Opal Tadpole – A webcam for laptops | Hacker News Reader

Opal Tadpole – A webcam for laptops

opalcamera.com

69 pointsjnthn117 comments

These guys have spammed me three times today via SMS, even after unsubscribing from all their notifications.

I'm sorry but I cannot take them seriously. Who in hell thought this is normal or acceptable?

Same here, as if an unsolicited SMS with attachments will be effective. I also unsubscribed a while back after reading about issues similar to what's mentioned in other comments here.

They are. Our marketing campaigns are most successful via SMS because consumers haven't yet filtered out sms as potential spam yet and actually read and click. If

Wow here in Europe it's the opposite. Every sms I get is either spam, 2FA or some provider notification.

I literally get no personal messages via SMS anymore and I haven't for years.

I live in Asia and its the same.

Pretty sure SMS is pretty expensive fines per message in the US especially if there’s no unsubscribe feature, let alone one that doesn’t work.

70 degree field of view, equivalent to perhaps 28mm, gives you prominent nose and mouse-face shaped bone structure

to look pro, you want maybe 35 degree field of view, equivalent to 70mm or more

see: https://s.studiobinder.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Focal-...

there's a reason studio newscasters have flat faces, while the people they interview via webex or zoom look like giant nosed clowns, it's the focal length

if you can't get a narrow field of view, you can pretend you have a "crop sensor" by getting a true 4K, cropping it down to 1080p since web conf software aren't sending more than that anyway, and positioning yourself farther from it.

this farther position also helps your eyes seem to be looking more directly at the lens.

Very informative, thank you! Almost makes me wish for a webcam overlay to achieve this.

Former film student here, this is all correct but I wanted to rephrase part of it-

Most of the time, you don't need to worry about focal length ( especially because it's so complicated when you're trying to talk about different sensor sizes)

The real measurement here is distance from the camera. The further you are physically from the camera, the flatter things look. Now, when you're further away, you obviously need to zoom in to make your head fill the frame, but it's way easier to think about it in terms of distance first, and then find a webcam/lens/crop that works.

I use a pro camera as a webcam (with a cheap HDMI/USB stick), and I have it mounted on my desk around 3/4 feet from my face. That seems to work well for my face shape.

Yes! As a film student you'll recognize, "zoom with your feet". Or maybe by film you meant moving pictures, or "movies" for short (ahem).

So, to underline the "position yourself farther from it" part of my post where to go from a wide 4K to a cropped 4K the important part was moving back, and underline the distance from the camera part of your post, readers may enjoy this movie on the "dolly zoom":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tod2qZnKZEQ

The face distortion bit starts about 1m15s in.

TL;DR: To fix your face, zoom out with your feet! Then zoom in with your lens, or crop back in, to frame.

(All that said, if you're shooting faces, aka a portrait, consider a "portrait lens", and for this you're back in focal length talk. Pick 85mm focal length or longer, though I'm partial to 105mm up to 135mm myself.)

I use the Camo software that turns my phone into a webcam and the quality is astounding but it still suffers from the "appear to be looking elsewhere" issue.

I have sketched out a design for a bracket that dangles your phone upside down, in front of the screen and turns the phone front camera into a webcam that's much closer to where you are typically looking.

The interesting bit is that software on the phone displays the part of the monitor that's covered and creates a "seamless display experience" (slightly tongue in cheek).

Not perfect by any means but maybe worth creating a prototype of both hardware and software to see how it feels?

Please make and sell this!!

Some of the things I considered:

* Connecting wirelessly to the computer would be ideal. Camo and Apple's own Continuity Camera do this so it's certainly possible

* There should be a computer companion app that lets you tweak the position of the monitor segment displayed on the phone screen - both for position, offset, color, temperature etc.

* There would be a parallax effect, even with how thin today's phones are - I wonder if you could correct for that in the phone app and make it appear to be on the same plane.

* Should it hand upside down from the top of the computer/laptop screen via a (magnetic?) widget or allow for positioning with a tall, skinny phone stand on the desktop in front of the monitor? Ideally both I guess.. Even left/right side if that made the engineering easier.

The hardware exists - PlexiCam (https://www.amazon.com/PlexiCam-Pro-Position-Anywhere-Deskto...)

