A class CAM is dangerous with the ball at their feet, they’re the players that make the other team shiver! They’re able to change speed and direction at will, exploit pockets of space and score goals!
The COVID-19 pandemic made it even more challenging to meet with colleagues, friends and family, leading many people to turn to video-chat to stay in touch. However, most desktop and laptop webcams are integrated at the top-edge of your screen, making it hard to establish eye contact during a call.
To address this issue, centre cam is the world’s first middle-screen webcam that lets you look into its dedicated camera lens during a video-call. It’s a simple, elegant solution that’s easy to set up and use.
Essentially, it’s a long, flexible metallic flex tube with a small lens cap for privacy that’s connected to a USB cable. You plug the cable into your computer or video-conferencing software, adjust it to fit your monitor, then snap the end of the flex tube into the clip hooks at the front and back of the Cam.
The Center Cam is designed to be unobtrusive, so you can place it over whatever’s on your screen — whether that’s someone’s face, a written script, or a game you’re playing. In addition to solving the “eye-contact” problem, it also allows you to focus on what’s on your screen without having to scroll or pan around to see it all.
As you talk with someone in a video-call, your brain reads their facial expressions and other visual cues to gauge how trustworthy they are. By looking directly into your webcam, you can make sure you’re genuinely connecting with the person on the other end.
However, looking into your webcam can also distract you from what’s going on in the room, which can be frustrating if you’re trying to collaborate or work with others remotely. That’s why it’s important to keep your gaze focused on the other person and avoid looking at your own monitor during a call.
The Centre Cam’s camera-lens is a 6mm, f2.1, high-definition lens with a 65-degree horizontal field of view. It can record HD videos at up to 1080p at 30 frames per second, and it has a 2MP 1/2.9 inch CMOS sensor that’s separate from the lens. The lens-cap also doubles as a privacy shutter that you can close whenever you’re not using the Cam.
The Center Cam is plug-and-play and works with most computer and video-conferencing software. It supports Mac, Windows, Android, and Linux. I tested it with Zoom and found that it worked well, although some minor kinks in the software were still present. Ultimately, I found the Center Cam to be a great way to have more genuine eye-contact during a video-call, and it’s worth a shot. Just be aware that it does require some manual setup and adjusting, so it might not be ideal for users who aren’t tech-savvy or aren’t comfortable dealing with software bugs.