Jefferson Graham reviews the Google Clips, an odd new camera that takes automatic photos of baby and pets, on #TalkingTech.

LOS ANGELES — Clips is the name of the new camera from Google, but it’s almost unfair to really think of it as a camera in the traditional sense.

Clips shoots 6-7 second silent video clips and photos automatically, when Google decides to do so. You can force the camera to do things your way and compose the shot, but that’s not what it’s for.


Clips, which was first announced in October, finally goes on sale today, at the online Google store, Best Buy, B&H Camera and Verizon stores, for $250.

The capturing device is aimed at new parents, who want to come home to some selected, great moments of their baby or toddler. Google uses machine learning to decide when to snap the shutter. It looks for smiles and movement of baby and pets, and compiles them for you—just the good stuff within the Google Clips smartphone app for Android and IOS.

This is all well intentioned, but are you willing to trust that Google is a better photographer than you are? Or that Google can decide when and where to snap the shutter with more skills than you can?

My tests were with the family pet, Mr. Jinx, who unfortunately spends much of the day sleeping. Still, I was able to mount the Clip in front of his spot, for some bland snoozing shots. I also pulled out food, to get him excited and moving, and followed him to the sink, where our cat enjoys dipping in his paws and taking a drink. (This is true. Watch the accompanying video.)

For these shots, I framed them on the Clips app, which gives you a live view, and snapped the shutter there.

My initial tests using the Google automatic method didn’t produce many clips, until Clips learned the cat, and started shooting random, endless clips.

I then went over to visit a friend with a new baby and two young daughters. Once turned on, the camera shot many, many, clips, most with no rhyme nor reason. It just automatically captured, periodically. Most were pretty bad, some were great, and rather welcome, especially the shot of my friend's 4-year-old daughter laughing and jumping up and down. This was captured when I put on the clip waist level, so it could follow her eye-to-eye.

Setting up the Clips camera was very easy. Just charge it up, download the app, pair Clips to Wi-Fi, and you can start shooting by rotating the lens to turn it on. 

The clips themselves go to the app, where you decide whether to save them to the smartphone Camera Roll, or to delete them. 

The built-in storage is 16 GB, but the files are tiny (just over 1 MB each.) You'll be able to shoot on it for a long time before you feel the need to start deleting. (By my rough math, if 1 GB equals 1,000 megabytes, that means you could fill it with just under 16,000 video clips before you had to start deleting.)

The files are theoretically video, but in reality, they are a bunch of still photos that are bunched together. If you're on the iPhone, they will show up in your Camera Roll as Live photos, that is, photos with a little motion in the front and back of the main image. If you want to see them move, you'll need to put your finger on the screen, like you do with Live Photos, to get them to move.  

To have them show up as videos, make sure to go to the settings section of the app and "Save Clips as MP4 video." The other options are Live Photos, or GIFs, those tiny mini-movies which play for 3-4 second loops. Make sure to share the photos on Google Photos to bring in the video motion. 

Overall, Clips is a good idea, but way overpriced for what it delivers, an ultra-compact camera producing automatic clips with no sound. The GoPro cameras are just a little bit larger, can fit in all the same places with more mounting options, shoot with video and audio and in way higher resolution. For just over $100, you can get the GoPro Hero Session camera, and it will do all of the above, and shoot time-lapses too. 

But back to the Clips. Let's put it this way: how often do you watch the automatic videos created in Google Photos or Apple Photos? I look occasionally, smile, and move on. I never share them. They're too short, and frankly, I'd rather make them myself. 

I'm a photographer. I want to compose the image and choose when I'm taking the picture.

If you're in the opposite camp, perhaps Clips could be for you. 


Follow USA TODAY's Jefferson Graham on Twitter, @jeffersongraham

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