The camera seems to cope well with the heat. When cycling or walking, the camera is exposed to the open air, which keeps it cool enough. In the car, the camera is within range of the dashboard air vents. It’s only when you download the files from the camera to your PC that the temperature rises significantly. You’ll then get a message saying that the battery cannot be charged due to the high temperature. It makes no difference whether you use a silicone case or not.
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I received my camera as well! Thank you! My first capture with it is here: https://www.mapillary.com/app/?pKey=1752379005955027
Some notes:
- I did not receive any confirmation through email that I’ve been choosen for the camera grant. I only received a notification from DHL about a mysterious package from “Meta”. It took me some time to figure out that it’s probably from Mapillary, but until I opened the box I wasn’t sure whether it was the GoPro or a bomb
- It would be helpful to include a proper suction mount for the car roof. I have a very cheap one and I’m always afraid the camera will fall out, so I’m probably going to have to upgrade it for something more robust.
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First impressions look great! 
However, you definitely have to put the camera on the extension pole when capturing by 
car. Otherwise, you waste a ton of valuable high‑res pixels on the rather boring car roof. 
Thanks for that useful info. Did you apply very long ago?
I’ve decided that, if my application is approved, I’ll be getting roof-racks for my car so that I can attach a pole that way. That seems to me like the safest way to avoid any damage or legal issues, rather than putting trust in suction cup mounts. If suction cups come loose while I’m driving, the camera could be ruined and scratch my car in the process. Worst case scenario is someone gets injured or worse. So I think I’d rather have a mount bolted on.
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I don’t remember when was the time I applied, but it was around a week before my camera was sent. Very surprised it happened so quickly.
I also thought about getting a roof rack, but it’s expensive - for my car the cost is around the same as a brand new GoPro Max 2. So most likely I’m going to stick with suction mounts! I have a few of those cheap suction mounts so I’ll try 3D printing this thing: https://www.printables.com/model/192352-gopro-tri-suction-mount-adapter. Hopefully it will allow me to use a longer extension pole.
You will be safer swapping out the suction mounts with magnets.
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Not with a glass roof 
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Hi, I have received our GoPro Max 2 for improving the mapping of Sheffield, UK. The accounts we will be using are https://www.mapillary.com/app/user/ntzm, https://www.mapillary.com/app/user/canopyfalls, possibly under the https://www.mapillary.com/app/org/osmsheffield organisation.
One thing I have noticed is that the GPS can take a long while to lock on, and even when it’s locked on (the icon has gone blue), the route line on the Mapillary desktop uploader starts a long time after I started recording. Is there a way to tell when the GPS is properly locked on?
Thanks
Nat / OSM Sheffield
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If it’s blue, than the GPS has a good lock. I always start the Max when I leave the house, so it has time to get a good fix (usually I start it at least 20/30 minutes later, depends on the location I want to map). Never had any GPS issues with my Max 2, > 10.000 km has been mapped with the Max 2.
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Just a quick update on the backslash issue, it should now be fixed.
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@Fixtor for car mounting, here is a guide to our recommended setup and gear.
I just thought I might give some feedback on my initial attempts with the GoPro Max 2 360 degree camera.
Some basic things tripped me up so I hope this may help others. With the GoPro Max 2 the hardest thing initially was opening the door to put the battery and microSD card in - maybe it’s just mine but it was very stiff to open. After opening and closing it a few times it has loosened up considerably.
- So you’ve two lenses to capture the full 360 but if you’re in both lens mode you should have the lenses facing front and back not left and right. Does it matter? Apparently yes! I took some video footage which was unusable because it didn’t seem to stitch correctly and I got some green bars. I think the camera needs to be upright as much as possible or the plane of rotation in the resulting picture is not parallel to the ground. Not a show stopper but just “nicer”. Can probably edit that in the app but better to have it right to begin with.
- I saw people saying stuff on here about a picture every 2 seconds, there may be a setting for that but I haven’t found it. I just uploaded video and magic happened.
- How to get the data off the camera - you can take out the SD and put it into a reader in you computer. Alternative you can plug a usb-c cable into the camera’s usb-c slot and copy off the camera over MTP. Camera needs to be on for the GoPro to connect, I thought it would work while off to work as a passive card reader but no, the camera must be on.
- The GoPro Max 2 runs quite hot, having the display on seems to add a lot to the heat. I reckon the display being on drains the battery significantly faster.
