Vuze XR 5.7K 3D VR & 360 Camera - Black

5 stars just because of picture quality at this price range. Best 180 vr under $1000. Good 360 as well, but others in this price range that do not do 180 may beat it in other aspects. The software included for download on the computer is very well done. Has all basic editing functions. Useing anti shake when rendering is a must every time if not on a tripod or gimbal. Avoiding even slightly fast movements should be done when filming as well if held just by hand. The bad: connecting the app on your phone to the camera takes a long time. Using the camera without your phone seems difficult with lack of extra indicator lights and no screen on the camera itself. I have never even tried without the phone app. FYI, the camera connects to an app on your phone. It uses wifi, but you can think of it like connecting via Bluetooth, because its wifi from the camera. You do not need wifi allready connected on your phone to connect. It just needs to be on.

I love immersive Virtual Reality (VR), and always wondered how the various travel and nature videos for VR are made. A medium-priced answer is this camera (the VUZE XR). I find it is a lot of fun to take it on trips, to be able to "relive" being at special locations. I also use it to record immersive videos of my grand kids. Two weeks ago, we made a puppet show with stuffed animals, and it is priceless! My grandson, nearly 12, said it was "weird" to look himself in the eyes in VR. I wonder what they are going to think of it when they grow up?! What I like: - It is relatively easy to use (once you get past the really terrible documentation - more about that below)! - It shoots both video and still pictures - It shoots in either 360-degree ("2D") or 180-degree ("3D") modes: In 360-deg mode, when you play back with a VR headset, you can look around freely in every direction, but both eyes get the same image (thus only 2D). In 180-deg mode, the camera shoots only what's in front of it, a hemisphere; but it records it as two separate images, one for each eye (thus true 3D, which can be even more impressive!) All modes are fully immersive, which means that when you view them with a headset (I use Oculus Quest), it seems as though you are actually present at the place where the images were taken. - It has 4-channels of sound, so the immersive video you record will also have immersive audio. Sounds, such as people talking or birds chirping, actually seem to come from the immersive world you have recorded. On playback, as you turn your head to look around in the virtual world, the sounds always come from the right place, greatly enhancing the 'reality' effect. - The smart-phone controller app that comes with the camera is very effective and easy-to-use, once you get it working, which is challenging. This app allows you to see roughly what you are recording in real time (NO VR, of course), to start and stop recording or take a still picture, to see camera status, and to control various settings on the camera. - The camera comes with a support program, which you must run on a desktop or laptop computer, which 'stitches' and 'renders' your pictures so you can play them (only required for highest resolution). Neutral comments: - When new, the internal lithium battery lasts about an hour on a full charge, but you can record while connected to a USB power bank to extend running time. The built-in battery is not removable, so battery longevity may be an issue. When you record with a power bank connected, don't forget that in a 360-degree recording, you can see everything, including the battery and connecting cable. - It DOES NOT come with the required micro format SD memory card, but a card is absolutely required to use the camera. I found that a 128 GB card can hold nearly 4 hours of video at the highest resolution. Don't forget to order one! Also, a cheap SD card may not work -- this camera really pushes bandwidth limits. Get a good memory card! - The camera actually gets hot when you record with it. If the shooting environment is too warm, the camera will overheat and shut down. You may have trouble in Death Valley (or the Pacific Northwest this past weekend)! - Resolution is at best mediocre, which means the recordings always look a bit 'soft'. Things that are close, within a few feet, are sharp enough, but anything more than a dozen feet away looks a bit fuzzy, For example, it is usually impossible to read signs in your recordings. The available camera resolution, which at its highest is 5760 