Lens: Awesome and Has Bugs

I hate to be a wet rag, but I got about a million email messages about something that didn't work when i clicked on it. I'm pretty good at ignoring email, but i was contemplating unsubscribing. I've finally gotten around to loading the patreon app. Maybe that will allow me to play the things? That might make the notifications less annoying. I'd also request that the shorts last a week, rather than a day. There are lots of days when I won't have time to watch, and that leads to more emails about something I'll never see. :(

As it took me five months to notice in my YouTube subscriptions that you were making your Patreon more active, I am excited by temporary videos but wonder if there is a setting to make them last a week instead of a day. My ability to click on things in a specific 24 hour period is not the best but within a week is more doable and less anxiety-provoking.

Oh yay, I got watch some, thumbs up for Lens from me having seen how it works, very like Instagram stories!

I was on a short break from work, saw that there were 9 notifications and concluded I didn't have time to look at them, then when I next remembered they'd been there they all seemed to have been deleted. This feature needs a 'watch later' facility where I can temporarily save them until a point when I'm able to take time to watch video, and where I get reminded that time's running out and I need to do that.

All things amazing and incredible.

VI, You are amazing. I am just listening. Make true all of your hearts promises. You inspire me to post, you are so smart and loving of

I get that video brain thing. When I spontaneously put something together like this <a href="https://imgur.com/cYTgyRi," rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/cYTgyRi,</a> I have already assembled it in my head, and I can freely spin it about, explode it, rotate it, change out parts, decide if I can make it with supplies on hand, and make it. What other people see might be me just sitting there like a mopey lump, not participating in the conversation.

Can I get email notifications for some stuff but not for Lens? It feels like I've been getting several Lens notifications a day.

Doug the Dogwood. Dagwood. Dogwoods are my favorite tree, I miss them so much.

I saw this recently, animation of humans, unencumbered by gravity, transitioning between platonic solids: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOH8QbO9D1w" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOH8QbO9D1w</a> Looking forward to seeing your choreography from the inside.

I am afraid I am going to have to un-Patreon-ize. I am not really interested in the lensing and the notifications are apparently not controllable, despite my efforts. Best of luck!

I see an overabundance of posts from you! Actually, it's not an overabundance of posts; it's just right, and so are the notifications: one for each video.

The dancing-escher-zoetrope-ish Vi(deo) is really coming along great!

Too many notifications! It's interesting to see but oml so many

Vi, You're folding into Boy's surface!

Lens is similar to Snapchat, which I use. In Snapchat, you can comment on a snap, and in some cases the snap you are commenting on is included in the comment, so that the recipient knows what snap you were commenting on.

Watch Vi Hart trying not to accidentally make swastikas!

I am unsure what Lens is intended to achieve... This may be partly down to bugs in it, often a clip seems to end mid-word, so when there is another from what looks like the same occasion I can't tell whether it is carrying on from the truncated one or not... Also I don't see why they limit them to 24h, I often have no spare time for some days, which means I will frequently mostly them altogether. Sorry not to paint a more positive picture, as you say a more casual form of communication could have great benefits, but for me it isn't really working as it stands...

Successful proof of concept indeed. Looks verrry promising.

I'm enjoying these immensely. The short snippets of brilliance are like little vitamin pills for my mind. Keep going, please. Thanks!

I think Lens would be better if notifications weren't supported, so everybody would be clear that people are just going to miss things unless they happened to come by unprompted. Probably also let creators pick how long to keep videos available, such that they're "what I've been doing recently" for the creator's idea of what "recently" is.

I love the Vileidoscope! Veeleidoscope?

Like Calvin, I have mixed feelings... getting a notification multiple times a day for each Lens post feels like too much and I couldn't find a daily digest setting so I had to just opt out of the Lens notifications - even though I did enjoy watching some of them. I'm OK with that choice though.

I think it's a great idea but not sure how likely it is I'll watch them regularly. I hadn't watched some of the earlier stuff so perhaps was lacking context. **Love** the dog video though!

