Residential Egocentric Video Capture — Job Description
Mount your phone on a chest or head strap and film yourself doing real household work from your own point of view, at your natural speed, talking through what you are doing. The most important rule: keep both hands in frame while you work.
- Role — Video capture contributor — records and narrates first-person footage of their own household activities
- Location — Remote, in the contributor’s own home
- Deliverable — Approved video clips, 5 minutes to 2 hours each, one continuous take, narrated
- Equipment — Approved smartphone (iPhone 11+, Pixel 6+, Galaxy S21+) and a chest, neck, or head strap
- Experience — None required — no degree and no prior gig work. Onboarding and one unpaid practice clip provided.
What this work is
We are building AI that understands the physical world the way people do — how we fix things, build things, care for a home and move through it. To do that we need real footage of everyday life shot from a first-person point of view: video from a camera worn on the body, showing the world through the contributor’s own eyes and hands.
Every clip is narrated. Contributors describe what they are doing out loud while they do it. The spoken track is not a commentary added on top — it is half of what we are collecting. A model learns far more from footage of a repair paired with the person saying which part they are removing and why than it does from the same footage in silence. A clip with no narration is not usable, however good the picture is.
Contributors create the original footage and audio themselves. This is data collection, not labeling or annotation — they produce the raw material rather than review anyone else’s work.
This project does not collect kitchen or cooking work, and does not collect laundry. Those are the two most common activities in existing footage libraries, so they are deliberately out of scope here. The work we need is repair, assembly, yard, vehicle, technical, and care tasks.
What a contributor does
We send a list of activities we currently need. The contributor picks the ones that fit their day, and for each clip:
- Straps on the phone and runs the 10-second test below.
- Films one everyday household activity start to finish, at a natural pace, in one continuous take, narrating as they go.
- Uploads the original file through the contributor portal and tags it with the activity and a short description.
- Responds to quality feedback and re-records if a clip does not pass review.
Every clip is checked automatically for file integrity, resolution, length, and duplicates, then reviewed by a person. Nothing is approved by default, so expect feedback on early clips.
Who can do this
- Access to a private residential space they are authorized to film in — their own home, or one where every adult occupant consents.
- Reliable internet for uploading large video files. A two-hour clip at 1080p is a large upload.
- Ability to follow written filming instructions precisely and stay consistent across submissions.
- Comfortable being recorded in their own environment and speaking while they work. Their face will not be in frame, but their hands, voice, and home will be.
- Helpful but not required: a hobby or trade involving detailed manual work.
Equipment
Both are required to start.
- An approved device — iPhone 11 or newer, Pixel 6 or newer, or Galaxy S21 or newer. Older phones do not meet our resolution and stabilization specs.
- A body mount. A chest mount is preferred. A neck strap or head strap is fine where a task needs a different angle to keep both hands in view. A snug DIY strap works. Example: TELESIN magnetic neck mount with chest strap (amazon.com/dp/B0CX96W966), roughly $20–30.
Setting up your camera
Mount the phone
- Chest mount is the default: phone at chest level, sideways (landscape), lens facing forward. A head or neck strap is fine when the task needs a different angle.
- Tilt it down far enough that both hands and the area in front of you stay in view.
- Tighten the strap so it does not slip when you look down or move around.
- Use one mount for the whole clip. Switching from chest to head partway through means the clip is rejected. If you want to change, stop and start a new clip.
Camera settings
- Set the camera to 1080p at 30 fps or better.
- Use the widest lens you have. If your phone has a 0.5x or 0.6x wide lens, use it. If not, 1x is fine.
- Leave the sound on — narration is required on every clip.
- Use the rear camera, never the selfie camera. One camera only: no dual-camera or 3D modes, no tripods, no propping the phone up somewhere and walking into shot.
Test it first — before every session
Record 10 seconds and watch it back. You should see both hands and the area you are working on, clearly lit and in focus. If not, adjust the tilt or the strap and test again.