x 2880 pixels ("5.7k"), is spread over the entire viewing area, which is either 360-deg (a full sphere) or 180-deg (a half sphere), so resolution in any part of the picture is limited. I recommend always using the highest available resolution! Color saturation and black level, for those of you who know photography, are quite difficult to get right, but there are settings in the smartphone app with which you can tinker. I'm still not completely happy with either. What I don't like: - The documentation is truly awful. I am a lifelong electronics and computer engineer, and this is some of the worst I have seen. At first it seems like it might be okay. Then it feels like the designers hired a ghost writer who didn't really understand what they were talking about. The designers knew how their camera is 'supposed' to work, but they don't seem to consider what the user /needs/ to know in order to make effective use of their product. For example, there is an Import and Render procedure that you must use to get recordings off the camera and prepare them for use, but that procedure is never outlined. The user is forced to guess which steps do what, and in what order, and to which files. All the recorded files have non-descriptive, mostly numerical, names. At least they have associated dates, if you have managed to connect the camera to the phone app before you use it. - The camera required a "firmware update" before it would operate, but there is no step-by-step description I could find for how to accomplish it. They ask you to do the update through your smartphone, but I found it was not clear how to connect the smartphone to both the internet and the camera at the same time, since the camera monopolizes the phone's WiFi. I ended up getting the internet via my cell service rather than my home internet, leaving the phone's WiFi free to connect to the camera. It was very, very slow (hours). And it could have been very expensive if I didn't have an unlimited data plan on my cellphone. Later I found there is a way to update using a cable (USB-C, included) from my laptop, but I could not find anything about it in the docs or on discussion forums. I would, for example, need to know what file(s) to download, from where, and where to put them into the file structure on the camera (or even that there /is/ a file structure accessible on the camera, and how to get to it!). Later I found out that most customers simply call customer support to get through all this (must be expensive for the company!), but I was doing it on a Saturday, which is the Sabbath, so they were not answering the phones. - Rendering is relatively slow, even on my game-ready Alienware laptop. - Getting your files into a VR headset and playing them immersively is also quite challenging. The camera documentation does not consider it to be their problem, so you are on your own. It took several days to get through all the hurdles to successfully play my shots on the Oculus. At first, they would only play as if they were on a virtual movie screen in the headset. Then they would play in VR, but in the wrong aspect ratio: everything looked grossly stretched horizontally. Finally, after several days, I was able to develop a 'ritual' that resulted in my shots creating a true VR experience. What I found on the Web is that every kind of headset or display device is different, and there are many 'hidden' features and bits of metadata (data in your shot files about how they are to be displayed), that all need to align correctly before you can achieve a remotely satisfactory VR result. - Processing multiple shots is very tedious and time consuming. The rendering program does not behave like most Windows programs; for example, most selections do not allow multi-select. I tend to take a lot of pictures. At a museum yesterday, for example, I took more than 150 still shots and several videos. The tool seems to require me to process each one individually. There is no automation I could find. Each file must be individually found in the file structure, without the benefit of preview or thumbnail, chosen, imported, have its settings made (one file at a time!!!), rendered, and copied. One. At. A. Time. It's excruciating. I can't even find a way to create a set of default settings to apply to all my files. I have to set each, one-by-one. Now that I have the camera and processing (mostly) working, I am glad to have it. But it's not something I would like to use professionally! Thus the four-star, and not five-star, rating. --Eric

