{"id":14429,"date":"2021-03-13T16:25:12","date_gmt":"2021-03-14T00:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/?p=14429"},"modified":"2021-03-13T16:47:18","modified_gmt":"2021-03-14T00:47:18","slug":"insta360-go-2-finally-a-wearable-cam-that-doesnt-suck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/2021\/03\/13\/insta360-go-2-finally-a-wearable-cam-that-doesnt-suck\/","title":{"rendered":"Insta360 GO 2: Finally a wearable cam that doesn&#8217;t suck?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Photo-taking often presents a Faustian bargain: be able to relive memories later, but at the cost of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=RgGzz3fKINA\">being less present<\/a> in the experience as it happens. When my team researched why people do &amp; don&#8217;t take photos, wanting to be present &amp; not intrusive\/obnoxious were key reasons not to bring out a camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So what if you could wear not just a lightweight, unobtrusive capture device, but actually wear a photographer\u2014an intelligence that could capture the best moments, leaving your hands &amp; mind free in the moment? Even naive, interval-based capture could produce a really interesting journey through space, as Blaise Ag\u00fcera y Arcas demonstrated at Microsoft back in 2013:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Photosynth 2: Exploring 3D environments | Blaise Aguera Y Arcas\" width=\"604\" height=\"340\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wB7HstiwcXc?start=420&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s a long-held dream that products like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2018\/2\/27\/17055618\/google-clips-smart-camera-review\">Google&#8217;s Clips camera<\/a> (which Blaise led at Google) have tried so achieve, thus far without any notable success. Clips proved to be too large &amp; heavy for many people to wear comfortably, and training an AI model to find &#8220;good&#8221; moments ends up being much harder than one might imagine. Google discontinued Clips, though as a consolation prize I ended up delighting my young son by bringing home reams of unused printed circuit boards (which for some reason resembled the Millennium Falcon). Meanwhile Microsoft discontinued PhotoSynth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The need remains &amp; the dream won&#8217;t die, however, so I was excited ~18 months ago when Insta360 introduced the GO, a $199, &#8220;20-gram steadicam&#8221; for $199. It promised ultra lightweight wearability, photo capture, and a slick AirPods-style case for both recharging &amp; data transfer. The wide FOV capture promised post-capture reframing driven by (you guessed it) mythical AI that could select the best moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Others (including many on the Insta forum) were skeptical, but I was enamored enough that my wife bought me one for Christmas. Sadly, buying Insta products is a little like Russian Roulette (e.g. I have loved the One X &amp; subsequent X2, while the One R has been a worthless paperweight), and the GO ended up on the bummer side of the ledger. I found it way too hard to reliably start\/stop &amp; to transfer data. It&#8217;s been another paperweight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To their possible credit (TBD), though, Insta has persisted with the product and has released the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.insta360.com\/product\/insta360-go2\">GO 2<\/a>\u2014now more expensive ($299) but promising a host of improvements (wireless preview &amp; transfer, better storage &amp; battery, etc.). Check it out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Introducing Insta360 GO 2 - The Tiny, Mighty Action Camera\" width=\"604\" height=\"340\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yr6YD7h0zWs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Looks perfect for a proctologist, which is where Insta can shove it,&#8221; said one salty user on the Insta forum. Will it finally work well? I don&#8217;t know\u2014but I&#8217;m just hungry\/sucker enough to pull the trigger, F around &amp; find out. Hopefully it&#8217;ll arrive in advance of the road trip I&#8217;m planning with my son, so stay tuned for real-world findings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, here&#8217;s a review I found thorough &amp; informative\u2014and not least in its innovative use of gummi bears as a unity of measure &#x1f643;:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Insta360 GO 2 In-Depth Review: 9 Things to Know!\" width=\"604\" height=\"340\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bJPMQNkodZI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Oh, and I did not order the forthcoming Minion mod (a real thing, they swear):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Minion.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"950\" height=\"778\" src=\"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Minion.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14456\" srcset=\"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Minion.jpg 950w, http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Minion-300x246.jpg 300w, http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Minion-768x629.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 950px) 100vw, 950px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo-taking often presents a Faustian bargain: be able to relive memories later, but at the cost of being less present in the experience as it happens. When my team researched why people do &amp; don&#8217;t take photos, wanting to be present &amp; not intrusive\/obnoxious were key reasons not to bring out a camera. So what [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14429"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14429"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14457,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14429\/revisions\/14457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}