Coolfly Aura Review: More Angles, Fewer Advantages

Source: Wired

Assembly was quick and tool‑free, requiring only a handful of included knob screws. I also like that it included both fence‑ and pole‑mounting options, the latter of which is critical for preventing squirrel damage.

The Aura falls somewhere in the middle of the smart‑feeder camera range, offering 4‑MP photos and a respectable 2.5K Ultra HD video. Its 150‑degree field of view is wider than that of a typical bird‑feeder camera and helps capture all angles of the Aura’s signature feature—a wraparound perch with little platforms on the left and right sides.

Assembly and Mounting

The camera can be positioned upright (horizontal “landscape mode”) at the angle you prefer. If you want the camera on its side (vertical “portrait mode”), a small adapter connects to the back and screws into the platform. Note that, despite some marketing photos showing the Aura with two cameras, it only comes with one camera, and when mounted vertically it can only be placed on the right side of the perch.

Portrait Mode

Portrait mode (camera mounted on its side) allows for greater detail in photos, but it isn’t always successful at capturing all the action, depending on where a bird stands. The biggest issue with this orientation is that the app’s AI identification doesn’t work.

“To offer users ‘Limited Free AI’ without monthly subscription fees, our bird ID algorithm is hardcoded directly into the device’s hardware,” a Coolfly representative explained. “Because this on‑device neural network was trained exclusively on horizontal datasets, physically flipping the camera … disrupts the local algorithm’s spatial mapping.”

Solution:
“If our users shoot vertically and spot an unknown bird, they can simply take a screenshot and send it to our in‑app ChirpChat feature. Our interactive AI assistant will identify it perfectly from the image,” the rep added.

Although this extra step was cumbersome, it correctly identified nearly all of the birds I submitted (as did the built‑in AI ID). The side‑camera view showed birds slightly closer up, but the difference wasn’t dramatic enough to justify losing AI ID or constantly swapping the camera mount. For most of the testing, I kept the camera in its default upright position.

Birds on Film

The Aura uses the Coolfly app, which isn’t as intuitive as some of the bigger brands’ apps (e.g., Birdbuddy’s), but it is perfectly usable. Features include:

• ChirpChat – a bird search and chat assistant.
• Social feed – a Facebook‑style stream where you can follow other Coolfly feeder users (there were only about 10 users at the time of testing).

What I liked most was the immediate ID of each bird capture in the album, indicated by a small bird‑head icon. Clicking the icon opens an informational page with a sound clip of the species’ typical call, making it easy to verify if you’ve heard it nearby.

What I liked least was the volume of marketing push notifications for sales and other irrelevant topics. They became so irritating that I turned off notifications altogether, meaning I only saw bird activity when I opened the app.