Coolfly Aura review: More angles, less features

Assembly was quick and tool-free, requiring only a few of the included handle screws. I also like that it includes both fence and post mounting options, the latter of which is crucial to it Prevent squirrel damage.

ScreenshotCoolfly app via Kat Merck

Smart feed companies continue to improve the quality of their cameras using All new modelbut the overall range still looks anywhere from 1080p photos and 2K video on the low end (as does BirdFi Lite), up to 32MP photos and 4K video (as with The new Hibird Pro from Camojojo). The Aura falls somewhere in the middle of that range, with 4MP photos and respectable 2.5K Ultra HD video.

The camera’s 150-degree field of view is wider than that of a typical bird feeder camera, and helps capture all angles of what is truly the Aura’s signature feature – a wraparound niche with small platforms on the left and right sides, where you can stand the camera upright (which displays images in horizontal “landscape mode”) at the angle you prefer. If you want the camera to be on its side (“portrait mode”), there is a small adapter that attaches to the back and attaches to the stand. However, note that while some marketing images show the Aura with two cameras, it only comes with one, and when on its side, it can only be mounted on the right side of the perch.

Portrait mode (camera mounted on its side) allows for more detail in photos, but wasn’t always successful in capturing all the action, depending on where the bird was standing. However, the biggest problem with this camera trend is that the app’s AI definition doesn’t work with it. I asked Coolfly if this was a mistake, but it turns out that’s just the way the camera was designed.

“To offer ‘limited, free AI’ to users without a monthly subscription fee, our Bird ID algorithm is coded directly into the device’s hardware,” a Coolfly rep told me. “Because this on-device neural network was trained exclusively on horizontal datasets, physically flipping the camera…disrupts the local algorithm’s spatial mapping.”

the solution? “If our users are shooting vertically and spot an unknown bird, they can simply take a screenshot and send it to the in-app ChirpChat feature. Our interactive AI assistant will perfectly identify it from the photo,” said a Coolfly representative.

Although this step was cumbersome, it correctly identified almost all the birds I viewed (as did the built-in AI ID). I liked seeing the birds a little closer with the camera pointed sideways, but there wasn’t much difference between the views. It’s certainly not exciting enough to justify the hassle of losing the AI ​​ID or having to go out and fiddle with the camera on and off to switch modes. So, for the majority of testing, I kept the camera in its default portrait position.

Birds on film

The Aura uses the Coolfly app, which isn’t as intuitive as some of the bigger brand apps, like Birdbuddy, but it was perfectly usable. There’s ChirpChat, a bird search, and a Facebook-style “social feed,” where you can follow other Coolfly feed users and see their posted videos and photos. (Note that there were only about 10 users at the time of testing.)

What I liked most about the app is that it instantly identifies all captured birds in the album with a small bird head icon of that species. This helped me visually sort out which visitors were new and noteworthy that day, and clicking on the icon leads to an information page about the bird, as well as an audio clip of the species’ typical call, so you can see if you’ve heard it around you. But what I liked least is the number of marketing notifications the app sends for sales and other unrelated topics. It became so annoying, in fact, that I ended up turning off notifications altogether, meaning I wasn’t aware of bird activity unless I entered the app.