Have you ever wanted to demonstrate something you’re doing with your hands in a video? For example, Marc Loehrwald and I were trading videos back and forth trying to troubleshoot a problem he was having with a memory card and different adapters into his new iPad Pro. It was quite the feat while holding the phone with one hand to record while also single-handedly inserting the memory card adapter and unplugging it again without dropping anything.
Another example is that I want to learn to knit socks, and Jill from the Northwoods says she’ll teach me. We live a few thousand miles apart so we’ve been trying to figure out how she could somehow watch me knit from her house over a video call. But how do I hold the phone to record an over-the-shoulder view while also knitting?
I don’t do a lot of product demo videos, but when I do, it’s really hard to show something while holding a phone steady to record.
A few months ago Pat Dengler wanted to show off a little box she’d made with her 3D printer. Rather than just take photos of it, or try to show all the little compartments in a video while clumsily holding the phone in her other hand, she put on her Meta Ray-Ban glasses and made a fabulous over-the-shoulder video to show off her creation.
I’ve been quite impressed with the photos and videos Pat has been able to capture with her Ray-Bans, but I’m not interested in dropping $350 (not counting prescription) on a pair for myself. This did get me thinking about how there must be a solution to creating over-the-shoulder videos without spending much money. What I wanted was some way to hold a phone, maybe around my neck but pointing the camera lens away from me.
I toodled off to Amazon, typed in a few search terms, and immediately found the solution. I wasn’t the first to think this product should exist, because a whole pile of companies sell products that go around your neck and hold your phone in a magnetic mount.
The one I chose is the “Amorus Neck Phone Holder, Hands-Free Magnetic Phone Chest Mount” for the grand sum of $23.
The basics of the design are a bendable metal band that goes around your neck, and then joins to the phone mount at your chest. The metal band is covered in a velvety-soft rubber in your choice of boring grey, classy blue, or the flaming orange color I chose.
When I opened the package I gleefully tried to put the loop over my big noggin, but it didn’t fit. I noticed a prominent, and easy-to-push button on the side of the piece that sits on your chest. When depressed, one end of the loop slides out nicely to allow you to put it around your neck. It makes a satisfying click when reset into the chest piece. It feels really well-made.
The piece that sits on your chest is a soft, rubbery lozenge that takes away any worry of this being uncomfortable to wear for an extended period.
On the piece that sits on your chest, there’s a substantial magnetic ring, suspended on a series of three articulated joints. The joints are fairly stiff to rotate, because you don’t want your phone flooping around or slowly rotating by gravity while you’re trying to record a video. The joints each rotate about 180 degrees which means you have a lot of flexibility in how your phone gets positioned for recording.
With my iPhone mounted via MagSafe to the Amorus’s magnetic mount, the phone is only about 4 inches away from the tip of my nose. It’s comfortable, and with some work on the stiff joints, I can angle the phone until my hands are clearly in the field of view of the camera.
The only problem is that I have trouble focusing on the camera when it’s this close to my face. If you’re under 40 this may not affect you, and even if you’re of the bifocal generation, it’s not as big of a problem as it sounds. I found it comfortable to first switch the camera to the right mode and set the field of view before slapping it onto the Amorus’s magnets. From there you only need to be able to identify the big button to start and stop recording and to make sure your hands and the thing you’re demoing stay in that field of view.
I’m really happy with how well this works. I created a little demo using the Amorus of a nifty little USB-C charger that Pat Dengler gave me. The charger is called the Sharge Retro 67 from sharge.com/… The Sharge Retro 67 looks like a tiny original Mac and it’s only 2 inches tall and 1.5 inches square.
Because it’s so adorable, I thought it might just be good for sitting on a shelf, but it’s become Steve and my favorite travel charger. It will supply 67W of power via 3 USB-C ports. When the charger is plugged in, the display on the little Mac shows green dots and dashes falling just like in the Matrix. When you plug any devices into it to charge, it will show you the power transfer level in Amps. It’s only $39.
This was the perfect object to explain using an over-the-shoulder video with the Amorus neck holder. Considering this was my first attempt, I think the video I created with it came out pretty well. I did let the charger go up a little high at one point, so if I did it over again I’d work on rotating the magnetic holder to a better position to keep it even more consistently in view. You can judge my work by looking at the video in the shownotes. In the video, you’ll hear me say the Sharge 67 is $50 on Amazon but $33 on Prime day which was true when I recorded the video which is why the link in the show notes is direct to sharge.com for $39.
When I described the materials of the Amorus magnetic neck holder I emphasized the soft texture of the loop around the neck, the chest piece’s soft spongy feel, and how it’s designed to be comfortable. I don’t take any of that back, but it’s not the lightest thing in the world to have around your neck. While the weight of the Amorus is only 8.7 oz, if you add an iPhone 15 Pro, the total weight is just under a pound (at 15.3oz)! After wearing it for 10-15 minutes, I have to say it was a relief to take it off.
Bottom Line
The bottom line is that the Amorus hands-free magnetic chest mount solves the exact problem I needed it to solve. It’s very well-built, it’s inexpensive at $23 on Amazon, and it’s as comfortable as a device like this can be. If you need to make videos while using your hands to demonstrate anything, I can highly recommend this solution.