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FaceSnap

FaceSnap Review: Convenient Hands-Free Selfies

Hands-free selfies? There’s an app for that – and it’s called FaceSnap

Take a look at the App Store and you’ll find a million and one photography apps. Many are borderline useless, but every now and then one will come along and you’ll wonder why so few apps utilize similar features.

Though selfies have been ubiquitous over the past few years (though some would say earlier), few apps have really delved into the culture and usability issues that surround the act of taking a photo of yourself – especially from a smartphone.

FaceSnap Selfie

Classic selfie – this is your TapSmart editor and it’s been a long day

While on the iPhone you can snap a picture of yourself using the plus volume button, so many will still use the on-screen button – which can result in some blurring, alongside the potential for a delightfully over-exposed arm to make itself into shot.

However, these terrible first world problems have practically been eradicated through the arrival of FaceSnap and its hands-free selfie capabilities.

FaceSnap is also a pretty unique photography tool, and has a number of other uses. But, first, let’s address…

The Selfie

The app allows you to take hands-free selfies. It does this through the iPhone’s facial detection technology and will snap a photo automatically once a face is recognized, meaning there’s no need for additional hardware like remotes.

While a tripod might be useful, you can just rest the phone against something to get that quick snap.

FaceSnap Selfie Blur

A lot of the shots come thick and fast so you’ll get a lot of blur – handily, the app can discard these ones automatically

Options are highly configurable, but the standard setup for FaceSnap is that you hit the snap button on-screen, then as soon as it recognises a face, it takes a photo. It’ll then take a couple more before waiting for five seconds, and then it starts again – but only when it finds a face.

You can even set it up to only keep the best ones and discard the blurrier snaps.

The Photobooth

There are a number of photobooth apps out there but FaceSnap takes it to another level with its integration with the Motrr Galileo Bluetooth Robotic platform.

The Galileo is a rotating disc that you can mount your iPhone on. When combined with FaceSnap, it can automatically detect faces and take snaps as it rotates. Perfect to set up out of the way to get those photos of people looking natural at events or parties.

Motrr Galileo

The Motrr Galileo rotating platform enhances the uses of FaceSnap

It all adds up to a pretty intuitive personal camera assistant.

But FaceSnap is almost inevitably being sold on the selfie angle. Hell, we’ve also led with it – but it makes sense when to get the most out of the app, you have to spend a hefty amount on the hardware (we’re talking $149 here).

The capability and integration is strong, however, but whether it will entice more than a niche audience with a penchant for tech geekery, is uncertain.

In conclusion, FaceSnap is great, spontaneous fun, with some key capability under the hood. And at only $0.99/£0.69 it’s certainly worth a play.

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