Important notes:
- This is a Premium+ subscription feature only. To see if Premium+ is available in your area, please head to surfline.com/upgrade.
- Smart cams don't incorporate any facial recognition technology
- Click here for a list of each spot on Surfline with Smart Cams.
Smart Cams
We have recently updated the camera streaming platform on Surfline! With our new proprietary technology, you can now view cams in a whole new way that will take our key philosophies of Know Before You Go and Relive Your Session to the next level! Our new Smart Cams keep a constant pulse on the surf, pulling live conditions and unique insights, making it easier to navigate through rewinds so you can more easily find your rides.
How do I find Smart Cams on Surfline?
Note that not all cameras on Surfline have Smart Cams available. To identify which spots have Smart Cams, look for the yellow camera icon in the top left corner of the camera thumbnail:
When accessing a spot page with multiple camera angles, pay attention to the camera you are looking at on the right side of the page. The camera angles that have the Smart Cam technology will be labelled with the yellow camera icon in the top left corner. Select the Smart Cam from the list of cam angles to the right of the cam player:
What features are offered with Smart Cams?
1. Smart Rewinds
Take a look at this video demo for more information on the new Rewind format:
We also have these articles that will help explain how to access Rewind and download clips:
To use Smart Rewinds, head to the spot page, select the Smart Cam angle, and click the timestamp at the bottom left of the cam player to find the date/time of the clips you are looking for:
Smart Rewinds shows a graph that represents the waves captured by the camera over the most recent 30 minute period. Each bar represents 15 seconds, and the height of the bar indicates the size of the biggest wave that broke during that interval. Bars are colored yellow to indicate if a wave was ridden during that interval, and grey to indicate if there was a wave that was not ridden during that interval. Blank spaces indicate no waves were captured during that time period.
Clicking a bar will take you to that interval, so you can watch the Cam Rewind from that point.
2. Smart Clip Editor
Take a look at this video demo for information on how to use Smart Clips:
Instead of having to meticulously watch 10-minute clips (or remember what time you caught a wave) quickly skip between surfed waves to find your clips. Once you’ve found your wave in the Smart Rewinds, our Smart Cams will automatically clip the video for you to the right length - whether your wave was 5 seconds or 1 minute.
To use this, find the Smart Rewind clip using the instruction listed above, and select Clip under the cam player:
Smart Clips shows a graph that represents the waves captured by the camera over the 10 minute period. Each 'dot' represents a wave starting and are colored to indicate whether a wave was ridden or not. Clicking a wave dot will take you to that time, so you can watch the Cam Rewind from that point.
Once you've found the wave you'd like to download and save, click Select & Preview at the bottom right of the screen:
Adjust the clip length by clicking and dragging the yellow bars on Clip Preview timeline:
Then click Save to download the clip to your device!
3. Camera Insights
Camera Insights provide a summary of recent conditions based on the last 60 minutes of data collected by Surfline Smart Cams; which include Wave Distribution and Crowd.
Wave Distribution is a ratio of waves that broke compared to waves ridden which are separated by the height of the waves. Outliers are filtered out - for example, waves that only broke for one second or very small waves that are unrideable will not impact these graphs.
Crowd is an observation of the size of the crowd throughout the day as well as a prediction for the rest of the day, compared to the average over the last year.
Take a look at this video demo for more information:
4. Cam Surf Heights
Our Smart Cam technology can determine surf height, which will automatically be applied to a spot using Smart Cams.
Surf heights are measured over 30 minute rolling windows to get an accurate picture of what the surf height is truly like.
Errors and delays
It takes time to process the camera data, so you may see a gap in the graph below the most recent video footage while it is processing.
Occasionally, cams aren’t able to gather wave data due to visibility issues such as fog or glare, or other technical issues. This can result in periods without any wave data or none at all.
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