Essential 360 Degree Camera for Essential Phone

So far, I'm getting quite a bit of entertainment out of this tiny little 360 camera. I have used it for still shots, video and streaming video to Facebook. After my first live stream to Facebook, I noticed camera shoots in 4k video by default which uses twice the bandwidth as the 2K setting. Though it was a little jagged and jiittery at times, people still seemed to enjoy the video and were able interact with me live on Facebook. Setting the video record mode to 2K works better for me while live streaming. The camera is really small and feels like a very high quality piece. The magnetic attachment works very good. I keep the camera magnetically attached if I have the phone in my hand. As a precaution, I remove the camera when I put phone in my pocket. With the magnetic attachment, you can easily remove the camera any time you need to. Mine did not come with any kind of protective case. I found a soft cloth sunglasses storage pouch works decent so I can carry in pocket without worrying about scratching up the lenses. Overall, glad I bought it.

I bought the essential phone mainly as an test into how much I would like the plain android OS. I did not have any intention of getting the 360 camera. I happen to see a video of it on Youtube and was intrigued. Then the price dropped down to $40 and I figured why not. I will start with the build quality. This does not feel like something that costs $40. This feels solid, not cheap at all. It feels like it could survive a drop or too depending the landing surface, but i am not gonna try it. Speaking on that, I recommend getting some sort of carrying case, since it has lenses on two sides and most likely is going to spend most of it's time in a bag or pocket, you dont want it to get scratched up. How to use? Line up the 2 connectors with the 2 on the phone and it pretty much slams together due to magnets. It seems to be a little more complicated then simply that however, I found myself a few times getting no reaction from my phone when it was hooked up (light on too) and I have to take it off and adjust it slightly. Once it is connected correctly, the phone is suppose to open up the essential camera app automatically and you are set to start snapping or videoing away. A few times I found this not to be as flawless as it sounds. The camera app would crash or freeze, or no matter how many times I connect and adjust the camera, I would get no reaction from phone. Usually a phone reset corrected it and then i was good to go. Picture quality? I am not an expert in it, but seems pretty good honestly for what your doing. This takes up to 4k videos. The stuff I seen on it however doesnt seem overly sharp or clear but could just be me. The best thing (which is really what its all about anyway) is the type of pictures it takes and the ease of it (once you get it up and running). Taking a 360 video or picture takes no extra effort then taking a regular one since you pretty much hold the phone the same way and use the same camera app. For me, the 360 has no major use everyday, but I have taken it to outdoor BBQs and some dinners and took some great pictures. (Capturing everyone around the fire pit for example). Everyone seems very impressed with it. I don't plan on keeping the Essential phone as my daily phone much longer, but I will definitely be keeping it solely because of the 360 camera. This would be great for vacations, taking 360 videos on some beautiful beaches. For 40$ , even if you dont see an immediate use for it, just get it anyway. It's a steal, and you will regret not getting it if they go out of stock or the price returns to its normal MSRP. If you have the Essential phone, you are probably missing out on the best feature of it if you don't have this. If you don't have the essential phone, well then you can't use this anyway.

I love the camera for its ease of use, great looking picture styles especially the mini-planet style. However it is in no way a match to the quality of a full photosphere in terms of resolution. However the convenience of being able to capture 360° in one snap and not have to worry about subjects moving during the capture sequence cannot be denied. The video recording feature sometimes has garbled bits of video. The camera communicates with the phone wirelessly, and it seems that signal is not always as good as it should be. Google Photos does a great job of displaying the 360° photos, and the Google Photos mobile app can display the recorded videos in VR mode as well which is nice. The camera does get hot from use, and I have had it shutdown and give me an on screen message to let it coll and use my regular camera for a while after recording video on a hot day for about 20 minutes.

Cool device. Makes pictures and videos in 360 just like it says, without the need to do any stitching or anything like that. The videos aren't as HD as I initially thought they would be, but since its 4k wrapped in a sphere instead of all concentrated in one plane it makes sense and I can't complain. I wasn't able to get it to work right away, but that was because I had my camera app already open. The camera app needs to be closed before attaching (at least presently). I haven't listened to any 360 video with my nice headphones so I'm not sure how well the audio works. Its kind of difficult to send 360 videos to friends in texts and have it work, even with the link from the google photos; though my understanding is the videos work natively if posted on Facebook and Youtube. As others have said it gets warm with continuous use but that hasn't been a problem for me yet.

No other 360 camera is sold at this price point (50-60). The camera itself is decent, recording and capturing images at 4k resolution. This results in images that you can show friends, but not for extensive detail in the images. However, the camera is crippled by the buggy software crashes that the essential phone experiences. It can crash from time to time when putting and removing the camera, or loading the camera app. This means your phone will shut down. This has happened pretty often. Overall, the camera gets 3 stars from me because I still think it's fantastic for the price. And the essential team shows promise in improving their software.

It was dead on arrival. Blue light but won't trigger camera app. Tried restarting updating etc. Etc. I was amped for this. I've used it extensively prior to purchasing (i sell the essential phone and am actually an advocate for the device) so far the phone has been flawless and other 360 cams worked perfectly with my device. I'm going to return and try another and will update accordingly. Also through the return process I don't see a clear way to exhcange. If a rep from essential sees this please shoot me a message so I can swap instead of return then order another. Thanks.

The Essential 360 Degree Camera for the Essential Phone was one of those gadgets that felt almost magical when it came out in 2017. The first one cost around $120, and it was worth every bit, delivering smooth, immersive 360 photos and videos that felt far ahead of its time. It snapped onto the phone so easily that using it quickly became part of everyday life, not just a tech toy. Later, the phone was passed on to my daughter along with another 360 camera, and she really took to it, even preferring it over bigger-screen iPhones and Pixel phones . She captured a lot of great memories with friends in 360, the kind of shots that are fun to look back on because they really pull you back into the moment.

Essential 360 Degree Camera for Essential Phone With the easy of use of this camera, I can only imagine the easy of use of the rest of mods were scheduled by the company and are in halt/cancelled. The camera just works out of the box and it updates the firmware after the first run. Produces good image and video at 4K (for 360 camera this is just OK, not 4K at a monitor, but the whole 360 image is 4K) The original price would be a "no way" for me, but at the Amazon offer around $44, it was a "go for it" instantly. I would buy a 2nd spare if the Essential Phone was again at the price around $224 as it was when I bought the camera with... This is a MUST HAVE for every Essential Phone PH-1 user, no questions, just purchase it.