About this project
meMINI, a wearable camera with the gift of hindsight
$94,300
570
Our Kickstarter campaign is over, but you can still get a meMINI Camera. Head over to memini.com for more information, and to place an order.
Thank you all backers!
Thanks to you, the meMINI wearable camera was successfully funded!
This Kickstarter page will be frozen on February 6, 2014. To follow our journey ahead, check out our Twitter - @joinmemini, and Facebook - facebook.com/Memini
Every day, we share experiences with family and friends. As we struggle to retell the story to others later, we often regret not having captured it on film somehow. With meMINI, there’s no longer any need for regret…
meMINI in the media
Mashable - Tech Radar - Engadget - Stuff.tv - Pocket Lint - Idealog
Capture the past with Recall
Recall gives you the ability to use hindsight. It allows you to save moments in high definition video, after they happen – because we understand that the best moments in life tend to happen without warning.
Capturing once-in-a-lifetime memories and everyday moments while avoiding hours of unwanted video footage has never been easier. Those funny moments with your husband or wife, your child’s “firsts,” or the joke your friend just told - all can instantly be saved.
Memories made easy with Magnatach
Understanding that we’re all different, our special Magnatach technology means how you wear meMINI is up to you. Attach your meMINI anywhere on your clothes or place it down to include yourself in the moment. Being so discreet, meMINI will help you capture a moment, not a performance.
Universal Mount
With the Universal mount you can use meMINI in your car, on your motorbike, bicycle. The universal mount that will work with most mounting systems out there that you currently own or that you can buy. Allowing you to mount meMINI on your dash, handlebars or helmet. Giving you the Ultimate in flexibility. Upgrade your pledge by $10 on any level to get one universal mount or $20 to get two!
Upgrade your pledge by $10 on any level to get one universal mount or $20 to get two! Upgrade your pledge by $10 on any level to get one universal mount or $20 to get two!
Simplicity with performance
We believe we should all be able to capture life's moments quickly and easily, and have that video at our fingertips minutes later. We have approached the design of the meMINI user experience and camera with one goal in mind: keep it simple.
With it's wireless capabilities, cloud-based storage and innovative Recall technology, meMINI has eliminated the need to watch hours of unwanted footage or memory cards and handfuls of cords. meMINI will automatically transfer your moments to your meMINI.com profile.
Stunning on the outside and powerful on the inside, meMINI’s technical features will allow us to add updates in the future, giving you more options to enhance your meMINI experience. With all that choice, you’ll never miss a moment again.
High Definition video
With image stabilisation and 1080 HD, your moments will be lifelike, for life.
Operation
meMINI is a reinvention. We’re taking things that are familiar to you and making them better. Camera functionality is being incorporated with our revolutionary recall technology and the magnatach capability is replacing traditional mounting systems, giving you the ability to do with meMINI, whatever you like.
Commuter mode
Change the record mode in the app from Recall to Commuter, and meMINI will safeguard your journey. If meMINI senses a fall or rapid stop, meMINI will activate Recall using it's inbuilt accelerometer. You can also activate recall manually by pushing the Recall button for those close calls or for moments you are a bystander to. Not to worry if you do take a fall, meMINI is capable of withstanding most knocks, bumps and is water resistant.
Synchronise your moments with a twin pack
Some moments are worth capturing from two perspectives, so we have added another pledge level with a great deal, so you can buy two meMINI’s. They connect together over the built-in Bluetooth link, so when a moment happens, the push of one meMINI’s recall button will activate multiple meMINI’s. Capturing one moment in time, perfectly synced together. Check out our footage with two meMINI's on commuter mode while driving..
Storing and sharing your memories
We know meMINI captures amazing videos of great moments, and that this video needs to be shared - to loved ones and sometimes, to the world - so we have created a unique sharing and storage service to run alongside meMINI.
With meMINI integrated to our cloud-based storage service, you can store and share moments easily right after they take place.
Your smartphone allows you to control your camera, your footage and its chosen destination easily. meMINI’s app means you can connect loved ones to your chosen moments whenever and wherever you choose.
Then there’s the meMINI community. An online platform where meMINI will wirelessly and automatically send your videos, where you can store or share captured memories via email, on social media or with other meMINI.com users. You can even share your moments with the whole meMINI.com community.
meMINI Ta Moko
This is Pip Hartley's design of meMINI Ta Moko . Pip runs Mana Moko and has custom sketched this design for this one of a kind camera. All lines will be laser etched into a dark green meMINI camera, which will only ever be made for this Kickstarter campaign. Here is one we 3D printed to show you how amazing it looks.
Camera specifications
Rewards
Development
Initial prototype and testing
Our first prototype utilised one of Teknique’s existing cameras with a software modification to enable Recall, Teknique modified their existing app technology to allow the length of the Recall time to be adjustable in the field.
Once we validated the concept of Recall, we changed the housing to move from one centralised magnet, to multiple magnets. This greatly increased the hold and functionality of the Magnatach system.
