AKASO External Microphone EK7000/ EK7000 Pro/Brave 4//Brave 7 LE/Brave 4 Pro/ V50X/ V50 Elite Action Camera Only (Micro USB Port)

The media could not be loaded. While not ideal, it is an improvement with a few caveats.Pros:While it's not louder it is more isolating when it comes to sound. You can hear a lot less background his and it removes a lot of excess noise like the camera button click as it's not on the camera itself. My voice is 100% clearer IMO and gives a bit more freedom when recording.Cons:It's a lapel mic which is not ideal for all circumstances. Sometimes you need a boom mic or other type of mic depending on the situation. Which leads to another point, this is (probably - at the time of writing this it is) the only mic that will work with the V50X. Also, you may need to upgrade the firmware on your camera - which I had to - to "unlock" the record function. Its no biggie, but maybe intimidating to newcomers. Further, you have to enable recording in the settings BEFORE using this mic, or else it will not work. Which, the counter-opposite is true as well, you have to disable mic input if you are going to record on the cameras native microphone. Further, personally I would have preferred an adaptor to a separate mic - I would have loved to use a Rode Mic. Lastly, PLEASE CHECK THE MODEL CAMERA BEFORE BUYING. This Mic is SPECIFIC to the V50X and most likely will not work with the V50Pro (Akaso - if you are reading this I don't have a Pro to try it out on)Quick Notes if you don't want to read all of this:- Good Mic for recording self or someone within 6 feet of you using the lapel mic (I.E. you would have to attach it to that person)-Clearer single-directional sound: You will only be able to clearly hear what the mic is pointing at-This Product is SPECIFIC to the Akaso V50X - Will only work on the V50X-WILL NOT WORK AND IS NOT waterproof. You cannot have this on and have the housing on as well-Must have the latest firmware to use-Must Select Mic Input on the camera itself.-Have to turn on/off mic input depending on what you are using to recordFor 10$ its a steal- I would buy it again no problem. There are some quirks to using it and it's not going to be applicable to every situation. But it does come with the benefit of better unidirectional recoding. You are not going to notice an increase in audio quality, with the latest firmware the audio issues have been ironed out on the native mic. But, outside an interview environment or some situation where you will not be in a crowd, this will provide the benefit of you/your voice being isolated very well. Again, my preference would have been a mic adaptor, but this works for my application and I will be quite happy to use it.

I was hoping this external mic would fix the low audio levels that plague the V50X, but it performs in the same manner at the same distance as the internal mic (yes, I did change the setting to use the external). To summarize, if you have either the internal or this special external mic within about 6" of your mouth there is no real problem with volume level. However the gain drops off very quickly after that and is at least 12 dB below "normal" if you have either mic at 18", which is typical distance for selfie videos. The V50X video volume was much lower than videos taken at 18" with either my Canon Powershot S120 camera or Moto G5 Plus smartphone. The advantage to the drastic gain rolloff is less background noise, but if you want to hear birds chirping or creeks running by your site you'll have to bump the volume levels in post processing.My solution was to use the external mic clipped to my backpack's shoulder strap and talk louder or I held it near my mouth if I didn't have my backpack on. The provided windscreen is OK for light breezes, but I knew it wouldn't work for the windy conditions I would face so I made a much thicker one from an old sponge, which worked great even in 40+ MPH winds.Overall, I'm glad I ordered this mic at the same as the V50X since I would have been pretty limited in how I could use the camera on the trip, but it didn't improve the audio levels as much as I was hoping. I had assumed it was a hardware issue with the internal mic, but it must be in the audio processing subsystem.

Great sound on the microphone. I didn't need the adaptor for my Brave 7 LE but I guess it could come in handy for something else. Very worth it in my opinion.

First: If anyone from AKASO is reading this, don't bother contacting me I'm not interested in replacements or anything else from you. this stuff is garbage and people need to know it's garbage.Second. So I bought a Brave 7 LE and the audio was crap. In a quiet room it sounded muffled and just horrible. Odd how so many other manufactures don't have this issue. I was contacted by the company and they offered to send me another one which they did. I thought that was cool of them, but in the end it sounded just as bad.I decided to finally see if the lav mic would clear up the issue and NO IT DID NOT. In fact it made everything far worst.So to get this to work even once, after fiddling with it for an hour, I finally just left it plugged in and did a factor reset. Then suddenly it was able to record audio. awesome. shut it down unplugged it went back to internal mic it recorded, the audio wasn't improved much with the lav. I plugged it back in and switched to external AND IT WILL NOT RECORD AUDIO AGAIN!. Tried doing the factor reset but it was a no go. Neither internal or external worked. pulled the batter and the internal finally worked by the external didn't.So lets talk back design: First of all, there's no excuse to be doing USB anyway, just put a 3.5 jack on there like a REAL camera. And the way they do it is just oh so Dorm room. Daisy chaining USB, real smart there. So this is a micro USB dongle to USB C, then a USB C lav mic. It's overly complicated just so they can make you buy a branded lav mic. it's stupid.I can not suggest this strongly enough, skip this brand. If all you need is video and no audio then well it'll probably be ok for you, but I'd suggest going with someone else. I won't be purchasing anything from AKASO again. I have two of their stupid camera's now and they are basically paper weights.