The Samsung Gear 360 can be used with phones other than the Samsung high end phones.
There are two possibilities:
a) Use the hacked Samsung apps that have the phone check removed
b) Use the Google Streetview mode. This works even with iOS. One drawback: You can’t specify the interval, the default is 8 seconds which is quite slow.
Here’s how to set it up:
Download the google streetview app.
On the Gear 360, hold down the menu button, then use the menu button to select “Google Street View.”
Connect the iPhone to the Gear 360 Wi-fi network. Use the password on the display of the Gear 360.
Launch the Streetview app.
Tap the camera icon (bottom right) to take a picture. Go to the app settings to configure interval photos.
Details for both of these methods are at the 360rumors website.
I ended up getting a Ricoh Theta S (will do a writeup when I have used it a bit more).
One of the main reasons was, that as far as I could see, the firmware could only be updated using the Samsung app. The first firmware update should improve the image quality a lot, But does that work with teh hacked app? Do you know what the maximum timelapse speed is?
I feal quite uncomfortable spending a lot of money on a pice of hardware that I have no official way of using. In Denmark it is price at the same level as the Ricoh Theta S.
@tryl@Mapster Great information and experiments on Gear360. We haven’t ordered our own yet. Is it true that GPS will be written to the photos if we use Samsung’s native camera app and the StreetView app? Will need to check if they will open their API so that we can integrate it to our app as well.
360 Rumors claims that the Samsung camera does not stitch images inside the camera. So if you manage to use their API you will have to stitch them yourself. That explains why they only allow their own expensive phones to be used, because they need hardware acceleration to do the stitching within final time.
Hi there,
I have been testing the Giroptic camera extensively on the Faroe Islands, and it’s great with the 3 batteries that recharge pretty quickly - we could get out a whole day of mapping 6 days in a row.
wow, how do you make them? i am having a 360 camera and i don’t like it. either because i don’t know how to properly use it or am not sure. whatever the case, you’ve got amazing stuff out there. someone can help me learning?