I use https://snakeclamp.com/ - you can build a custom arm setup. I use a magsafe attachment and mount a phone running Camo on it. Works wonderfully and easy to move out of the way when it's blocking my screen.

Edit: Sorry didn't see the part about the part that projects your screen portion to the area that is occluded. That seems interesting but not sure how that would actually work...

Thanks for the links - I was actually looking for a new Camo stand and those look handy.

The idea is that the desktop would send the content of the rectangle occluded by the phone screen and the phone displays it, appropriately tweaked, tinted etc. I have no idea if it would work well enough to be useful but seems like a fun experiment.

I find myself using the Camo setup with the phone in front of the screen and I just "look around it" - I dislike the "looking into space" on calls more than the inconvenience of moving my windows a bit I guess.

This is also a great way to not pick up your phone too many times an hour.

Agreed, eye height is critical and hard to ignore once experienced.

I have Camo and used to use it that way. And latest MacOS has it more or less "built in" (mostly less, but it's there). I like a couple different magsafe "Continuity Cam" mounts for the last couple versions of iPhone + iOS:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B722VBX1/

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B5S7X6BN/

But, seconding PlexiCam.

The L clamps' cutout works with most any screw-in tripod mount.

If you get the PlexiCam Road Warrior Mini, you get two clamps and a miniature battery pack fill light:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C164VQ43/

I find these work well with Logi Brio 4K + Xsplit Vcam, or, with Lumina which has all the autoframing and soft bokeh you could want (far better than what's built into most web conf platforms):

https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/webcams/brio-4k-hdr-...

https://www.xsplit.com/vcam

https://getlumina.com/

The other new thing to solve eye contact is Elgato's miniature teleprompter:

https://www.elgato.com/us/en/p/prompter

Thanks for all that info and the links. Much appreciated.

What is the market for this product? I can't see their being enough people who a. have a laptop without a camera/need a better camera b. are willing to lug this thing around and c. are willing to pay $200.

How is web design this bad acceptable? It's insanely slow, annoying to read and impossible to navigate.

$200 is within a typical tech budget spend and there's lots of people working remotely these days. I've spent over $100 on a good mic alone (not portable though).

Reasonably expensable too.

I've actually been looking for a good webcam (with a big DSLR-like sensor) for the last few years, and this seems like the perfect product. Too bad it waited so long to come out...

Most laptop webcams are terrible. Heck, most desktop ones are too. Even the high-megapixel ones have an image quality comparable to 10 years ago, and the average smartphone will blow them out of the water (hence Apple adding the iPhone as webcam feature, I guess).

It's actually rare to see a webcam with a sensor this big (half inch/12.7mm).

--------

But yeah, god, that is probably the single worst product page I've ever seen in my life. When I tried to scroll down to the specs section, it locked itself into a giant version of its logo and I couldn't do anything else. Sigh. So annoyed by the website I left, even though the product is of real interest...

The Insta360 Link does a decent job. Hard to beat a mirrorless camera.

(I use both almost daily for my trainings.)

You can get a mirrorless camera and set it to webcam mode (1) or get an HDMI (2) or SDI (3)capture card that will show up a USB webcam interface on your computer and use a camera with the appropriate output format.

(1) https://support.d-imaging.sony.co.jp/app/webcam/en/download/

(2) https://www.elgato.com/us/en/p/cam-link-4k

(3) https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicwebprese...

How do you mount it to the top of your monitor? Also seems like a lot of hassle and expense compared to a webcam...

Not one size fits all, I'd probably look around B&H camera rig section.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Camcorder-Mounts/ci/13931...

I think the visual and web design is fairly great, felt very appealing to me. It's completely smooth and immersive on my 2020 MB Air (but I can see why it might suffer on other devices and screens sizes).

The product is obviously somewhere in the niceties bucket; no one needs this, but I am happy it exists. It gives me the warm and fuzzy feeling only something thoughtfully designed does.

Me, right now. At home. I like my camera and mic in meetings to be clear and high quality. Gets dark at 3PM, any all the webcams have atrocious noise in anything less than the brightest rooms.

I was using the Opal C1 for a while on my PC, but gave it away due to lack of official support on Windows, and it constantly losing focus/focus hunting in meetings.

But,

> The Opal Tadpole Was made to go with you. Wrap it around your wrist or put it in its case to keep it safe.