Prototype Footage Compilation
Recall and Smartphone App demonstration
Magnatach is the future of wearables
It was also the first time we began testing Magnatach, with great results. We could literally put the camera anywhere we wanted! We were also able to get it into the hands of users, and observe how they interacted and used it to capture their moments.
Form development
We were gaining momentum, Recall and Magnatach worked, so out came the foam and a craft knife, and after a lot of coffee sessions with different user groups, we developed the design to a form that we really liked and it was time to begin sketching out what meMINI might look like.
3D Prototyping
After three rounds of basic 3D prototypes, we took the plunge and meMINI truly came to life, and the form you see today is one we are very proud of. Ben and I owe a lot to our friends, the team at Blender Design, everyone who completed one of our surveys on shape, colour or accessories and also the kindness of so many strangers, who took the time to talk to us and answer questions.
The people and ideas behind meMINI
Sam Lee: Co –founder and Ideas
The original founder of Snow Park in Cardrona Valley, New Zealand, Sam has always had an entrepreneurial streak. Having been at the epicenter of freestyle snow sports for over a decade, Sam has witnessed many innovations in camera technology, and been involved in the production of cutting edge skiing and snowboard films.
When Sam moved on from Snow Park, he realized he had endless hours of video, but he hadn’t captured the ‘stand out’ personal moments or hadn’t done anything with the tapes, which had since been lost or damaged. It was out of this frustration that Sam started dreaming… What if he could create a product that would enable him to capture the moments he experienced, without creating excesses of digital content, and protect that content forever?
Having experience with delivering a customer-focused product with Snow Park NZ, Sam knew he needed to start engaging the wider community to help develop meMINI. Focus groups and his friends and family further validated and guided meMINI’s development from concept to reality.
Ben Bodley: Co-founder and Brains
It wasn’t long before Sam came across Ben Bodley and the team at Teknique, who helped to really bring the meMINI idea to life. As well as reputable skills in product design and development, Teknique have built a reputation for manufacturing high quality, high volume camera systems for specialized filming environments, with it’s camera designs having been awarded CES Honoree, and Red Dot Design awards.
Pushing the boundaries of what most think is possible, the Teknique team proved the perfect match for Sam’s creativity. A family man himself, Ben could instantly see the potential in meMINI to capture his favourite moments with his family.
Involved throughout the development, Teknique were responsible for creating the electronics for the first ever prototype of meMINI, as well as offering the technical brains behind the smartphone and cloud-based functionality. Their involvement with meMINI will continue, as technology moves on and greater features can be added to this revolutionary product.
2011 – CES Honoree award for HD camera & Red Dot Design Award for HD camera with Bluetooth Viewfinder
Blender Design: Making meMINI’s look
Blender is made up of a small team of product development experts who are passionate about creating user-centered and market-oriented products. Sam approached Oliver McDermott, Managing Director, to help ensure that the design of meMINI was simple, discreet and appealing. Their design language and creative problem-solving abilities are second to none.
Risks and challenges
meMINI is a first of its kind. We know that there are many challenges involved, and we are excited to meet them head on, to bring meMINI to the world. We have been careful to use existing, proven electronics platforms to ensure quality, and keep the size at a reasonable level, to ensure we can meet our targets. The first challenge is gaining the backing of the kickstarter community to produce it, which is where you come in – with your help we can bring this incredible camera to life.
The process of getting meMINI from the prototype that it is now to a fully functional camera worn on your clothes involves the following:
Getting the design ready for production. Luckily, we have fantastic partners in Teknique, Blender Design and experienced manufacturers who we have a long history of success with.
Our talented team is fizzing with new ideas, and we are super excited to be engaging with the Kickstarter community - our end-users - to help refine this product and make meMINI the best wearable camera, period. We will be delivering new features across the entire meMINI ecosystem - camera, smartphone application, and cloud.
We are committed to building meMINI into a fun, dynamic, and sustainable company that is honoured to be responsible for capturing people's special moments - and making sure you never miss a moment again.
Whats next?
We have completed the housing design, and now need to re-layout our proven electronics camera platform PCB to fit the new enclosure. Once this is done, a small initial production run will be done at our factory. Our software teams are already hard at work on the firmware, Smartphone applications, and Web backend as they are using electronics from our other cameras. This is a great position to be in as we are not hampered or slowed down in any way, and both hardware and software teams work in parallel from the beginning.
After our prototype run has been completed, we'll run the new PCBs up and modify the software abstraction layer to support some of the new internal hardware features, and then tune the IQ (Image Quality) with our new lens. This is important to ensure the color definition meets our strict requirements. Once the design is stable, we then take the product through a larger production run and send units away for testing and certification to our lab. This is required for FCC and CE certification. As soon as our certificates are granted, we'll be able to crank the handle on volume production and quality assurance to begin shipping to you, our users!
Our production timeline is targeted as follows:
Jan - campaign end. Design development and pre-production.
Feb - DVT (Design Verification Test) samples ready. Testing and refinement.
March - DMT (Design Maturity Test) samples ready. Testing and certification.
April - Volume production begins. Final quality assurance.
June/July - Packaging and Shipping to customers.
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Funding period
- (30 days)