Live stream your life in HD to your Facebook friends with the Looxcie HD (hands-on)

BARCELONA, Spain--If you live an extraordinarily fascinating life and believe that everyone should be able to witness every glorious second of it as it happens, the Looxcie HD may well be the gadget for you. It's a video camera that's small enough to attach anywhere on your person that, thanks to its built in Wi-Fi, allows you to live stream everything to your Facebook wall.

Like the ever-popular GoPro Hero range of video cameras, the Looxcie HD is designed to be as small and inconspicuous as possible. It's small enough to sit comfortably in the palm of your hand and light enough not to be awkward when strapped to your helmet, baseball cap, or bike handlebars.

It connects to your iPhone or Android phone using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, using your mobile data to stream the video. You'll need to grab the free Looxcie app from whichever app store you use, which you'll then be able to connect to Facebook. Interestingly, Facebook doesn't natively allow for live-streaming, but Looxcie explained it's performed some kind of wizardry -- which, it assures me, is totally allowed -- to get the streams to play.

Once you're up and running, your friends will be able to head over to your Facebook wall to check out what you're doing exactly as you're doing it. Want to show off your band's live acoustic set? No worries. Want to show your friends exactly how you like to search for coins in your couch? I don't think they'll care, but sure. If your buddies couldn't make the live show, a video will automatically be created for them to watch at their leisure.

There are caveats, of course. Firstly, the "HD" in its name only applies to the videos stored on the microSD. The live-streaming is only done in 480p, which is a little disappointing, but streaming HD video over your data connection would eat up the data like there's no tomorrow. Even so, you'll really have to keep an eye on how much you're using it, especially if you don't have unlimited data with your plan.

You'll also run into problems with the stream if you have a poor connection. The minimum you'll need for a decent stream is a 3G connection. If you're in a 4G area with a superspeedy connection, then you'll be fine, but those of you in poor signal areas on 2G data will be out of luck. Streaming your snowboard run down those back-country mountain spots might not be possible.

I haven't been able to get a proper look at the quality of the video yet so I'll have to wait for the full review to give a proper judgement. It might hog all of my monthly data allowance, but if I can show the world live my favorite ways to pet my cat then it might be worth it.

The Looxcie HD is available now from Amazon or from Looxcie's Web site for $330.