$99 Insta360 Air 360 Degrees Video Camera Works with your Android Smartphone and Laptop (Crowdfunding)

Insta360 Nano is a dual camera designed to take 360 degrees videos selling for $190 and up on Amazon US, but it only works on iPhone 6 & 7 series, so the company has designed a new model – Insta360 Air – specifically to work on Android phones with a micro USB or USB-C port, and packaged in a spherical shapes in order to be compatible with most, if not all, brands and models. It also works with laptops thanks to a rigid yet flexible USB cable.

Insta360 Air specifications:

• 210° dual fish-eye lens; minimum Aperture F2.4
• Photo Capture Resolution – 3008 x 1504 (3K)
• Video Capture  – 2560 x 1280 @ 30 fps (some smartphone models also support 3008×1504 @ 30 fps, e.g. Samsung S7, S7 edge, and Huawei P9)
• Connector – USB micro/Type-C
• Dimensions – 37.6mm Diameter
• Weight 26.5g

The camera can be used with Insta360 Air app allowing you to shoot spherical images and videos, and share them to Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, WhatsApp, Messenger, Line, Wechat, QQ, QZone, and Weibo. If you have friends that don’t have the camera, they can still watch your video using Insta360 Player app that offers normal, virtual reality, and “little planet” viewing modes. You can also connect the camera to your computer or laptop in order to use it as a 360 degrees webcam with Skype or other video conference programs.

Insta360 Air camera has been launched on Indiegogo, and with 10 days to go the project has already raised over $230,000 from about 1,100 backers. A $99 pledge will get you an Insta360 Air camera with a transfer cable for laptop, but you may consider pledging $125 instead to add a smartphone mount, a smartphone tripod, and a smartphone adapter. It’s unclear to me what the mount and adapter are for, and note that you’ll have to choose between micro USB or USB type C at the time of order. Shipping is free to China, but adds $20 to $26 to the rest of the world. Delivery is planned for March 2017. You’ll find a few more details on Insta360 Air product page.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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