I keep seeing that PV500 is the way to go, but is there something else that can be used, especially for women? I'd love a camera necklace but I'm not sure if the quality would be any good.

Walesmaven is the female expert on this.

All necklace cameras that have looked even potentially useful have been tested by the MSC video experts and all have failed. Several problems, any one of which disqualifies them:
1.They move around so 80 % capture rate of acceptable view of the target is not maintained.
2. Short battery life. The best had 40 minutes which is not nearly enough for a new car, assisted living or home shop and marginal for apartment shops.
3. Fail to meet video standards at all, or fail in low light conditions, or both.
4. Easily detected by the target.
5. Hard to adjust for proper "height" to capture enough target types.
6. High user failure rate because they tend to lack reliable indicators as to being on or off.
7. Hard to conceal the wires to the recording unit and battery, and the wiring is also fragile.

The PV-500 uses a shirt button to cover the camera, which is inserted through the backside of a buttonhole on a shirt or blouse. They are the rig of choice for all female and male shoppers who take video MS seriously because many video clients will not accept cell phone video. ALL accept PV-500 video. (See minor exceptions below.) The shirt conceals the wire to the recording device and battery pack. That is easily concealed in a pants or skirt pocket or in a small waist bag.

Exceptions: For short (10 minutes for some models, up to 30 minutes for others) videos requiring head-mounted camera, the ones of choice are either embedded in glasses or concealed in an ear-mount that looks like the stick mike for a cell phone. Only shoppers who do specialty shops where a shirt-mounted cam will not capture the subject and only short interactions occur, would use these. For instance, drive-thru situations; places where the camera may need to "look around a corner."

Note: many glasses cams have very high user error/failure rates as well as very short useful life (not due to jsut battery failure). In addition, they are so remarkably "clunky" looking that some targets actually have a display of an ad for them in the target's work area. (Verified by several alert shoppers of garage valet services.)

Edited because I have not yet had morning coffee.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/2019 01:15PM by walesmaven.