Panosphere 360 Spy Cam

Bought this as a gift for my 12 year old. I think I was more excited about it than he was...has never it since Christmas Day...not sure if he ever got it working...but he has no or little interest in the toy. Was disappointed that after I ordered it I found it at Toys-R-Us for almost half the price....

Super cute toy. My grandson loves it.

My son was excited to get this. However, it is a big waste of money. Picture quality is extremely poor. Unable to make out what the picture or video is! We had to destroy the box to get it out, so I guess I cant even return. This was a Christmas gift and he was excited to use it. We just uploaded the pics and videos - tonight (Christmas night) and ready to throw the toy in the trash.

Received this as a gift for my son and it came like this. The package was all torn up and a piece is already broken off.

Bought this in the clearance aisle at a brick and mortar for 5 bucks. Package was almost impossible to open, had to tear it up to get it out. One page manual is in three languages and essentially useless in all three. I first thought the strap mount was missing, but discovered it was hidden inside the slide mount. Manual does not tell you how to open the slide mount (you have to twist the base). Photos are fisheye 1600x1200 JPGs, 2 gb card included is supposed to hold around 2000 images taken at 1 second intervals...about 30 minutes. AVI video and audio are both rather poor quality. It's supposed to hold about 15 minutes worth of video on the card, haven't tested the limit yet. Software is not included but can be downloaded from manufacturer's website, but don't bother...it really sucks. Just copy photos and video from the MicroSD to your hard drive and view it with something else. Certainly not professional quality, but for 5 bucks it's a fairly nice toy.

Review of the Spy Gear Panosphere 360. OK, let's be realistic; it's a child's toy, not professional equipment! But the toy is actually kind of amazing. The level of miniaturization and the technology is amazing. This miniature "spy camera" does have its virtues. The camera without its attachments is about the size of a cigarette lighter or a Tic-Tac container. The attachments include a sucker wall mount which will allow you to stick it to any smooth flat surface, a velcro strap which will allow you to wrap it around small objects and hold it in place, and a holder, which is about the size of a woman's makeup case or compact, and this can be used to place it inconspicuously in areas such as underneath tables, chairs, sofas, etc. or slide it across a smooth floor or other flat smooth surface. There is also a rubber band which can help secure the camera in its holder when sticking it to a wall. But the holder is pretty secure, and the camera did not fall out of the holder even after shaking it, so the band is just for extra security, I suppose if the camera is mounted on a bicycle where it might hit a bumpy road. I began to put it through its paces. The toy boasts that it can record in 360 degrees in all directions and shoot either still images or video. And indeed it can do both and it does capture sound, albeit faintly. The camera is essentially a cheap digital camera with a fisheye lens. And the mini camera can be tilted up or down 90 degrees. The fisheye lens is a circular type which means that if placed on the floor, it can shoot a full 360 in all directions horizontally, and 180 degrees vertically, meaning it can capture a full hemisphere. Thus one can see everything that is above it and what is all around it. If you wish to capture a full sphere, you can purchase two such cameras and stick them bottom to bottom and suspend it in mid air. (I did just that, and purchased two of these cameras for that purpose.) The still images are recorded at a total of 1.9 megapixels (1600 x 1200), the equivalent of an old cellphone image or an old digital camera (I wish the image would be about 5 megapixels) -- not professional quality by any means, and much of that image is black since the fisheye records in only a circle in the center of the frame, so the images are rather grainy and highly pixelated especially when recorded in a darkened area. The images are best when recorded in a brightly lit room or in daylight outdoors and in such situations one can see some detail and make out features of objects in the room and environs where the camera is recording. When viewed through the provided software one can pan around the image in the perspective view and make out objects in the room all around the camera. There is not a lot of detail, but objects in the scene are recognizable. The video camera does actually shoot 780 p which is fairly high quality video, but remember that it is shooting this for an entire hemisphere and with a non professional quality circular fisheye lens, so much of that resolution is lost when you view the video through the perspective or standard view in the Spy Gear viewing software. In other words, when you see it through the perspective view you are actually viewing only a small part of that 780p. But the video, when seen as a fisheye image, without using the viewing software, is actually quite good for a cheap camera, having a resolution and quality about that of standard size VHS tape when shot in a well lit area. (VHS has a equivalent of horizontal resolution of 640 pixels and 480 vertical.) Again, if you want the best quality, you will need to shoot in a well lit room, or in daylight outdoors. The camera shoots in standard JPEG format for digital still images and standard Windows AVI format for video -- no proprietary formats which require special software! All necessary software is in the camera itself, so there is no need for a disk or any special setup. (The full version of the software is available online and can be downloaded.) Just plug the camera into any available USB port to access the images and videos and to load the software. And it also charges through the USB port as well. Operation of the device is quite simple -- so simple that, yes, as the cliche goes, a child can quite literally do it. Push the button in one direction to record still images, push in the other direction to record video. Push the button toward the center to turn it off. Still images are shot continuously, every second or so, once the camera is turned on to still image option, until power or memory run out, or until the person turns the camera off. Likewise video. I am somewhat disappointed by the quality of the still images, though I was not expecting professional level by any means, but I was hoping for somewhat better. But still, for my projects, it may produce some interesting effects. I intend to create immersive 3d scenes where one can be in a 3D environment and view the scene all around. With a little blur effect in the images, and 3D objects in the scene it would tend to call attention mostly to the 3D object in the scene rather than the immersive background, but the background would provide an interesting contrast with the 3D objects embedded in the scene. If one wants to produce high quality spherical images, one would need to get a high resolution digital camera (I recently bought a Nikon D3200 camera, with 24 megapixels -- reviewed in this forum) and a circular fisheye lens (but a good circular fisheye lens can run about 800 dollars.) And then of course record one hemisphere and then pan the camera around 180 degrees to record the other hemisphere. Or have two 24 megapixel cameras back to back with fisheye lenses recording the two hemispheres simultaneously and stitch the hemispheres together. But for the money, it makes an interesting toy and a fun toy. I think I will have fun creating some interesting effects with it for my artwork. And as for children, I am sure many children ages 8 to 13 will have hours of fun with it.

Me, as an agent of the K.S.S. , I come across several times that I must capture video or photo evidence. I have gotten many other cameras and spy cameras, and the video/picture quality hasn't been acceptable for the agency. In well lit conditions, the camera quality is very, very good. Actually, it has been incredible. I highly suggest this product. Though, it is a toy, the K.S.S has highly suggest this -SPK 2

I got this for my nephew for Christmas and had a chance to play with it after he opened it. We used the picture mode and video mode. The video quality is what you would expect from a kids toy, audio was a little low but could hear it clearly. Video and images have a fish-eye effect. Plugged it into the computer and did not have to manually install any drivers, just appeared as a drive to copy files from. overall, fun for a toy for kids.

Bought as a Christmas present for my 8 year old daughter. Pretty much as expected, she used it twice, picture quality not great, took a bit of fiddling about to get onto the computer and now it's lying unused....

Livraison très rapide, bon produit

Regretted

I bought this camera for my six year old grandson, not really knowing what I was buying. The feedback I got was that he absolutely loves it. It is easy to use, and easy to view your ilm on the computer He takes it everywhere with him, even when riding his bike. It was his best birthday present.!

9 year old grandson loved setting up traps in his bedroom. Great fun.