LiveFrame - A device for never missing the surf turned into something more.<br>It all started after almost missing one of the best surfs I’ve ever had.<br>My wife and I live in South East Florida, a location where surf forecasting can be tricky. The Bahamas creates key holes for certain swell angles, and blocks others. Pile on additional factors like the long continental shelf, and even the Gulf Stream, and weird things happen. Phenomena like the Refraction Swell occur, where sometimes you have sweet chest-high waves breaking in one narrow section of beach, and just 200 yards north up the beach it’s glassy flat for the rest of the coast. Then, within a couple of hours it’s gone.<br>Incoming good surf like this often thwarts even the best surf forecasting models, and goes unnoticed. Because windows can be so small, it is easy to miss even if you’re watching the beach live cams.<br>One morning in November I checked the cams, and saw it was flat as a lake out. The forecast indicated that was all to be expected for the whole week, so I just moved on with the rest of my day. Meanwhile, out on the horizon, a swell was sneaking its way in under the radar.<br>By a stroke of luck I opened my phone an hour later and, because the cams were the most recent app opened, I caught a glimpse of some white water breaking. I looked closer and sure enough there it was, and oh did it look perfect. I yelled to Sara, “WE’RE GOING SURFING!” Sara- rolls her eyes having heard me just say it was flat.<br>Apparently we were the only ones who noticed the cam because we had the whole beach to ourselves. It was an amazing day. Not only were the waves great, but it was some of the clearest water I’ve ever seen for a Florida beach break. Here’s a shot from underwater that day.<br>Sara and I would reminisce about that session often, which brought me to a frustrating realization. Seeing that cam was an accident. Not only did we almost miss that day, but how many other days like this have we been missing? Thinking about it was agonizing!<br>Then, a simple idea came to mind. What if… we just never stopped looking at the cams!<br>The first iteration of this idea was just putting Surfline on our TV. Cool, but pretty inconvenient to actually leave on 24/7. It dawned on me a digital picture frame style device would be a much better format for an always-on use case like this. Something you could keep on your kitchen counter, and take a peek at in passing. I put it on an old Microsoft Surface Pro and shoved that in a janky wooden picture frame.<br>Prototype v1The results were good! We actually saw surf we would have missed. We would walk past the frame and see an explosion happening up in West Palm Beach, and all of a sudden it was go time. It worked well enough that some friends even wanted their own, so we used some cheap Amazon Fire tablets.<br>West Palm BeachNot only this, but it brought a great vibe into the room. It was like a magical little window to a much cooler place. This made us think, “Why limit it to just surfing? Isn’t it also great to know when there’s a pow day in Jackson Hole?”<br>Lots of software and cams later, we had not only live surf, but mountains, outer space, sled dog puppies, national parks, and even aquariums with sharks.<br>This prompted a discovery: Between the different biomes, truly awesome moments started to appear. In fact, an entirely new experience was unlocked.<br>Now we were encoutering moments like a bear staring us down in our living room, or the northern lights coming out in Montana. One of my favorites is when we saw a hurricane from the NOAA satellite in orbit, and the next slide was the first long period swell from it showing up in Boynton Beach.<br>NOAA satelliteBoynton BeachThrough creating the device we realized how amazing live cams can be when you keep them on long term. There’s something special about seeing rare moments in nature live, as they happen; and when the device is on 24/7 you catch some that are jaw dropping.<br>The concept outgrew the tablets, which were cumbersome to make for friends, and it was time to put this on a dedicated device. Something that would look good in your home. Here is the final product. We’re calling it LiveFrame.

Play video: LiveFrame digital picture frame overviewWatch on YouTube<br>Our goal now is to put live cams in the most amazing places on earth (and maybe even off earth if we’re lucky) to catch these moments and put them in your living room.<br>If you’re someone who loves the outdoors and are interested in helping support our mission to put live cams in the coolest places on earth, we’re taking orders for an early adopters edition now. Grab your window to the great outdoors!