Who the hell is wrong to wrap their webcam around their waist??

> wrap your camera around your wrist as you go from meeting to meeting.

???

In an ideal world, I'd probably prefer to buy a laptop with no built-in camera and then add a good quality one; this trivially improves the privacy situation (although models with a built-in shutter are also fine), and as others have commented the default cameras tend to have atrocious image quality so there's something to be said for separating it so people can get a good quality option.

I think it’s a hard sell for people to want to clip and external webcam over the webcam already built into their laptops. It looks nice but it’s a bit baffling why anyone would really need this nowadays. I get lots of pc webcams are crappy but that’s not really a problem on your end.

Low-budget streamers or those who end up effectively 'streaming' their web conferences. People who are using Blue Yeti mics and Elgato keylights or (a directly competing product) Elgato Facecam:

https://www.elgato.com/us/en/p/facecam

which is using a 1/1.8" sensor (8.8mm diagonal) at f/2.4 aperture, and this has a 1/1.2” sensor (13.33 mm diagonal) at f/1.2.

In this age of remote work, there are a lot of people who really value making a good impression - for whom the default webcam in their budget business laptop won't cut it - but don't want to have a whole DSLR-on-a-tripod streaming setup.

You're probably better off with a cheap Logitech c920 since most conference software junks the video quality down anyway.

We have some high end 1in cameras with glass zoom lenses and they look about as good even with dedicated encoding hardware.

It’s a small step up from a dated c92x to a brio which handles color and lighting much better reasonably on its own

Anyone who wants use web conference software should invest in an external webcam. Not only is it good for privacy (I don't trust software solutions, peripherals should have hardwired indicator lights and/or a way to hardware disable them when not in use), it's also a game changer when it comes to looking good on camera, because you can angle the webcam at angles that are far more flattering than the typical "looking up your neck" one that gets defaulted with built-in laptop webcams, and the quality difference between "adequate" and "good" is a big differentiator.

Now, I haven't used THIS webcam, but it's definitely the sort of thing I'd be interested in.

Def value a good camera and mic with laptop.

Especially for extended work sessions or presentations.

Appearing clearer and sounding clearer can go a long way to being better received.

Am I missing something or is "smallest webcam" a provably false statement? My laptop has an integrated camera that fits in the bezel, I own several Raspberry Pi cameras that are much smaller than this, and the word "tad" is doing a lot in the phrase "just a tad taller than a gummy bear".

Don't get me wrong, I don't particularly care seeing as the camera is suitably small and the other webcams are not fit for the same purpose, but my point is that if all I have to go on is the marketing, it doesn't inspire confidence.

Edit: The average height of a gummy bear is 2cm and the Tadpole is 3.5cm tall. A gummy bear is nearly half as tall (57%) as a this camera. I really dislike this copy.

Part of me wishes they used the traditional American relative measurement unit: the football field.

It’s 0.0319 football fields tall.

This is not a "mirrorless camera sensor", at least how it's meant to be interpreted. While technically mirrorless like all webcams, the sensor is under a quarter of the area of the smallest Sony mirrorless intechangeable-lens cameras.

By their definition my phone camera also qualifies as mirrorless.

it's like yeah there's no mirror that flips up to expose the sensor because there's no optical through-the-lens viewfinder either...which is what the mirror was for in the first place...

Seems like a cool idea though, but it seems like it could be done even better: get an iPhone 15 Pro Max sensor and put it behind an actual quality glass lens, then add in the beam-forming mic array stuff and MAKE IT A NORMAL CLASS-COMPLIANT WEBCAM, which unlike the C1, the Tadpole is from what I understand.

Agreed, the line "WITH AN F1.8 LENS LETTING IN AS MUCH LIGHT AS A PROFESSIONAL CAMERA" is also quite misleading when using a much smaller sensor size.

What a scam.

They call their other webcam "DSLR quality" so at least they're consistent in their exaggeration.

Came to say basically the same thing. Not to mention they also refer to their F1.8 "Glass" when their own technical specs list the lens elements as plastic.

It's basically a $10 sensor, a $5 mic, $5 of miscellaneous plastic and circuitry, and yet they want $175 for what?

I might have given all their typical startup BS and hyperbole a pass if it was like $79 or something reasonable, but at $175 it just seems like a scam.

