REVIEW – If you had told me just 3 years ago that I would be spending hours a day sitting in front of my computer in video meetings with other people, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. But we are in a new world, eh? Video meetings are now a big part of how we do business with each other, and just like me, you can probably rattle off a list of things that you don’t like about it. One of the biggest things I don’t like is the feeling of not being able to really look at somebody. You can always tell where the other person’s camera is located because they are looking at your image on their screen and not looking at their camera. Because let’s be honest, if you look at the camera, you’ll never see anybody else’s body language or expressions because you are staring at the black hole that is the video camera. Look at the camera and you don’t see anybody else. Look at the screen image of their face and it looks like you aren’t looking at them. Neither choice is good. Wouldn’t it be great if the camera was actually in the middle of your screen so that when you look at the camera it looks like you are looking in their eyes? Yeah, it would. So let’s look at one of the first solutions to solve that problem. The $129 iContact camera.
The iContact camera is a small USB-C webcam on the end of a slim plastic arm that hangs down from the top of your computer screen and extends down toward the center of your screen. Student Response Clicker
The iContact camera is a small round camera at the end of a 4 inch narrow plastic extension. At the top of the plastic extension there’s a piece that is attached at a 90-degree angle and the cable extends out from the back. So you use the iContact camera by placing the camera on the top of your monitor/laptop, with the 4 inch arm with the camera on the end extending down the front of your screen and the cable extending down the back of your monitor. The manufacturer says that it works with monitors that are between 1/8 and ½ inch thick. But my monitor at work is much thicker than that, and as you can see from the picture below, it works.
I got the zippered case with the camera, which is an extra cost, but for the person that travels alot and takes the iContact camera with them, this would be very handy since the cable is fairly long. The length of the cable is almost 3 ft long, which is fine if you are using the camera with your laptop, but it wasn’t long enough for me to get the cable under my desk to my computer. Luckily, my monitors have USB ports on the back so I was able to connect the cable to my monitor. Now, the end of the camera cable is USB-C, and the USB ports on my monitor are USB-A. So I had to use a USB-C to USB-A adapter to make the connection work. I imagine that many people will use their laptop with the iContact camera, so the length of the cable won’t matter and most laptops these days have a USB-C port.
When I first used the camera it was badly out of focus. So I had to twist the dial around the camera lens to get it focused (see closeup picture below), which was fine. It would be nice if the camera had an auto-focus feature, but it doesn’t. I then discovered that because the resolution is 1080p, my image appeared much closer to the lens than the other webcams that I use. So I actually have to sit back from the screen a little bit more for my image to look good on the screen. I do wish the resolution was higher for a camera at this price.
I love the fact that this camera extends down into my screen and allows me to position the other person’s face directly under the camera lens, so it looks like I am looking directly in their eyes. Here are some pictures of video meetings that I recently had. In the first picture, it shows my old webcam on the monitor and my colleague appears to be looking down, in the second picture you see the iContact camera on the monitor with another colleague looking down, and in the 3rd picture, you can see me appearing to look directly into their eyes using the iContact camera.
As mentioned above, the length of the arm that extends down the screen is 4 inches. I do wish I could adjust this to make it longer because when I expand my video meeting to full screen and you have the meeting window set to ‘gallery mode’ where I see everyone in a grid like pattern, even the iContact camera doesn’t provide much help. My eyes jump around to whomever is talking and it prevents me from looking directly at the iContact camera. So I usually have to switch my meeting window to ‘speaker mode’ so that the person speaking pops into the center of the window (like the images I show above) and allows me to have the iContact camera closer to their face so I can look directly in their eyes.
The final things I could say about this camera are 2 things that could be better about the iContact camera. I wish the audio was a little better. It wasn’t terrible for me, but you can tell that the audio is average quality at best. The second thing is a small thing, but worth mentioning. The other webcams that I own have a privacy cover that you can slide over the camera when you don’t want to broadcast your image. It’s a little thing, but I wish the iContact camera had one. Is it a deal breaker? No, it’s not.
The iContact camera solves my problem of getting others to see me making direct eye contact with them, and it does it well. For that, I love it. But it doesn’t solve the problem on the other end for the other person. They are still looking down and not making eye contact with me. So the camera benefits others more than it does me. It’s not a complaint against the iContact camera, just an observation. I guess everyone needs an iContact camera, right? Because of the reality of where the camera is sitting (in the middle of my screen) it’s awkward to leave the camera in place outside of the times I am using the camera. So I basically have to remove it from my monitor when I am not video conferencing. You’ll have to accept that fact if you are going to use a camera like this. However, iContact has a Pro version of this camera that sits on top of the monitor and the camera arm folds down when you need it, and folds up out of the way when not in use. But it is $40 more expensive. I use the iContact camera at work, so I don’t travel with it, but the carrying case would be nice for those that do. At this price, I do think that the resolution needs to be higher to provide a higher quality image and the audio needs to be better. But according to my observations and research of other cameras of this type, the same situation exists in those cameras and the prices are similar. So if you want this type of camera right now, the iContact camera is not a bad choice.
Price: $129.00 Where to buy: iContact Source: The sample of this product was provided by iContact.
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