Failing To See The Obvious

There is the proverb saying the darkest place is under the candlestick. And it is so true when looking around and seeing the obvious things not happening. Especially in product design.

I blogged about digital camera companies many times in the past and there is one theme in common. They struggle to survive, being killed by camera - enabled smartphones. Yet consistently they keep pushing themselves into the grave. E.g., the lack of standard connectivity options is so evident. Sharing a photo taken with a dedicated camera is tedious, painful and only a small elite of enthusiasts are doing that. The lack of protection against accidental deletion of a photo is another gap, solved 30 years ago by Windows and Macs by the concept of a wastebasket / trash bin.

And now when the still cameras have gained video recording capabilities, the sound recording part is completely unsolved.

OK, the cameras have 3.5mm microphone jacks. That is it. And then you can buy a clunky set of wireless microphones with a separate receiver, multiple charging and connectivity cables for a few hundred dollars. The leading "lavalier" microphone systems (such as the Rode Wireless Go) are clunky too. Messy charging cables, unintuitive control interfaces and high prices.

At the same time for the last couple of years the world has followed the original Apple AirPods design and now just about any smartphone vendor offers very good quality "truly" wireless airbuds, with equally good microphones for phone conversations and internet audio conferencing.

All these wireless airbuds are based on Bluetooth.

Bluetooth is also present in just about any video - capable camera, be it Nikon or Canon or Sony or any other brand.

Yet none of these camera makers figured out they could use Bluetooth to connect the camera to the airbuds, enabling seamless high quality audio recording. None of them. While it basically is a piece of software, which would enable the Bluetooth A2DP profile on the camera, which then could be paired with headphones like smartphones are. In particular I am looking now at Sony, who produces headphones, cameras, and phones. So they have everything at hand, ready. 

It is just that nobody in the product teams has ever thought of connecting microphone - enabled headphones to a camera. Yes it is probably easier to moan about the shrinking camera market. A self-fulfilling prophecy.