I like this camera. After doing research, reading reviews, and looking at YouTube videos, I was on the fence about which brand to go with...and I initially went with the competition (rhymes with Steevo). I picked the wrong camera and returned it. I won't go into all the issues I had with the other one, but I just got a better image with the Vuze XR. The firmware was updated a month ago and the desktop software within the last week. Both add features that enhance useability and operation of the camera. I'm not going to go into the operation of the camera here...there is good tutorial info online and especially in the FB group. BTW, I tried to contact tech support and join the FB group of the "other" camera and got nowhere fast. The Vuze XR support solved a software issue I had within an hour (not with the camera...it was an issue with my graphics driver) and my request to join their FB group was granted just as fast. The Vuze XR feels good in your hand...solid and well constructed. I wouldn't mind if the battery life was longer, but you can use an external battery. Any of these new VR180 cameras have a learning curve and you need to work with them to get the best results, but the XR is a nice camera if you are considering shooting in this format. Based on my recent experience, I look forward to learning from the FB group and continued software updates that will add value to the camera.

Before using the product it asked for a firmware update. The "new" firmware is from October 2019. The update was a bit complicated but went through. I tried the app for iOS and Android, it's fairly easy to use. The app keeps loosing connection to the camera which isn't great. There is no iPad version of the app. Like the firmware their desktop software is outdated. So outdated that Apple warns you to install it. After installation it just crashes. So no way to edit the footage other than in the mobile app. I decided to return the camera as it looks like the development stopped 2 years ago. So there is little hope for bug fixes or improvements. It's really a shame as the camera itself is well built, the image quality is rather good. It's a nice form factor.

So, Having used this camera for a week, here are my thoughts: Stabilization is a software effect while rendering, not something that happens in camera. The camera supposedly has a 6 axis gyroscope and accelerometer, but as far as I can tell that data is not used in stabilization. Stabilization for 360 videos is a crapshoot compared to Insta360 onex. The one-x seems to produce gimbal like stabilization, but this seems to produce jittery and artifact filled stabilization. Maybe I am being overly critical but vuze's software stabilization just doesn't compare. VR180 stabilization is just as bad, however for a consumer camera I'm not sure I have much else to compare this to at this price point. Basically unless you mount on a tripod you don't want to be filming VR180. 360 videos you can somewhat get away with mediocre stabilization, but with vr180 the footage needs to be smooth or else it will be blurry in a headset. Now, I am confident that the vuze team is working on better stabilization, but it is just not there yet in their software/firmware. Video quality: there's sometimes a lot more noise than I would like when shooting in 4k60fps. I think this too is a software issue, as they just need to add in better noise filtering algorithms. You still can't shoot in raw mode. This camera uses the same image sensors as the Pixel 1 smartphone, so I expect the quality to be pretty good (the original pixel can shoot some amazing videos). Stitching of 360 videos: mediocre. It isn't bad, but you can DEFINITELY see the stitch lines, and it definitely misaligns sometimes. You can somewhat adjust in post using vuze studio, but it isn't very user friendly. 3D and 360 photo quality: "18MP" means nothing here. The photo quality is crap when viewed in a VR headset. Do not buy for taking 360 or 3D180 photos. I don't understand why the photo quality is comparatively worse: perhaps because it compresses the photos on the camera itself, no raw mode. If we could tweak the quality of the compression that would be good. TLDR: stabilization is not good, and one of the major reasons I will return this camera. Software/firmware is still immature compared to other product offerings in the same class. Hardware is top notch for this price range, but without the software support it won't reach its full potential. This feels like a rushed product software wise, and it needs more time in the oven. If you absolutely need to take 5.7k VR videos, this is your only option in this price range and hardware wise stands above everything else. But if I were you I would wait a good 6 months for the Vuze team to perfect the software/firmware. If you're a prosumer and edit in Adobe CC, then you'll get by ok on this. But if you're like me and just want a way to quickly share VR, this is not very user friendly.

If you want to experiment with 3D 180 VR or 2D 360 VR photos, this is the one to get. It's decidedly better built and easier to hold than the EVO One (with equal picture quality as far as I can tell), and it's 1/10th the cost of a Z Cam K1. Battery life is low, but it can be used with the USB-C connector attached to a generic USB battery pack, so that hasn't been a real problem. A few actual problems: 1. The form factor means when you fold in the cameras, there's literally NO safe way to put the camera down without potentially scratching a lens. I always carry a soft drawstring leather pouch to put it back in whenever it's not in use. 2. The UI is wonky. There's basically two buttons to do everything, and the beeps and LEDs can be difficult to see and hear when recording during a real-world outdoor event. There's no way to use a VR helmet to live-direct the camera, you just have to point and hope you got what you wanted, and there's a fairly long delay between clicking the button and hearing the response that the picture has been taken (especially for a camera that has little need for autofocus due to the physics). 3. The image quality is roughly go-pro or cell quality. That doesn't seem bad, but in 3D, all of that ISO noise leads to a decent but unconvincing 3D image. Grass and other detailed textures have a weird dithered effect, the sky blows out easily, and colors seem highly compressed. This is NOT going to come anywhere close to what you'd get with a Z Cam or even a low-end SLR. This camera is for consumer fun, not for serious work like entertainment content, real estate photography, etc. All that said, it's a fun device, great for recording some memories with the kids that hopefully they'll be capable of enjoying in 3D half a century from now. I'm also planning to use it for some art photography projects where hopefully I can control the light and scene detail enough to work within its capabilities.

