to general availability. I am content to give the C1 a longer leash than I do review products. It is an exciting new device from a new company. It has some problems and unfulfilled promises, which is what you would expect from a limited alpha from a brand new company.
The device above the iMac is the final hardware. The software is still in a very early stage. I received a package today that will be rolled out to some customers. Per Opal:
Units will start shipping to the public on December 14th. Customers can purchase a camera with an invite. We will roll out in quantities in the tens of thousands once we cross a positive threshold.
Brian Heater is the image's author.
4K is not running yet. The company notes that 4K video is not compatible with most video conferencing apps and that it was giving users a hard time. We will be relaunching soon with a stronger warning and will be available for applications that do support, for recording videos and the like.
The Audio tab is grayed out when I open the software. The company has some big things planned down the road, using the mic array up front and ambient mics on the rear.
We are focusing on building the markets leading noise cancellation, and using the same learnings to build something else. Without a boom mic, you can sound like you are on a professional show. We will be able to make your sound professional with the inputs piped through a neural net.
The sound is good. I mean work-meeting good, not going on CNN or recording my show. You will want to stick to the mic if you do either of those things. Who knows in the future? A monthly service pack could include something called "Studio Sound", which could be standard or something for professionals. There are a lot of questions to be answered.
How much control the company gives the user upfront is a question the company needs to answer. I realize this is a no-brainer, but in the world of images, too much control can get average users quickly in over their heads. Good quality out of the box is the ideal compromise for a majority of users. The company has challenges ahead of it, such as auto white balance and skin tones.
Brian Heater is the image's author.
I am satisfied with the image I got out of the box. I have done some tweaking. Natural lighting from windows and a ring light help, but I still find myself messing with settings to get what I want.
The company says it developed its own artificial bokeh effect for the camera, which is similar to the portrait mode you find on most modern phones. I have only got a small portion of the way to go. It blurs out my ears and the sides of my face when it is too intense because there is no depth cameras on-board. The stereo camera experiment was done for the sake of getting the device out in a timely manner.
When you talk to users, they want you to give them something. Chugh says that he can't deal with the Logitechs anymore. We felt like we could ship something really good, so speed was of paramount importance to us. We need to be very careful about how we prioritize.
That also means no optical zoom for the C1. It seems like an odd complaint, but it is something I have grown fond of while using a DSLR setup. Being able to crop a shot without degrading the image quality is huge.
Brian Heater is the image's author.
The more mechanical components you add, the more risk you have in the supply chain and manufacturing side. It is more to break. Canon has been working for 50 years to get their lens right. It is something we could do in the future.
The system is able to do 2x zoom without degrading the image thanks to the 4K sensor. The company says it could theoretically do something like 30x, but picture quality is going to suffer. I used my call with the founders to give feedback. I would love a straight-up zoom setting. The closest thing is Facelock. It is a feature similar to Apple's Center Stage and similar features on smart displays from other companies.
It could leave you a bit seasick, and it is too sensitive. In the future, the company might allow users to adjust the sensitivity or just zoom in. These are easy fixes. There are bigger issues. I had to turn the camera off and on a few times when using the apps that I found. The camera gets really hot when it isn't active. The company blames the system for both the on-board processing and the downscaling of the 4K image. It is fixing the above.
Brian Heater is the image's author.
These feel like relatively minor complaints for a product that a brand new company started building less than a year ago. If video quality is important to their jobs, I will not tell people to jump ship from their DSLRs. There is so much promise here. The C1 is an extremely thoughtful product, from touches like a magnetic lens cap with a microfiber cloth to more complex processing.
Even if it still has a ways to go, this feels like the future of webcams.