- I tried a dashboard mount and in order to get it to work effectively, I needed the camera upside down. The display shows the footage the correct way up but when I captured footage it was saved upside down. You can change orientation by using the reframe tool in the GoPro app on your phone but altering “.360” file on my pc proved elusive.
- I also have some footage that was meant to be front camera only but I accidentally shot it in 360 mode with the rear lens cap on. I haven’t found a way to remove the blank 180 degrees. I’ll re-capture the footage again in the future, but I think I need a quick checklist of things to remember before starting a new capture.
I may try externally mounting, but I’d want to be very sure it doesn’t fall off and damage my car or even worse shoot off under hard braking and injure somebody. I reckon a waterproof case might be good too because I don’t want it covered in various dead insects etc.
Wish I’d read this link first :
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Hello, I also got a Max2 with the Camera Grant Program 3.0. First of all, thanks to all involved! I got the camera last Wednesday, so I am still trying to figure out how to shoot best with it. So far, position of the camera is too close to me or my car, but I ordered some more mounts to improve it.
Here are some pictures:
For me, it seems that the mode “Photo” is best for Mapillary and shooting in 2 sec interval, which is minimum. Quality seems to be best then, and stitching is no problem. I just rename all the .36P files in a folder to jpg with
for f in *.36P; do mv – “$f” “${f%.36P}.JPG”; done
then I can view it with SphereView if needed. (kubuntu user)
GNSS reception is better that I expected, so I don’t need any post processing for location or any other receiver.
Usually, I have an old Xiaomi 12 for tracking, and the tracks of the Xiaomi are a little bit more accurate than Max2, but not that it worth the work to relocate the pics.
So, thanks again for letting me have this nice camera!
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And a thank you from me too. Was out mapping during the Bristol Balloon Fiesta a few weeks back 
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And to add, findings so far:
- Quality is good; not as clear as an angled camera when trying to read house numbers, but it’s good enough, and the overall result is far nicer to use
- I’m mapping by car with the camera roof mounted. I’m using a triple suction mount, plus the included extension pole to raise it about 60cm off the roof. I use a wet sponge to wipe the contact area clean before attaching, and it’s been rock solid, even at 70mph. I’ve a strap firmly attached to both the mount and pole though the closed sunroof and anchored inside the car so it’s safe if it does come loose. I’m confident enough that I’m using it on motorways.
- GPS is excellent - I suppose being up in the air helps massively. Perfectly parallel lines when I do a road in both directions.
- I’m using video mode, 8k, high
bandwidthbitrate mode, 24fps. One hour is about 64GB, and a battery lasts just over an hour. I’m using 256GB cards left over from my previous mapping setup, so 4 hours per card. - It can be fussy on SD cards; use V30 cards. If the card is not fast enough, recording just quietly stops.
- Because I tend to map over multi-hour journeys, I tried powering the camera via the USB. Worked, but the GPS accuracy became terrible. Much experimentation with different cables, adapters, power-only leads, breakout connectors, ferrite beads etc etc, all to no avail. As soon as anything is plugged in the USB port, bad GPS. So I’ve bought the battery charger (which comes with two more batteries) and I have to stop once an hour for a quick battery change. Charger is USB-powered, so I can recharge on the go. Not ideal, but best plan I have. If anyone cracks this problem, please let me know!
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Very nice. And that’s the best tethering method I’ve seen. Now I need a car with a sunroof. Haha 
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I received my camera today. Thank you so much!!! My car mount should arrive by the end of this week.
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You can change the GoPro settings to save the images directly in .jpg, so you can avoid the renaming extra step.
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Hi @Teddy73 , @southglos , @wa_wheatbelt , @ivanbranco - if you haven’t yet, we would recommend looking at the Mapillary suggested settings for the GoPro Max2 and following these guidelines for configuring and using your camera: https://help.mapillary.com/hc/en-us/articles/360012674619-GoPro-MAX-Series
Let me know if anything in that guide is unclear, etc - cheers!
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Strange. Usually, this is caused by over-voltage. Cigarette lighter power USB adapters are often particularly bad at stepping down voltage to exactly 5 volts.
Oh, and make sure to protect the lenses when putting the camera on the car body if you want the MAX2 to last! MAX had snap‑on plastic transparent lens covers for that. Sure, you can now easily replace the glass lenses on MAX2 but they are quite expensive and may be difficult to source (do not count on cheap aftermarket lenses). Hence, I would recommend to use some decent quality third‑party transparent plastic covers on the lenses when driving. Road dust (from break pads, tires, asphalt, sand, etc) is indeed abrasive and tiny oil droplets do not do any good either.
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