More than a decade ago, Peak Design rethought the humble camera strap. This was a necessary development. When you buy a camera, manufacturers almost always toss in a chintzy, uninspired strap with their logo on it. These cheap straps have cheap mounting systems that make it hard to quickly remove the strap from the camera when you need to, like when you’re attaching your camera to a tripod or gimbal and you’d rather not have a dangling strap whacking you in the face.
Peak Design solved this with its Anchor Links system, small circular nubs you leave attached to camera eyelets that make detaching or even swapping straps easy. The quick-connect mechanism is now the de facto industry standard and has inspired countless copycats.
Now, Wandrd has outdone that design using magnets.
“We’re photographers ourselves, so we’re constantly ideating, tinkering, thinking of ways that things can be better,” Ryan Cope, Wandrd cofounder, tells WIRED. “A camera strap like this has been at the back of our minds for a while.”
Wandrd—known for its camera bags—launched its Magnetic Camera Strap system on Thursday. It features a circular anchor similar to Peak Design, called “Torus Links.” The anchors attach to your camera’s eyelets and are rated to carry up to 198 pounds—so unless you’re bench-pressing your camera, they’ll do the job. If the cord does start to wear down over time, you’ll first see yellow under the black fabric—a sign you should replace the Torus Link. If it’s red, you should stop using the link immediately—a warning system borrowed from Peak Design. (Wandrd offers a two-year warranty.)
Unlike Peak Design’s anchors, the Wandrd anchors look like donuts, with a hole in the middle. When you attach the strap, the embedded magnets guide the Torus Link into the strap’s CoreLock mechanism, which pinches into the hole to secure the camera body. The magnets make connecting a strap easier, and they keep the strap fastened to the anchor, but you can’t just pull the strap off like you’re pulling a MagSafe accessory on your phone. You’ll need to use the strap’s dual-pinch mechanism to remove it from the Torus Link, a design that’s more secure.