Dear Reader, this review is based on the camera's 3D mode. Great concept, poor execution. So the camera that came with my bundle had a scratched lens which made it unusable. I had to refund it and order a new camera because there was no replacement program from the seller. OK, new camera comes in some time after the original purchase. I follow the first use instructions; charge the battery, update the firmware. But the first thing I notice out of the box is that this comes with a table stand, my original camera didn't. The base of the camera slides in making connecting to a computer for file transfers or charging safer. That is until you pull it out of the stand, the fit is so tight that it pulled the base of the camera out with it. Not using that anymore. Main complaint about this camera from other users is the fact that the Wi-Fi connection is hard to get working. Basically, as soon as you activate Wi-Fi on the camera itself you should already have the app on the phone running and click connect that very second. Takes time to connect and it will still give you a error message telling you to restart the camera. Just hit the back button on the app and then connect again, it should go straight to the camera controls. There is a big delay in the video signal, longer then delays I've had with GoPro, makes sense since this is basically twice the bandwidth. Problem comes from starting and stopping recording. You get a loading animation which goes away roughly 47 seconds into recording. Stopping a recording today was worse because the loading animation did not go away at all. This was for a 2 minute video clip. The first clip of the day was over 11 minutes and the app switched back roughly less than a minute after pressing stop. Things to note. Recording is possible without the app but you can't frame your shots because there is no built in screen. There is also no indicator light letting you know the camera is recording, just the beeps that accompany the record button being pressed. Recording anything less than the full 5.7K is pointless, the image quality barely holds up at that unless you light your scene like a pro. Maybe its the compression but this camera makes the Sony 12MP IMX-378 sensors seem weak. Battery consumption is a big problem. The Sony sensors are supposed to draw less power but between the time it takes to link to the app and switching in and out of record mode drains the battery very quickly. When the loading animation was endlessly running my camera battery was at 43% I started recording at 77% after charging my battery the night before. When I restarted my camera to get past the loading animation my camera battery read at 20%. So according to the app I'm loosing 23% battery power just setting up my camera. There is no situation where that is acceptable! I have not yet checked the image stabilization but did record my last clip hand held and will see what it looks like. Vuze Customer Support when telling them about the battery and connection issue was to ask me if I updated the firmware and to send me a video on how to connect to the Wi-Fi. So why even think about this camera at all? Well for me it was the best 3D VR camera for this price point that does switch to 2D 360 degrees at the time I made my purchase. I did have my eye on the Insta360 EVO180 3D and 360 Foldable Camera for about $200 more but finding it was another matter as the company apparently stopped production on it, focusing instead on various 2D 360 only cameras and their professional Insta360 PRO 2. The Vuze XR is a great little toy that will get you started thinking about live action production for VR, capturing fun events to view in VR, but that's about it. A toy with a lot of compromises.

360 cameras can produce some really creative and beautiful shots, the problem for me is that the resolution hasn't been high enough nor easy enough to use until now. I saw the XR online back in September and got really excited by the fact that 5.7K looks great but it also does 3D video, which turns out works great with my Oculus Go. Two cameras in one is a great concept and I can fit it in my pocket. First day I got it I took the dog for a walk and shot some 360 photos and videos then tried out the VR180, really happy about the results. The fact that I only need my mobile phone is amazing to me. I do have a VR laptop for gaming, but it isn't needed to do edits and sharing. The shots you take with the XR can't be done from a mobile phone camera,. This is why I called it the ultimate mobile phone accessory since it gives me 2 more shooting modes, 4 all together with the mobile camera and selfie camera. I watched some tutorial videos from Ben Claremont and Creatorup for some creative tips, which I highly recommend. Only downside is the selfie stick I have (a $5 cheapo one) isn't strong enough when fully extended so I ordered a new stronger one. I would like to see an adjustable shutter and self timer for photo mode, it seems a bit long to me but it has helped to get things in position when using a selfie stick, just depends on your shooting mode if it bothers you or not. Great buy, definitely worth it and would recommend to anyone interested in creative video and photo creation! Hope this helped.