I’d love to learn how to build one of my own from you since it’s that easy?

The form factor here is ideal. Also unclear if it’s 4K (can help with brightness in less than ideal lighting.

My understanding is the same components still have to be driven well to work together by custom software for high quality?

It's 1080p. From the specs

> Resolution 48MP binned to 1080P

That's ridiculous. 48MP should be capable of at least 4K video. Are their yields still not high enough at 4K even if they're charging an order of magnitude more than what the components actually cost?

They don’t have any yields. This is an off the shelf Sony sensor and they chose the cheaper binned part.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exmor

(Non-mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exmor)

Ah, so they only care about money. Perfect.

Also hilarious that they say it's "binned" to 1080p when they're actually only getting the rejects that weren't good enough for 4K! Way to be technically correct, Opal.

Binning in this context refers to the technique of taking adjacent pixels to get lower noise in readings (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_binning). It has nothing to do with binning in chip making (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_binning).

It's still pretty surprising to see 48 megapixels binned to basically 2 megapixels.

I wonder if it could be swapped :)

Agreed. I’m running a Logitech Brio (4K) and while it’s not perfect it’s pretty decent to auto adjust for the lighting in most rooms.

They want some of that sweet Apple tax. Er, I mean, marketing faff and charging extra for it. Just look at their website.

Some people will pay, just for the illusion.

Technically Sonys current smallest decent mirrorless is apsc and I guess the 1" family (25mm) rx100 cameras could count as mirrorless if you bend things...and this webcam rocks a sensor half that size.

> WRAP YOUR CAMERA AROUND YOUR WRIST AS YOU GO FROM MEETING TO MEETING.

Who wraps their webcam around their wrist to go to a different meeting? I just don't understand the target of these ads/marketing.

I suspect that most people just complain about "another thing to lug around", this is marketing speak to that problem. Certainly I wouldn't be that excited to carry around multiple items all day. Probably still wouldn't wrap the camera around my wrist either though…

I could never recommend this. I own a C1 and it's completely ruined by terrible software. On MacOS (various versions, on M1 and now M3), it stops randomly, needs regular reconnecting. I'm on an old version of the app because the new version doesn't even work at all (hard freeze after an hour).

Countless examples from forums and elsewhere of the same issues.

Shame, because the hardware is cool.

Thanks for sharing this! This is exactly what I was afraid of -- that this might be a company focused on the "shiny" and not the polish. The website was a big red flag for me, but most reviews don't get into the nitty-gritty of stuff like that.

I got a C1 too and apart from the crap software it also seemed like the camera isn’t actually (significantly) better than the MacBook Pro (M1) camera anyway.

Echoing this. A bit miffed they've invested in an entirely new product without fixing the software issues of the C1.

For what it’s worth, the Verge reviewer said that the software isn’t required, it is just a normal plug and play webcam with a much better user experience than the C1.

I own the C1, and while I’m no big fan of the software - the quality is significantly better and makes it worth it in my opinion. I have occasional connection issues when I plug it in, but it usually settles after a few seconds.

Most importantly, the new camera does not need any software - it’s just a high quality webcam.

And it doesn't even work with FaceTime! Unless you close the software and use it as a regular webcam. It also has very breathy focus. I don't recommend it. I in fact tried to return this one but they just refunded me and said keep it.

USB 2.0 at 200 MBps sounds like a serious limitation. 1080P is of course more than sufficient for the average video conference, but it seems kind of wasteful to use a 48MP sensor and then discarding most of the information, followed by lossy compression.

A large sensor isn't just for raw megapixels (which are arguably kinda useless in a video conference where most people are tiny parts of the gallery anyway), but the image quality and light sensitivity and such should all be a lot better. It's better that they use the large sensor and onboard signal processing to interpolate a denoise a good 1080p frame than the opposite -- most webcams cram too many pixels into a tiny sensor and give you a large but shitty video. Many good cell phone cameras do the same thing (start with an oversized 48MP sensor, but interpolate it to give you a high-quality 12MP one; only a few let you access the raw unprocessed 48MP stream).

200 Mbps should be more than enough to stream good quality video. YouTube suggests 40 Mbps for 4k@60Hz (compressed) https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2853702?hl=en#

Instant turn off due to that god awful website

>THE TADPOLE IS JUST A TAD TALLER THAN A GUMMY BEAR.

