GoPro cameras were a revolution in the world of video, enabling a level of high-action photography with a low-cost, out-of-the-box solution. In general, there's a growing number of rugged outdoor devices for capturing video, pictures and sound — but there's still a stumbling block for people who venture to the corners of the earth with their cameras in tow. This week, we're looking at the Gnarbox, which could be the final piece of the puzzle for outdoor action photographers.
The Good
What's the one stumbling block I mentioned? Simple: dealing with all your footage. A day out with a GoPro at full resolution generates gigabytes of video, leaving you with two main options, neither of them great. You can carry a bunch of backup memory cards for the camera, or you can add a laptop to your travelling kit — largely negating the ability to just toss a bunch of extremely rugged gear in your bag without fear of damage (or requiring the purchase of a rugged outdoor laptop — something far rarer and more expensive than a camera).
Gnarbox is the new third option: a tiny, heavy-duty device that's halfway to being a full-fledged computer. It has 128gb of internal storage, so you can quickly load it up with the day's footage (by USB or with the built-in SD card reader), but that's just the beginning: it also has its own GPU and CPU, and serves as a WiFi hotspot to create a local network. This means that once you've got the footage loaded up, you can wirelessly connect to the Gnarbox with your smartphone, control it via the app, and actually start editing and sharing videos — even full-resolution 4K ones. Not only does this eliminate the problem of dealing with all your footage and clearing off your camera for the next day's adventure, it also makes it easy to rapidly share the videos you are creating without needing to wait until you reach a computer-equipped home base.
The (Not Actually) Bad
In many of these Awesome Stuff posts, I've bemoaned the fact that otherwise-cool devices are so often limited by the choice to make them exclusively smartphone-controlled. But the Gnarbox is a different case: its entire purpose is to replace more robust computers in situations where they aren't ideal, and to bring a level of video editing capability to your phone that was formerly the exclusive realm of higher-power devices. So, for once, I have no complaints about the fact that it requires the use of an Android or iOS app, since if you're near a desktop or laptop then you don't have any need for it to begin with. That's the right reason to build a smartphone-only device: not because you want to lock people in to your proprietary app or you want to block power-users from getting into the nuts and bolts of your product, but in order to bring a new capability to smartphones that they didn't have before. Editing 128gb of 4k footage certainly qualifies.
The Inexpensive
If any of this has piqued your interest, now is the time to go check out the Gnarbox, because there are some pretty great deals for Kickstarter backers. Even the projected retail price of $250 is attractive for such a device, but the Kickstarter rewards knock 40% off that price and let you order one for only $150, two for only $279, or a big pack of ten for only $100 a pop. But be warned, these are all limited quantities, and not just for the early bird prices but for the device itself — the initial Kickstarter run of 1000 Gnarboxes is already down to less than 200, so there doesn't seem to be much time left.
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