You might remember a while back when I reviewed the ContourHD camera, a tiny, water-resistant 1080p camera for sticking to your bike frame, helmet, car, whatever. I thought it was pretty great, with the usual caveats for small camcorders, but one major limiting factor was that you couldn’t… well, you couldn’t tell where you were pointing the thing. I mean, it had handy laser guides to keep it level, and it’s reasonably wide-angle, but there was still some estimation in framing. Switching video modes and such was also less than convenient.

No longer: the latest version of the Contour camcorder connects to your phone via Bluetooth, allowing you to see your shot live, replay stuff instantly, change settings, and more. This is good. If you have a ContourGPS, you actually already have the chip in your device, but they’re just now enabling the capability.

It’s going to work with apps for iOS and Android, though they won’t be available immediately (and no iPad… boo). But be patient, you. It’ll be a little while as they work out the kinks. I’m looking forward to it, though — taking the guesswork out of framing and allowing easier on-the-fly changes and editing makes the Contour a mighty handy little doodad, and I’m guessing that once you get used to controlling one this way, it’ll be hard to go back to fiddling with little switches and buttons.

It’s starting to be a pretty heated battle out there; I would have gone with a GoPro over Contour yesterday, but this Bluetooth thing might put me back in the Contour camp. I’ll have to see it in action, though — and we will here at CES. I’ll get screenshots and stuff.