If you asked me to guess a company revamping webcam positioning, I wouldn’t name Dell. That’s because I still remember the Dell XPS’s infamous up-the-nose webcam, an unfortunately placed shooter that provided an in-nostril view of countless XPS users for years. But Dell wants there to be a different, more positive reason you associate it with funky webcams, and, ironically, the company is all about getting webcams in the most ideal spot possible.
Dell demoed Concept Pari to the press last week (at the same event where it showed off its Concept Luna repairable PC). It’s a 1080p webcam that can depart its holster with a simple pluck, to be placed anywhere magnets work. The idea is that the camera will continue to send video to a connected PC through Wi-Fi, even from a couple of feet away. The most obvious use case for Concept Pari is sticking it in directly on your computer’s display rather than on its bezel. This makes for a more personal-feeling conversation with your long-distance interlocutors by bringing their view of you to eye level.
“It can be placed directly—anywhere—on compatible displays, in a charging dock, on a stand, or even held in the hand,” Dell Technologies’ CTO of the Client Solutions Group, Glen Robson, explained in a blog post today.