I get one email per video, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I like the idea someone mentioned of a daily digest. I like everything so far, but especially the dog videos! Normally this isn't my thing but I'll take all the content of yours that I can get :)

I'm getting millions of notification emails. I really like them, but the emails are distracting me. Also 24 hours is too short! What if I'm super busy for a few days and miss all the great content? Love the song about arXiv.

I will probably miss the vast majority of the Lens videos as I only check Patreon posts every couple of weeks. :( But this sounds like an easier way for you to post more frequent updates, so :)

I liked the choreography and dream research videos.

Reference 61 better look out. Meanwhile, I sense we are not completely comfortable with the arXive song. Starts well, mind you.

I don't get any notifications or anything. Would I have to download an app or something? I only get your regular (very long and interesting) e-mails. (Thanks for those, btw. I love the insight into your thought process, especially because I'm a math teacher and often refer students to your work.)

Every time you post a new lens vid, I get emailed about it. So if you post nine videos in a day I get nine separate emails! But I do like to see what you are up to and I enjoy your sense of humor. I will continue to watch, and hopefully the emails can get worked out. For the time being, I do think there should be a better way to comment, but I have no idea what it would look like...

Thank you for exploring this feature. I've not noticed any other creators using Lens, but after watching your videos I kinda wish more did. Watching in the mobile app is far easier for me than watching on the website, though that could just be something about Lens not really supporting Safari or whatever. I've been getting an email for each Lens update. It does seem somewhat high, given how apparently easy it is for you to fill the Lens queue with updates (not a bad thing -- I enjoy them!). However since each Lens post expires so quickly I wonder if a less frequent email alert would lack utility. "New Lens post is about to expire in thirty minutes" could happen if email frequency lined up unfortunately with the post uploading, and that would be an undesirable state. I've been watching every one of them so far. I'm not sure I'll keep up this rate, but given the ease of watching on mobile I may. I appreciate the unpolished nature of them and how they need not always be about work. Indeed, my favourite Lens updates so far have been the 'slice of life' ones. Trying to get the dog to pick up a stick, or suddenly finding an ant on the honey jar, or even just having trouble falling (or staying) asleep. Which leads naturally to the question of comments. On the one hand having permanent comments on impermanent videos does seem odd. Particularly considering how one might never get a chance to see the video in question yet the comments all claim it was worth watching. That could drive some negative feelings. If comments were available on the videos themselves, and expired when the video did, it might be useful? Not sure. I wonder if Lens-replys might be an interesting thing? I've been on the internet enough to know audience comment sections are not always healthy, but I wonder if the fact that payment is required to be here might help mitigate that? All said, I'm thankful you are exploring the option to share short unscripted and unpolished videos with us. Sometimes math, sometimes dog walks, always enjoyable. Thank you.

More commentary on issues Vi has no control over: So far, within the past 24 hours, you've posted 10 videos. That's great! I like content. As far as I can tell, there's no way for me to skip directly to the ones I haven't seen; I watched the first nine earlier today, and then just now I got notification that you'd posted a tenth, but to get to it, I had to wait for each of the nine previous videos to load so that I could click on the next button. For ten videos, that's mildly annoying; if there comes a day in the future where you're producing a lot of content and uploading even more videos to Lens, it will become prohibitively slow and tedious.

> Are you getting a million billion notification emails I got 13 mails 'til now. It's a bit much, but I don't mind it. Maybe one mail a day (like a digest) would be better, since they all link to your channel anyway. And they expire too soon, I'd prefer if they would last a bit longer, like three days or so. > Have you been watching at all? or is it not your thing? Yes. No, it's not really my thing, but I can see how it might be fun. > If watching, what have been your favourite clips? Books and bugs. > Are any other creators you're following using it in an interesting way that you can reference me to? Nope, nobody else I'm following tried it. > I don't think there's a direct way to comment on lens clips. Some folks have been using the community page, which seems to work. Others have just sent me messages on here or other platforms. Should there be a more consolidated way? Or impermanent comments for impermanent media? Hmm! I wouldn't worry.

