Samsung Gear 360 2017 - UK Version

These cameras are great. They shoot 4k 360 degree video and stills, a d used to sell for around 10x the current price. So what's the catch? Well, Samsung stopped supporting them on android and IOS a few years back, so the associated phone app is hard to find, and doesn't fully work with recent phone versions. More importantly the camera shoots dual 190 degree overlapping fish eye images, rather than the more common equirectangular images that most current 360 degree cameras and software use today. So.... If you are hoping to just use the camera out of the box and stream live 360 video, you are out of luck. To be fair this particular seller does acknowledge this and provides a postage free return envelope for buyers caught out by this. I bought this in full knowledge of the limitations, because I spent a bit of time researching tools that will work with the camera for windows, Mac, Linux and Android. There are plenty out there. Sadly Amazon prevents me from posting links,but Google is your friend here. Look out for firmware modsfor the camera and desktop and phone apps that can process the dual fisheye images. Be a little cautious of android apps from sources outside of the play store, but those provided with open source code on GitHub are usually a fairly safe bet as they are open to scrutiny by the wider developer community. The bottom line is that this is a really ace camera, if you are prepared to put in the time and effort learning a few new tools to get the best from it. If however you want a point and click solution that just works with your phone, look elsewhere.

DON'T BUY. BRILLIANT CAMERA. PICTURES NOT ALWAYS PERFECT, BUT DAVID BAILEY I AM NOT. I JUST WANT TO CAPTURE MEMORIES. GREAT THAT YOU CAN TAKE A PICTURE AT ANYTIME WITHOUT THE FAFF. UNFORTUNATELY THE APP IS NO LONGER SUPPOTED BY GOOGLE I WAS TOLD BY SAMSUNG SUPPORT. WHY SAMSUNG DON'T DO AN APP FOR THEIR CUSTOMERS IS BAFFLING. THIS IS NOW AN EXPESIIVE ORNAMENT, WHICH I USED TO LOVE, BUT NOW HATE WITH PASSION. MY DEVICE IS AN S20+. I CAN TAKE PICTURES, BUT CANNOT OPEN OR SAVE THEM POOR SAMSUNG. POOR. AS A DEVOTED SUPPORTER OF ALL THINGS SAMSUNG, I AM PARTICULARLY DISAPPOINTED WITH THIS. I BOUGHT A NUMBER OF ACCESSORIES TOO! I HAVE HAD THIS CAMERA SINCE THEY WERE FIRST RELEASED.

For just £27 this Samsung Gear 360 2017 camera seemed to be too good to be true. What was the catch? Well, you have to factor in the cost of a speedy and large capacity microSD card before you can use the camera, it is also 6 years since it's initial release, so it will soon become yesterday's gadget. Google found multiple posts about problems charging the battery and lack of support by Samsung for the mobile phone app and PC software required to stitch the dual camera footage together for photos and videos. The battery seems to be fine, the Android phone app "Gear 360 File Access & Stitcher" installed on my Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 (similar age phone to the camera!) but was unable to load any files from the camera despite saying it was connected. The PC software Gear 360 Action Director downloaded from the Samsung website so far works on my retro Windows 7 Professional installation I made purely for this purpose and stitches videos and encodes the file with the necessary 3D information. The files are large with a 16 minute clip using 4.8Gb of storage, and this is on the 2nd best quality setting of 2560 x 1280 at 30fps. The quality is decent without being really sharp or crisp, and being able to constantly move around the POV video image while watching in VLC or online in YouTube is fascinating and wonderful. So far I have been able to stitch photos using an online website, I cannot see how to do it using the Gear 360 Action Director software, it always outputs still picture mp4 videos?! Even with the possible issues handicapping processing of full 360 degree dual lens footage it's perfectly fine to use either of the camera lenses on their own for photos or video and process them as normal photos and video footage but very wide angle, 180 degrees, to capture large scenes or for house images - useful for estate agents perhaps! The quality of the device seems good with it being weighty in the hand and the lenses looking clear and bright, there is a convenient standard mounting thread in the base of the camera as shown in my photos. This great for tripods or selfie sticks, etc. In the box a wrist strap and a rubber ring are included, the ring is meant to be used as a stand around the base of the camera but I found it useless and more inclined to make the camera fall over. Overall at the purchase price I have no regrets and will be able to use the camera for 360 photos and videos, or just standard single lens wide angle.

An excellent introduction to 360 photography and videography, whilst the non-mandatory editing and control software will only work with Samsung Phones, it is very straight forward to use over wi-fi connection to the device, also allows for rendering the photo/video space to any wrapping format imaginable, and any field of view you care to try. Very interesting and fun devices. Image capture quality and noise levels are useably decent for non-critical applications, and absolutely fine even for casual professional use. Time lapse feature is also very fun, leave it on a slimline tripod and capture the clouds/crowds rolling by at breakneck speed, and move your playback viewing position to anywhere in the captured sphere. Definitely recommended to anyone who wants to get an introduction to 360 video/photo work ..and possibly more than enough for most folks actual needs.

