Page 3 - Mobile Application and PC Software
Let us take a look at the Camorama mobile app. Notice it is not Apple iPhone X optimized at press time, as you can see in our screenshot above. You can connect your phone to remotely control the Camorama over 2.4GHz or 5GHz Wi-Fi. From my experience, the app worked pretty much as expected. I also found it quite intuitive to use.
Upon initial setup, you will be asked to set the encryption key of your Camorama. However, you are forced to have an eight-number password; no shorter and no longer. Because of this requirement, I assume most people will try to set their Camorama's Wi-Fi key to their phone number so it is easy to remember. However, since we are in North America, I think having some flexibility in the password would have been nice, considering we either have seven or ten-digit phone numbers depending on whether you include the area code or not. As such, I simply set my key to 12345678 so I do not forget, which is probably what most people will end up doing.
Our screenshot above shows a live stream of the video feed from the Camorama in portrait orientation. Portrait orientation will stream the live video feed in fish eye view.
Rotating your phone into landscape orientation will change the video feed into panoramic view, as shown in our screenshot above. Most of the control elements in the app remain the same.
Other things you can do in the mobile app in addition to controlling your camera's capture functions include downloading videos to your phone, editing the videos, and configuring the settings of your Camorama. Even though the app worked as it should functionally, there are a number of things that should to be fixed. Firstly, you cannot exit tutorial mode. For example, every time I load the video player, the app will try to teach me how to use it as if I am using it the first time. I cannot seem to find a place where I can disable tutorial mode, nor does it disappear after the first time. Secondly, the battery indicator is wildly inaccurate. This may not be an app issue only, since it may only be displaying what is reported by the camera.
By design, the battery indicator only goes down in 25% increments. During my battery drain test, it dropped to 75% after about half an hour and 50% after about an hour. However, at 1:10, the battery indicator dropped to 25%, and at 1:15, it dropped to 0% and the low battery warning was activated. At 1:18, the camera shut itself down. The non-linear battery indicator can throw the user off in making him or her believe there is more charge than there actually is.
Lastly, let us take a look at the software. After downloading the unedited video files to your PC from your camera, you must use the Camorama Export and Merge Tool to, well, export and merge the videos. The interface is simple to use and it mostly worked as it should. The Camorama branding when you look down past the single lens cut off can be replaced by an image of your choice by selecting your own logo image here. I will let you evaluate the results from the merged and exported sample videos on the next page.
From a user perspective, while the software is simple to use and worked as it should without funky bugs like crashing in the middle of the encoding process, there are, once again, a couple of things I would like to see improved on. Firstly, when dragging a selection of files into the process list, it does not insert them in alphabetical order. Instead, it puts them into a seemingly random order. Since there is practically zero chance I will merge the files not in the order they were shot in, this is a bug I would like to see fixed. Secondly, it creates a Camorama folder in the Documents folder on your PC every time the program starts. The default path cannot be changed. I would prefer it to remember the last location used or have the ability to change the default output folder. Lastly, integrated spatial media metadata injection would be great for those planning to upload to YouTube or any other video sharing website.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Hardware
3. Mobile Application and PC Software
4. Sample Videos and Analysis
5. Conclusion
