HumanEyes announced details on a new consumer 360-degree camera, the Vuze XR. It’s a compact, dual-lens camera with an integrated handle and a neat party trick: The back-to-back lenses can flip forward to transition from 360-degree two-dimensional video, to 180-degree three-dimensional video.
The company’s previous Vuze VR camera (which we found to be a good performer in our review) focused on combining 360-degree immersive video with stereoscopic 3D, but this resulted in a rather large, eight-lens device that limited how you could use it. The Vuze XR, by comparison, is much more portable and designed to be taken anywhere.
While 360-degree content can be easily consumed on just about any device, from your smartphone to your desktop computer, the 180-degree 3D mode will require some sort of virtual reality headset (see our favorites here). For this reason, we’re not sure how useful the 180-degree mode will be for most people, but it’s certainly a unique aspect of the Vuze XR that sets it apart from other compact 360 cameras like the Samsung Gear 360.
While the technical specifications of the new device remain mostly unknown, HumanEyes confirmed that it will shoot at 5.7K resolution. Beyond saving both videos and still photos, it will also let you live stream to “popular social media channels” (we’re guessing at least Facebook and YouTube).
The camera is expected to ship in the fourth quarter of this year at for around $ 400, although the exact pricing and availability have not yet been revealed. That will put it a fair margin above many other compact 360 cameras, which have weathered rather extreme price drops since their initial unveilings (the Samsung Gear 360 sells for just $ 95, after launching at $ 300). If the Vuze XR can deliver a good user experience through software, however, it may be able to come out ahead, as we have seen with the Rylo, which has managed to hold onto its $ 500 launch price many months after its original release thanks to an easy to use app and some great editing features.
While pre-orders are not yet open, potential customers can sign up for news updates on Vuze XR product page.
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