iPhone 6 Body Cam

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While shopping for a body cam it occurred to me that I already owned one... my first smartphone, an iPhone 6. While fully functional when it last powered down it had been "in retirement" for so long that its original battery would not hold a charge, it was spent.

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IFIXIT's guide was an invaluable tool which enabled me to perform this repair, a repair I probably would have otherwise not attempted. Whenever I had the least bit of doubt along the way I read comments contributed by others which helped me to see that what I was experiencing was not uncommon, only unfamiliar, to me.

I did run into one snag which made the process a little nerve-racking and that was having to use some mild force in order to pull the battery free as both of the factory adhesive strips tore / broke when I attempted to remove them per the guide's instructions. Ultimately I used a hairdryer to heat the outside back of my iPhone which softened the adhesive enough to permit battery removal. It wasn't pretty but it worked!

New battery installation was no problem, I just took my time, double-checked all the great photos and instructions for each step of the process and all went well. Shipped with my kit, I did use the 2 Phillips head replacement screws instead of the factory pentalobe screws located to either side of my iPhone's Lightning connector.

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My advice would be... just do it!

Opening the case of an iPhone was not on my Bucket List nor was replacing its battery however I reckoned the cost of buying a body cam far exceeded the cost of a new battery.

As it turned out, replacing the battery was part 1 of 2 with this project. Part 2 was finding a way to "wear" my iPhone so that it captured what was right in front of me and that meant both stabilizing and aiming it either with a vlogger harness or by carrying it in my shirt pocket.

To me, no matter how comfortable, a camera harness is yet another layer of outer wear which in hot weather could become uncomfortable so I set out to devise some sort of a pocket sized rig or device that would consistently position my iPhone so that it's camera lens was always pointing in the required direction.

What began as scraps of styrofoam jammed between my shirt and iPhone 6 developed into a card stock pattern and ultimately into a wedge made with craft foam that's attached to my iPhone's case with duct tape. The tape acts as a hinge which permits full access to my screen while aways returning the wedge to the correct position when its flipped back onto the screen. This hollow asymmetric tapered block tilts and turns my iPhone so that its camera captures whatever is in front of me, functioning as a body cam. For my purposes, it's been a total success made possible by IFIXIT.