Yes, I've been getting a billion email notifications. This has been more than I wanted, so I will probably turn them off. I watched the first few, but it didn't seem possible to view them on mobile without downloading an app (quite possibly I just missed how to skip past the ad for it) so I've not seen most of the others. Speaking of, an app would probably be a more convenient way of viewing these things (a little number on an app being a much better notification than a billion emails, for me at least), but as you're the only creator I follow using it at the minute, it seems a little narrow.

I'm getting daily or several times a day email notifications. I can't watch any of the videos. When I click play, I just get a spinning circle that indicates loading. It never plays. I'm using Chrome on OS X

I got enough emails about Lens posts that I logged in and turned them off. Maybe if I used the Patreon app it would be easier to view them, but right now I mostly use Patreon in browser and I didn't feel like getting out headphones to use on my laptop while at work, so I just didn't view the posts. Makes total sense that you make the posts, especially if they are so easy to make, and I appreciate that you're giving patrons updates like that, even if I don't view them.

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I think I've watched all of your Lens posts. They remind me a little of Vine in their brevity. I think I've most enjoyed the instant book reactions, but I also appreciate the variety. I've gotten a ton of emails about it, which is a little annoying, but not annoying enough to make me root around the Patreon website to see if there's a way to turn them off. Also, if I didn't get the emails, maybe I would miss something? Thanks!

I use the Android app, and have turned off the emails. This works very well for me, as the investment time of clicking on a notification to see a clip is really small and unobtrusive - emails are overkill. I've enjoyed your use of lens so far. I liked your piano playing/singing and skeptical book reading reference check/paywall rant in particular (and have now bookmarked arxiv.com). I personally find the most beautiful and honest snippets of humanity are in mundane moments. I look forward to seeing more of yours.

- Yes I’ve gotten an uncountably infinite number of emails (so marking them as read one at a time might be... let’s say difficult...). - I’ve watched a handful (neat ants honey trick), but that’s because I’m currently on spring break. Once school starts up again (tomorrow...), I’ll probably end up watching fewer.

-I got enough for it to be annoying. -I sort of had a look just now but because I'm rarely actually on Patreon it's not really something I've accessed. I am not usually invested in fine-detail updates from creators; I usually back people on Patreon because i am interested in their existing work, not in accessing any extras.

You’re the only creator I follow who has used lens so far. I follow few creators.

It seems like lens is listening to one side of a conversation. A bit like overhearing someone on the phone, but with video? Eavesdropping?

Yes, I’ve watched multiple entries, but we were in DC for the children’s crusade when many came in, so it’s hard to recall them all. I liked the dog sticks. We use water dams to keep ants away from hummingbird feeders. Sorry about the sleep. I don’t think dreams actually have any “deep” meaning. Piano fingers are nearly engulfing.

I’ve gotten fewer than 10^9^6.

I got a lot of notifications, and tried to watch yours and other Lens vids, but all I got was error messages of various sorts, even though I checked that I was paid up to the correct level, logged in, and eligible, it basically turned into an advert for the Patreon app every time, no matter if I was on phone, laptop, or hastily borrowed desktop computer. I gave up thinking it was Patreon rather than you posting these things, and considered leaving Patreon altogether.... But I like the artists I support here. So I turned off notifications and stopped looking at any lens stuff because I figured it was Patreon pranking us again.

It sounds neat, unfortunately due to the number of notifications I got about it in relatively quick succession, I put off watching until later (thinking I'd binge them all in a few days time when less distracted by life) and only just now learned of the 24 hour limit. Oopsie, I guess!

I got 12 e-mails or so over the past few days. To be honest I think 24 hours is a bit short, since I feel some pressure to watch them but if I am away from my PC for a bit they're gone forrrevvveerrr. I don't suppose you have control over the timeframe though. Also just now I clicked the email to Watch It On Lens, and I landed on this post instead, and it's not obvious how to get to the video. All in all I like the feature in spirit, but the implementation could use some work ;)

I got 10 notifications, which was enough for me to turn the notifications off. I did watch the first handful of them, but I didn't like them: the content I saw all seemed pretty inane (apologies for the bluntness, but I think honest feedback is worth more than being pleasant). Also, it seems that in order to watch them I need to either 1) install the Patreon app on my phone (won't be doing that) or 2) watch them on my desktop, which is pretty annoying. Overall experience: -1. Sorry, wish I had some upside I could add to this list, but there just wasn't any. I'd be fine dropping the feature.

