Review: CASE Remote (original)
First let me state that I was NOT given a free or discounted product in return for this review. I received the CASE Remote for Christmas from a family member, and decided to write down my first impressions and overall opinions in this blogpost, to provide more information to anyone on the fence about buying this device. This review is for the CASE Remote (original)
and not the CASE Remote Plus 
Getting Started
Opening the package I found the CASE Remote, a hot shoe adapter, a hand strap and a charging cable. After charging the device I picked up the included instructions to get started.
The first thing I noticed that I hadn’t initially realized, is that the CASE Remote requires a hard connection to your camera (duh, it has to communicate with the camera somehow), using the same USB Cable that you would use to connect your camera to your computer. Not a big deal, this cable comes with your camera and if you’re like me you have a few extras lying around anyway. What I didn’t like about this is that since I was using the CASE Remote with the hot shoe adapter, it was a very short distance between the CASE Remote and the port on my camera where the USB cable connects – meaning I had an unwieldy length of cable just hanging there. Depending on how much this bugs you, it might be worth investing in a shorter cable.
Photographer or not, I’m not super techie when it comes to new devices, so I was a little bit nervous about establishing the connectivity between the CASE Remote and my iPhone. I am happy to note however, that it was easy. The biggest issue I had was the fact that when indoors my iPhone kept wanting to be connected to my home wifi rather than staying connected to the CASE Remote, and I had to “forget” my home wifi in order for it to work properly. Outdoors out of the range of our home wifi this was obviously not an issue.
Using the Case Remote
My first use of the CASE Remote was a session of selfies, which I will decline to display examples of in this post (you can thank me later).
It was a little more difficult to establish the initial connectivity with my iPhone outdoors, I’m not sure why, maybe due to the very cold temperatures? I also had some difficulty KEEPING it connected. Mostly it worked fine, but it did just randomly disconnect a handful of times while I was using it and I wasn’t sure if it was something I was doing (distance between my phone and the CASE Remote) or something else.
The live-view display has a significant delay, it was choppy and low quality, kind of like a bad web-cam. For a static subject, not a big deal but clearly wouldn’t work for use with something fast moving.
I didn’t use the CASE Remote for a long enough time period to give a great opinion on battery life – but frankly I can’t personally see myself using it for any great length of time in one sitting anyway, because I primarily wanted it for controlling my camera when I want to be in a photo, whether it’s by myself, with my family, dog, or whatever the CASE Remote allows me to see the full composition that includes me, before I click the shutter.
Setting focus from my iPhone live view is a beautiful thing!! I have heard others say that it is hit or miss on the focus point, but for me it worked flawlessly. I was also able to easily save the photos directly to my phone for easy sharing (but again, selfies, so no)
Overall Impression
Overall I love this device – the cons are all things that I can live with, though I can see where the random disconnecting of the wifi could get to be annoying, especially if you are in a hurry. I can’t wait to use this for my next self shot portrait session with my family.
ps – The CASE Remote Plus description indicates that the cons mentioned in this post have been resolved, and if true, it is WELL worth the additional cost to get the newer model.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-Tressie Davis is a blogger and photographer located in Chelsea, MI.
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