For clarification, this device is 1.75x2.25x1 international haribo gummy bear heights.

I assume an American gummi bear is much larger than an international one.

Americans also consider Haribo Goldbears an international unit.

If the microphone can do what they say (only listen in that immediate area) then that's really cool. (Big if - I believe you can filter by angle, but my understanding of physics precludes filtering by distance; someone please correct me if I'm ignorant)

The mute button is a good idea - I strongly prefer having a nice dedicated button, though in my case it's on the headset - but that placement seems guaranteed to put force on the USB port in a way that risks damage.

> If the microphone can do what they say (only listen in that immediate area) then that's really cool.

Isn't that just some EQing for the vocal presense range and a level activated gate to turn it on when it's only above a certain threshold?

I love this place just for comments like this

Yea, I know, I know, but really is it that hard to implement?

It's not an rsync, ssh, backup etc. ;)

Life is hard to implement :(

Fair comment

That underscore before your name is very off-throwing ;)

I don't think it is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38266165

Something something tiny ribbon mic that only responds to sound waves perpendicular to its axis, something something, shielded from the sides something something. (Sorry, it's all a bit over my head, but it's more than using smart EQ and volume monitoring)

Apparently it uses some special directional mic from Soundskrit. Product page for the chip: https://soundskrit.ca/technology/

The patent: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/94/2b/ff/984fa6f...

PR about the partnership: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/opal-launches-tadpo...

> A first on any consumer device, Tadpole's trademarked directional VisiMic™ microphone only captures audio that the camera can see. VisiMic is made in partnership with Soundskrit, the Quebec-based audio firm that specializes in cutting-edge directional microphone technology.

This is for CEO<->VC calls only. Where you use your seed fund to buy this and then go for series A.

Do these webcams ship with USB class-compliant video? I considered the original Opal but immediately 'noped' out when seeing the companion app.

I purchased the Opal C1 and have had nothing but issues. Additionally, my experience with the company has been shady and disingenuous.

My C1 has been far too hot ever since the day I got it. The heat causes it to shut down and disconnect after using for more than 5 minutes. The only way I can actually use it is in low power mode, which removes all of the cool features and makes the video look worse. I have tried all of their software updates for the past year and nothing changed. I reached out to them multiple times over email for support and none of their suggestions helped much. Additionally, they advertised that PC support would come soon. It never came, and when I asked for a refund because they cancelled PC support I was ghosted.

They texted me ads multiple times today.

C1 wasn't Windows compatible at first, and this one doesn't come with desktop Windows software (only Mac software), if you read the fine print. Something to note.

I already go everywhere with a phone in my pocket, it has a couple of noise-canceling mics and (only) four cameras. Why the additional device where an app would suffice?

This landing page is terrible.

There's a bunch of professional photos of the camera, two with a hand, then two next to a pair of pants, then on a handbag.

Only after all that it is shown on a laptop, where it is actually used! It should be the first image. Also, there's so little comparison between built-in webcam image and their offerings.

Then there's a huge video with a bead sliding on the rope holding the camera. It seems that the marketers are just masturbating with the high-quality photography they made. It's not actually useful.

This is not a problem users were like "I don't know how I can go from a meeting to another with my camera".

Also, their "Have you ever wished you could instantly mute yourself in a video call without having to look for that elusive mic button? Well, now you can have it." -- this is a solved problem with mute buttons on F1/F2 or whatever your laptop does. Or at least, current mute solutions are not harder than "I'm bring my own webcam, plug it in, configure the audio source, position it correctly on the top of my screen"

This landing page is out-of-touch with actual problems users may have.

Anyone with an iPhone + Mac, just get a MagSafe iphone webcam mount https://www.belkin.com/iphone-mount-with-magsafe-for-mac-not...

Your iPhone is crazy powerful with a beautiful picture- if you want to look great during meetings, use it.

No wires- just works

Nice, I want to use one with my monitor so that my face is facing the screen I am looking at

I don't normally participate in this threads but need to share: my Opal C1 is great. I've used it for more than a year now with only one software problem that was solved in a matter of weeks. It really does look far better than the built-in webcam with minimal inconvenience.

The mute button is a good thing. I've got it on my USB mic.