Correction: Number of emails was closer to thirteen. Sorry.

I have been getting multiple emails but, as mentioned above, Gmail does group them together, so it's a pretty minor nuisance. I've only been accessing your Lens clips via desktop, so I don't know how much diference using the app would make. Would be cool if the notification took you to the specific clip, rather than to a stack containing all of the current clips and playing only in (chronological?) order. I also liked the "can't sleep" clip. None of the other Patreon creators I'm following have made any use of Lens yet. You're my whole sample.

I watched one or two of them, but came to the conclusion that they aren't for me, so I turned off notifications. Which is fine. So long as they are suplemental to other content and communication and don't actually replace anything, then great.

Lens is briiliant. Your work takes a while to produce, so this way we get to keep in touch more often without taxing you. As for email frequency, yep, but I love seeing them come in. I thought there was some duplication but just checking it seems not. I *do* want the immediate update because it lets me take a break in the middle of a long grind, my normal work mode as a geek. A way to comment directly would be awesome. "The dogget" rules as do your wonderful Alpine environs. The ant was fun and the suggested anti-ant therapy useful since my untidy ways have brought hordes of them my way. Hoping the landlord will be OK with me flooding the apartment to a depth of two-three inches. And I am way interested in consciousness, so more like that is welcome. Like if a robot was conscious like us, what would a conversation be like in which we tried to persuade it that it was not really conscious? "No, sorry, but you are actually just a bunch of wires." "Oh? What do you think neurons are?" "But that's different. Look, I can show you your speech circuits." "Broca's Brain. Hello?" "But that's different..." Could be a hoot. Anyway, I have two prehensile toes up for Vi ala Lens.

I've found these videos to be both terrific and stress-inducing: I really like the short observations and sneak peeks into how the Vi Hart Inspiration Process works, but every time I get a notification, there's a part of me that goes Ugh because I'm usually not in a position to watch it right away, but I know that if forget to watch it in the next 24 hours it'll be gone forever. I wish the retention period were 7 days instead of 1.

I'm not getting the notification emails, just the Android app notifications. (Maybe because of something I set for my Patreon notification preferences?) I have been watching the clips when I can, because there's this feeling of not wanting to miss anything. However, I'm very often not in a place where I can easily play sound, so various limitations of the Lens UI, including the lack of indication of whether there's sound on this clip (versus a silent still, for example), can sometimes be frustrating. (I don't use Snapchat, so Lens and Instagram Stories are my only exposure to this sort of UI.) I don't remember all the clips of yours that I've seen, but of the ones I can see right now the lucid dreaming book was most interesting, and playing with the dog was kinda boring from here (sorry). I'm also following the writer Monica Byrne here (<a href="https://www.patreon.com/monicabyrne/),">https://www.patreon.com/monicabyrne/),</a> and she's been using Lens since late August, since its beta with a separate app. She uses it for sharing "process porn" about her novel in progress and other writing, and occasionally other life happenings and some randomness. One of the longtime frustrations of Lens has been that there's no way to comment on clips; it would be nice if we could add comments even if they disappear soon. Another big Lens frustration for me has been that even with a fast internet connection I often get long lags when the Android app is trying to load or play a clip -- often hanging so long that I just have to give up.

I'm pretty much on the same page as everyone else. I had to go into the settings to turn off notifications. So far you're the only creator I follow who is using this feature, so I don't really have opinions of it yet.

Yes I have been getting many emails. I do like the videos but I wish I could not get notifications from them so I don't miss a real update like I almost missed this one. edit: found that you can change that in settings. Maybe a one a day notification would be better.

I also received dozens of notification emails. The Patreon website asks me to download the app, but Lens seems to work just fine from my browser. I like that some of the clips relate to each other - for example, the videos on ants and honey, or the ones featuring your (cute!) dog.

Oh, and I did install the app. It was annoying until I did that.

