Lee and fellow Kiwi Ben Bodley launched meMINI in Las Vegas last year, a wearable video camera that’s designed to record your life as it happens.
When something special occurs, wearers simply press the Recall button, which will save the last five seconds to five minutes (depending on your settings) of footage to a cloud-based storage system – ready to play or share on social media later.
The device, which seems like the beginnings of the technology featured in this Black Mirror episode (if you haven’t watched the series yet, you’re missing out big time), piqued enough interest to crowdfund $94,300 on Kickstarter.
A model wears the meMINI camera
Fast forward a year, and Lee is now temporarily based in San Francisco during the three months he’ll be part of the Wearable World Labs programme.
The programme gives entrepreneur access to tools, technologies, networks, mentorship and investment opportunities to develop and take their innovations to the mainstream market. The collaborative space will also see Lee working alongside 20 other start-ups from around the world.
“I’m really excited. Major retail chains come to Wearable World Labs to see what’s new and emerging in the wearables and IOT scene,” says Lee. “We’ll be able to talk to potential investors to invest in the future of the company.”
Kyle Ellicott, Wearable World Labs co-founder and chief technology officer, says: “I’m excited to have Sam and the meMINI team as part of the growing Wearable World Labs family. As a company, their empathetic focus couldn’t be more perfect for the wearables industry, by giving people the ability to capture and relive life’s most precious moments without the constant worrying.”
meMINI is set to launch in April this year, 16 months after its launch. Through that time, there’s been a significant upgrade in the camera’s hardware that includes smaller battery with increased battery life and improved image quality.
“We have built a camera in 1.5 years – but also doing something that no one else is doing, so there are challenges in that alone. We are incredibly ambitious and that ambition is driving us to create something pretty special.”
