Muku Shuttr Review

Lately, I've been growing more and more tired of the tedious process of recording reference for animations. My dream would be to have a room with a two-camera setup that would record simultaneously, and have it uploaded and edited to my preferences by the time I'm back at the computer, but oh well...

I have found one product that made my life quite a bit easier though. As I haven't seen any reviews for this product from an animator point of view yet, I thought I'd write it myself.

The product I decided to buy was a remote shutter for iOS and Android by the name of Muku Shuttr.

Muku Shuttr had a pretty successful Kickstarter a while back, and can now be bought through Amazon and Trycelery.

It's very small, as you can see above I attached it to my keychain for easy access. On the left side is a switch for OS (iOS or Android), and on the left is the power switch. There's only one button on it, I think it's pretty obvious what it's for.

Setting it up is easy, providing you have the right device. Any Apple products with iOS 5.0+ and the newer products of the Samsung Galaxy line won't require any third-party software. Just activate the shutter, connect to it through bluetooth, and you're good to go. There's a couple more devices it works on, including a few Nexus ones, but you would need to install a camera app.

I tried using it with my Samsung Galaxy S4, and iPad 3. A downside to Muku Shuttr is that since it only has one physical button, it will favor taking a photograph over a video if both buttons are available in the camera app. This is not a problem on the iPad, since you switch between photography and video recording mode in the sidebar. However on Android it turned into a bit of headache, as the inherent camera app has the two buttons side by side, and Muku Shuttr rarely works with third-party apps (there's a list on their webpage of what apps it is compatible with)

After a bit of looking around, I found that there is a camcorder installed per default on Android, it just doesn't have a shortcut. A quick look through Google Play gave me an app that gave me easy access to it. Problem solved!

Of course I had to take a photo of Muku Shuttr, using Muku Shuttr. :)

I haven't really had time to try this thing out for real yet, but so far I'm very happy with it. The battery is supposed to last 2 years if you always turn it off after using, I just hope that it will survive for that long in my bag with my keys...