Talking through the work
Every clip on this project is narrated. Say what you are doing as you do it — the step you are on and the objects you are handling — at a normal speaking pace. It does not need to be polished.
- Narrate in whichever language you speak most naturally. English is not required.
- It has to be your own voice, recorded live while you film. Voice-over added afterwards, an AI or computer voice, or someone else narrating for you all mean the clip is rejected.
- A silent clip is rejected, however good the footage is.
What we look for
A clip that misses any of these gets sent back.
- Both hands in frame at least 90% of the time you are actively working. This is the single most common reason a clip is rejected.
- More than 90% of the clip is active work. Waiting on something, watching, or standing idle does not count. Cut long waits by stopping and starting a new clip.
- One continuous take. Start to finish on a single session, no cuts, no pausing mid-task. Upload the original file — no edits, filters, or trims.
- 5 minutes to 2 hours per clip. Anything shorter or longer is rejected. Check battery and free storage before a long take.
- Real variety within the clip. A task that moves along naturally, including switching between related sub-tasks. Repeating one action over and over for a long stretch is rejected.
- Landscape. Turn the phone sideways, never vertical.
- Steady camera, even lighting, clean lens. The work area stays in view. No wild swinging, no covering the lens.
- Natural pace, no staging. Do not perform for the camera or repeat actions for effect. Film work you were going to do anyway.
- Your own footage. Filmed by you, on this project. Anything downloaded, taken from elsewhere, or submitted twice is rejected.
Multi-session tasks: film each session as its own clip. Activities you come back to later (a repair in stages, a plant that needs checking, a room you organize over a weekend) are valuable. Note in the description that a clip continues an earlier one.
Keep it varied. There is a cap on how many hours we accept of the same task in the same setting, so filming the same job in the same spot over and over stops being useful. Spread across different activities and different areas of your home.
Privacy and consent — non-negotiable
- Everyone in frame must consent. Every adult who appears or is heard signs a consent form before the clip is submitted. Do not film anyone who has not agreed.
- No children on camera unless we have explicitly approved it in advance for a specific activity, with documented guardian consent. Default: keep minors out of frame.
- No bathrooms. No bedrooms with anyone undressed. No intimate or medical-care footage. Nothing that would embarrass or expose a member of the household.
- Keep sensitive material out of frame — screens showing passwords, banking, or messages; mail and documents with addresses; medical paperwork; ID cards; licence plates. Take extra care when the activity involves sorting documents or mail, or working on a vehicle. A pre-capture checklist is provided.
- The contributor is in control. They choose the rooms, the timing, and the activities. Nothing records unless they start it, and they can delete or withdraw a clip during the review window.
- We never ask anyone to film neighbors, public spaces without permission, or any person secretly.
All footage is attested as real — no synthetic, staged-for-camera, or re-used material — and PII-free.
Activity mix
Activities are assigned to keep the overall collection on this mix. Kitchen, cooking, and laundry are not collected on this project.
- 16% — Home repair — furniture repair, wall patching, doors, locks, caulking, fixture swaps
- 14% — Assembly — flat-pack furniture, shelving, TV and curtain mounting, smart-home devices
- 14% — Yard — planting, weeding, pruning, mowing, composting, irrigation
- 12% — Home cleaning — decluttering, closets and garage, windows, floors, bathrooms
- 10% — Vehicle — washing, fluids, tire changes, chain and brake maintenance at home
- 8% — Painting — interior painting, sanding, staining, varnishing, drywall touch-ups
- 8% — Tech — PC assembly, router and network setup, AV setup, troubleshooting
- 6% — Textile — sewing repairs, hemming, buttons and zippers, shoe care
- 6% — Pet care — grooming, washing, cage and tank cleaning, gear preparation
- 6% — Exterior — gutters, pressure washing, fence and deck repair, weatherproofing
Pay: $8.00 - $12.00 per hour
Benefits:
People with a criminal record are encouraged to apply
Work Location: Remote
