Floating Camera

Floating Cameras are objects that appear in multiple Sonic continuities. In all continuities, Doctor Robotnik is known to have created floating cameras to as part of numerous plans.

Sonic the Comic
Floating cameras also appeared in Sonic the Comic, again to allow Doctor Robotnik to keep watch over his newly-conquered Mobius. In this continuity, they resemble floating eggs with camera lenses on four sides.

When Sonic returned after being flung six months into the future, he found the Emerald Hill Zone completely dominated by Robotnik and his Troopers, with the floating cameras littering the skies. After destroying many of the Troopers, Sonic used one of the cameras to issue Robotnik a warning that he would figure out a way of ridding Mobius of the evil doctor once and for all.

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
Robotnik used floating television cameras at the grand opening of his Club Robotnik resort. Sonic the Hedgehog and Wallace A. Ditso interrupted the live feed and projected an image of Robotnik's head on a pig's body, then an image of Robotnik in the shower onto the big screen. Later, Sonic used one of the floating cameras to record incriminating evidence of Robotnik revealing that he had planned to turn the people of Mobius into his slaves.

Sonic the Hedgehog (animated series)
In Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), the surveillance orb, also called a stealth orb, is a nearly ubiquitous floating camera in Robotropolis and its environs. It is a small, hovering, spheroid observation robot with a camera lens at one end. The lens is protected by four metal plates. They can fly at any height and have no weapons or attack capability. The video feed from the cameras is picked up directly at Doctor Robotnik's control room in Robotropolis.

On one occasion, Sonic caught a floating camera and kept it in his backpack. He used it to trick Robotnik into recalling a group of Stealthbots, then to taunt the dictator when the Stealthbots exploded (Sally had previously reprogrammed them to detonate on recall).

A different design of floating camera appeared in the pilot episode, "Heads or Tails". In this episode, the floating cameras resembled actual eyes suspended from floating platforms.

These cameras bear a resemblance to a primitive-looking mollusk called the nautilus.

Archie Comics
A nanite-powered camera was created by Nicole to spy on the new Enerjak. It witnessed Enerjak's attack on Cavem Canus, his confrontation with the Flameand Frost Legions, and the teleportation of the echidnas to Albion, before Enerjak destroyed the camera.

The nanite-powered camera is based on the surveillance orb from Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM).