Even a clever idea can seem so simple that we’re surprised no one came up with it before. So it is with the Tovatec Mera, a nifty little combination dive light/action camera.

The Mera is aimed at divers who don’t want the hassle or expense of a full-up camera/housing/lights rig, but still want to be able to capture some decent footage when the dive drama turns epic.

About 7 ½ inches long and weighing just over a pound, made of machined aluminum and rated to 200 feet, the Mera looks like a conventional dive light with a triple-LED head. But one of the three “lights” is actually the lens of a high-definition, 1080p video camera that can also take 4MP stills. The actual lights are a 1,000-lumen dive beam with a 12-degree angle, and a 1,000-lumen video beam with a 120-degree angle.

We realize that getting a new product like the Mera from idea to production isn’t as simple as we suggested. Getting the camera to work properly with a powerful light source so near the lens required trial and error in development, as well as some software wizardry.

Keeping the price low and size small meant doing without a viewfinder, which required coming up with another way to aim the lens. The solution was to align the field of view of the camera with the beam cast by the wide-angle video light, so whatever is illuminated by the light is in the camera’s view. As for the camera’s performance, we should note that the Mera costs under $300 including battery and charger. In other words, if your goal is to see your dive footage on Blue Planet 3, you’re not really the target audience here. The Mera is about a convenient, compact, inexpensive way to snag some cool dive footage to share on social media.

On that score, the Mera delivers. A clever idea, well executed — and a new piece of gear that makes us want to go diving. That’s the kind of innovation we like to see.