Except for that I don't get what problem this is going to solve to justify the price. All laptops have a builtin camera. Any good or bad one would do for a business call, especially between established partners that don't even need a video feed and possibly spend the call on a shared desktop. With friends, same thing. For anything else, turn on the light and it will be fine. If you have to make a call in low light conditions, that's OK: a good camera might help.

I'm a really big fan of the C1. I'm curious what the image quality is like compared to the current webcam on the M2 Air and compared to the C1. The mute switch on the cable is a great idea.

Yea, I thought having a physical mute button was cool.

Good heavens that's an irritating website design.

That is the single worst site I've seen since winamp.com which told me, with 100% lossless fidelity, that the new version of the app was going to be a giant dumpster full of burning dumpsters full of toxic waste.

It alone is enough to ensure that I'd not give the company $1 let alone $179. Yuck.

I wanted to see full-screen footage so I looked up a youtube review. The footage coming out of this camera looks so... weird. Almost like it was created by generative AI or something.

Hard pass for me; I was excited when I saw what appeared to be a large lens and sensor but I don't think that quality translates to the footage.

> With an f1.8 lens letting in as much light as a professional camera.

Yeah probably not. What size sensor are they using?

No way do I care enough about the quality of my laptop cam enough to spend more money and have another cable and device to carry around. I can't think who this is designed for. I guess they have a target audience, I just can't think of one.

Really sleek looking product, pretty impressive.

The clip design seems to force the camera to sit and a different angle than the screen. Is it intentional, or a design flaw?

What would the webcams that have the best Linux support/quality nowadays?

(And ideally could be clipped on a laptop like this one)

I have been using my iPhone as a webcam for the last 2 years. The quality is just phenomenal. EpocCam Pro.

It's now a feature built into macOS/iOS, to use iPhone as a webcam for a computer

Yeah. I did see that. The phone has to be locked. I kept unlocking and losing the feature. I was confused first haha. But it is pretty darn good.

I’d be happy to see comments on Linux compatibility. Could someone please link to the forums?

Can this camera stand up mid monitor slightly below eye height?

Top of laptop is not always ideal.

How does this compare to current generation MacBook cameras and microphones?

Xiaomi has had this product for years and it's 299rmb.

You're going to get a fingerprint smudges on this lens.

Is this a joke? Why is this camera marketed like a designer watch? And the market category seems absurd: attach this camera/microphone to your expensive computer that already has a camera and microphone built in.

Altogether it comes off to me as parody, except they will actually take your money.

Is this satirical?

The camera coats $175.00?

The little plastic case is not included and costs $50?!?

Am I just really old, or is this web design atrocious...?

I know HN skews traditionalist anyway, but even here, a site this bad stands out.

I feel like normally we argue about user-invisible stuff like JS frameworks and analytics and tracking, but in this case it's a very in-your-face design meant to subvert all the common UX best practices in favor of something chic.

Does anyone like this? (Who is supposed to?) I can't tell anymore if I'm just old-fashioned and grumpy, and totally out of touch with modern preferences, or if this is just... universally bad.

Has a Teenage Engineering vibe imo, which is a fan-favorite here.

https://teenage.engineering/

That one strikes me as "minimalist but readable". It's clean and simple, and you can scroll down and read everything, one by one, left to right, without being assaulted by flying tiles or distracting animations that take your eye away from what it was trying to read.

This one, on the other hand, reminds me of a "YouTubeified" website, where every thirty seconds there's some insane distraction flying in from the side of the screen and begging for your attention.

Honestly, I can't tell.

Literally: I clicked on the link and all I could see was a white dot blinking on a black background. After about 20 seconds I gave up.

Does it change if you scroll down? I also thought it was broken until I started scrolling and the page decided to show itself to me after all.

No, blinking dot all the way down. Waiting some more does the trick.

Their preloader is kinda screwed up and causes a bunch of JS errors on load. It non-deterministically loads the home page sometimes but not always, depending on whether it thinks you are looking at the tab... maybe a race condition in there somewhere?

Just terrible all around =/

It's just comically over the top for a webcam IMO

It's horrible. Obnoxious loading, scolling and I couldn't see the product on my laptop until I scrolled, so it wasn't easy to even see what this "new species" of webcam looked like (page loads better on my desktop, so YMMV).

The product itself looks suspiciously like a regular web cam as well, so it wasn't even worth the wait ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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