Experiments in Lifelogging

Musings and observations on the topic of lifelogging, mostly revolving around the Narrative Clip. Sample photos can be found in the articles and over on Flickr.

    Lifelogging

Experiments in Lifelogging, Part 12: A New Contender

So while Narrative isn't quite dead yet, it's future is still uncertain and I'm currently not using their servers and web app, even though everything is supposedly still running just like before their official shutdown in September.

A few months ago, I spotted another Kickstarter project that was trying to build a lifelogging camera not unlike the Narrative Clip. It's called the 61N and is finally shipping now. Let's take a look and see how it stacks up against my (mostly) trusty Clip.

    Lifelogging

Racing to Rescue My Photos

When Narrative announced they had gone out of business, the email referred to the upcoming release of a tool to download all the photos from their servers. It also pointed to a Facebook group for further discussion. Since I'm not on Facebook (and have actually blocked it on some of my devices), I didn't go there and waited for said release of the downloader.

When nothing happened, I did eventually peek into the Facebook group, only to discover that they had announced the downloader tool there and that it was even up to version 1.0.1 already. So I downloaded that tool and let it do its thing.

    Lifelogging

Narrative Going out of Business

I received an email this morning that Narrative AB, the company behind the Narrative Clip lifelogging camera that I've been wearing for almost three years now, has been dissolved as of September 26, 2016.

Well, the writing has been on the wall for a while. In July, they already underwent a "reorganisation", and the social media accounts have been suspiciously silent over the last couple of weeks (e.g. the Twitter account was only reposting old blog articles once per day).

    Lifelogging

Narrative Clip 2: Better battery life, uploader still unreliable

So Narrative is continuously updating the components of its Narrative Clip ecosystem, which is good.

The Clip 2 firmware is up to version 1.3.6 now and the battery life has improved to the point where you no longer have to constantly worry about running out of juice. I got a full 12-hour day with continuous use (at the standard 30 second interval) out of it recently and ended up with 4% battery left when I came home.

    Lifelogging

Narrative Clip 2: Reliability Issues in the System

Narrative is making progress with the battery issues I complained about in previous posts. With the 1.0.0 and 1.2.0 firmware versions, it's now possible to leave your Narrative Clip 2 unplugged from a power source over night without having a dead clip at your hand in the morning. It's also possible to leave it in a dark place during a long day at the office and still have enough battery to record your way home.

I haven't had a chance to test the current state of battery usage in continuous use. Last time I did, I got the impression that the 1.0.0 firmware had actually decreased the overall time somewhat again. I'll be finding out soon enough, as I'm heading for a conference in two weeks.