I got a fair number of notification emails, but Gmail bundled them together into convos and that email account is my spammy one by design. For me personally, the “can’t sleep” video made it all worthwhile. :)

I got a lot of emails as well and the fact that there was no distinction between the notifications for me didn't help. I just got the app, so that might change (and enable me to check out those videos without clicking through loads of menus and logging in to patreon every time). I missed the first few videos and only watched the latest seven. It's a glimpse of the weirdness of your second channel, which I love. Can we get microwave countdowns next? 😁 also: That's a good dog deserving of lots of cuddles! 🐕❤ No other creator I support on Patreon has done anything with Lens yet. A direct comment section would be nice but not essential. I feel like the amount of interesting conversations possible is limited by the short time until deletion. Artistically a permanent comment section for temporary content would be really interesting but I doubt Patreon is interested in art projects. I think Lens has a lot of potential, artistically and as a more "vloggy" type of behind the scenes look, so I'll be looking forward to the next Lens posts.

I think I've only received 1-2 thousand billion notification emails, so no biggie.

I wish that it only sent 1 e-mail a day, personally. ("Vi Hart has uploaded 7 Lenses today! Check them out now!") I unsubscribed from that particular e-mail notification because it was getting spammy, but I love your use of lens, and my favorite ones so far have DEFINITELY been the piano and singing. (Though the time frame of a lens and 1-handed nature is a bit of a constraint I suppose.)

I'm only getting app notifications. Love all the clips, fav was probably the all too relatable "why am I awake"... Also wish there was a direct comment section on the things but oh well, not a big deal

You're the only Patreon creator I know who's using the Lens feature. I downloaded the Patreon app just to watch them, and I've been getting notifications from the app, but only one email so far, when I didn't watch the Lens video right away. I think this is great, and I hope there's a way to get more subscribers with it.

I have got about a dozen notifications for Lens stuff. Every time I have clicked on things to check it out, I have only noticed links to viewing on one's cell phone. I did not investigate further as I have little interested in viewing this type of content on a cell phone, and a non-cell phone platform did not seem to be available (I could easily have missed it).

My data point: I got the million emails, and it was definitely too much.

I don't know whether I like Lens yet, but will try and see, and haven't received any email notices except your first one. I did watch then, but now I'm puzzled--I don't see any, but am not sure whether it's because they've all expired while I wasn't looking, or what. Seems like there ought to be a link on this page to them if there are any.

I was one of the people getting a bunch of emails, but am happy to hear that this is being worked on. Initally I was concern about Lens, as the reason I use Patreon is to fund creators to produce more content for everyone, not to join a VIP club. I was afraid that this was one more way that content would be produced for select few and then would be lost/locked away from others. In this post, when you explained how this tool seemed powerful and helpful to you, it helped me see a perspective I hadn't considered as closely (i.e. if not for the limited audience/permanence, these videos wouldn't be created at all). With that understanding I think this kind of content could be positive. I really enjoyed the content of the videos themselves, especially the ones with books/research in them.

I got a total of 10 notification emails. One telling me you just started using Lens, and then 9 notifications that you shared a video. They each had a different thumbnail, so I just assumed you were being really (overly) enthusiastic about this new feature. I've got not problem with enthusiasm. ;-)

I got a ton of notifications, wasn't quite sure what it was about at first but I gathered there was a new feature and it was some videos. I had no idea what the videos were about—no title or descriptions—and I wasn't *quite* intrigued enough to click on them, sorry! Maybe it would help if there was a title at least.

I like it, but I've not had emails -- only in-app notifications that I don't mind. I tend to catch up on Lens posts daily for all the campaigns I support.

I did not know what this was until this post and a quick Patreon app update. Now, I do know what this is, and it’s pretty cool. It’s a bit less creepy than Snapchat.

I've gotten lots of email notifications, and some times it restarts the playback from a Lens video I've already seen. It reminds me a bit of the Vine thing. Overall, I like it -- it gives a nice "slice of life" view of what you're up to, and you've made it interesting/endearing rather than banal, which I appreciate as a viewer. :)

Lens is pretty cool (when you have a good internet connection), but the number of emails I was getting was in the million-billions and it was deffo too many

I haven’t been getting emails from the Lens posts. And I think the doggo videos are my favorite. ❤️