Name: Opal C1
Rating: 3.75 (4 reviews)

We’re building Opal for anyone who’s primary connection to their job – their team, their employees, their customers – is through video calls. We want to make it easy for everyone to have a professional setup, with a single plug and play system.

An innovative way to update your Opal Tadpole firmware — right in the browser!

I don't think I've ever seen this before — firmware updates directly in the browser! Typically you have to install some kind of desktop app and connect it through USB to make it happen... imagine if this technique were applied to printers, hard drives, and other peripherals! This is a super cool use of browser tech!

@chrismessina Browser-based firmware updates simplify the process by removing the need for additional software and USB connections, making updates more accessible and user-friendly.

@chrismessina Do you have the TadPole? Considering it?

@sentry_co I do have one — it's very handy while traveling!

I think this is cool, but a lot of the smart homes I use now have firmware upgrades over Bluetooth. Praise for your creativity.

It doesn't currently support Safari or Firefox - so if you don't have Chrome you'll be forced to install it to update the firmware?! 😅😂🤣 I don't see the problem with downloading the firmware from another browser.

@g_briel huh, that's lame... but also suggests those browsers need to update their capabilities!

Yeah quite good especially the interface

I purchased my C1 in late May 2022 so I probably consider myself an early adopter. I was very excited to try out Opal because the specs look great, it looked aesthetically beautiful, and I always want to support a startup (especially one my friend invested in). Unfortunately, in the ~2 years of using Opal C1, I have officially "given up" on the product. The TL;DR is that when it works, it's great but it is too inconsistent as the Opal software would often crash (sometimes during a Zoom meeting!) or my laptop wouldn't recognize the camera (recent MacBook Air with Apple silicon). Pros: • Beautiful hardware • When it works, quality is great Cons: • Software appears to be buggy. Crashes in inopportune moments. • Does get hot. Not really an issue for me but I do recognize it. • Inconsistent customer service. When I complained to support about the product, the CS person mentioned that there was a whole new driver I could download. It was not something that I would know just auto-updating the original software driver I had. I literally had to uninstall the old driver and reinstall the new driver. Presumably, this would solve my reliability issues but it didn't.