The Gear 360 2017 is part of the Samsung Gear ecosystem (smart watches, fitness trackers etc). What does this mean? This means that it is intended as an accessory for Samsung phone owners only. It means that you are going to get reduced functionality if you are not using one of these smartphones: Galaxy S8, S8+, S7, S7 Edge, Note5, S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+, A5/A7 (2017) running Android 5.0 or later. You will not be able to pair your smartphone (say Nexus 5x) to your Gear 360 so you will lose out on all of the smartphone functionality (streaming, preview, remote activation etc.) You cannot install the Gear 360 mobile app or pair the camera to an Android phone that is not listed above. It does pair (but with reduced functionality) with iPhone 7, 7+, 6S, 6S+, SE running iOS 10.0 or later. If you can't pair it with a smartphone then you are reduced to using it 'blind' by pushing the buttons on the camera and hoping everything turns out OK with no preview. This is obviously less than satisfactory. Samsung does provide Gear 360 Action Director which edits your movies however there are two versions of this - the one which is on their Web site is version 1.0 (Gear_360_ActionDirector_2005_15L.zip, orange icon) and this asks for an activation number which is not included in the camera package. The newer version is Action Director 2 (Gear_360_ActionDirector_2.0.1619_Live_1.0.0419.exe, white icon) and you will need to search the forums for a link to this. Version 2 activates by establishing the camera is linked by a cable so is the only one you can use. I don't know how bad the Mac situation is although I believe software exists for Mac. Action Director is very basic but necessary as very few video editing apps have the facilities to edit 360 video. It lacks advanced features. You will find that lots of Samsung's Web site is devoted to the old Gear 360 which was a spherical camera on a stubby tripod which is very confusing. You can never be sure if you have downloaded the right information as the two cameras are being marketed side-by-side. In summary I would say getting this product is like stealing it out of the safe at a research facility. It comes without a proper manual, and if you don't have a Samsung smartphone you get no viewfinder, no preview, no streaming (unless it's hooked to a PC), no WiFi, no Bluetooth and you have to hack into Samsung's GitHub to get the correct editing software. If Samsung brought out a generic Android app. then it would get five stars, but without one, good as this camera is, I'm still in two minds as to whether I can make it useful for me. Overall I think you will feel disappointed, which is a shame as the hardware is good.

I wanted to get a 360° camera for a holiday, but hadn’t had one before and didn’t want to spend hundreds of pounds. I read the reviews and realised there was a chance I might not be able to access the camera, but I was able to download the app (I’m on iPhone wit iOS 14) so decided to go for it. The whole experience has been really easy and fun. You need to get yourself a memory card, but then it’s easy to snap photos (or videos) and use the app to view/save them on your phone. The Google Photos app recognises 360 photos automatically and the video I uploaded shows an example of how they look in that app. A number of years ago this would’ve been a £250 piece of kit, but for £50 you can’t go wrong, it’s the perfect way to try out 360° photos for the first time and I highly recommend it! I’m sure newer devices will get better results, but not at this price level!

Samsung has stopped support, software in playstore is incompatible with most phones including newer Samsung phones (yes ironic). Video stabilisation on the camera itself at 1080p 60fps doesn't exist, so in short, unless you want to buy this for experiment and just to play around then don't buy this. You can still just record and copy with cable so that's the only thing that works. And that's the beginning and end of good news. I'll extend this review if I get more time. 1st update(2023-06-29)- The video quality for the price (27£) is actually very good and 360 degree video camera does not exist at this price point. . There is a windows software(with a bit of fiddling) you can edit the 360 degree video but you need a very powerful computer for that and the software can seem a bit tricky to use at first. It is possible to simply use one of the front or rear cameras (yes, independently, but one at a time if only one camera is used to record 180 degrees video.) to avoid any extra hassle of editing. The camera supports mounting on a tripod but doesn't come with any attachments. So all is not bad news and the camera can simply be used to record and copy videos with provided cable(type-C) and also charge in the process. Build quality is top grade. Let's see how it does after a few months.

I have a permanent grin since I purchased this Gear VR collection. Photography is a hobby for me but the 360 degree capability of the tiny camera is mind blowing. Even on the normal computer screen the results are impressive but the VR goggles take it to a new level, it's like being back where you took the video or still images. Plenty of stunning online content too, like heli-skiing in snow capped mountains! I plan to travel a lot in coming years and this will enable me to create a library of once in a lifetime experiences that I and my family can enjoy again and again. There are a couple of downsides however. The whole experience is Samsung proprietary and dependant, you need the Samsung phone. The VR goggles can be uncomfortable to wear after a while but this is common for all VR headsets. I would like the optics to be more adjustable as I have a strong eye glasses prescription, adjustment is right at the limit for me. The goggles can be worn with glasses but it is not recommended and can damage both your glasses and the lens in the goggles if they touch. These gadgets are worth it but my advice is to shop around for a good deal for the collection or buy the parts separately. The hand controller is a must have with the headset goggles.