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I recently picked up a Xiaomi Yi camera to see if it would be a viable alternative to my GoPro HERO4 Black.
The Xiaomi is slightly larger than the GoPro in every dimension, but it is lighter.
The thing about the design that I find the most strange is the lens. It is in a different location than the GoPro's lens, and it is slightly larger in diameter. This makes it incompatible with most if not all GoPro housings and lens covers. In order to use a LayerLens on the Xiaomi, I had to sand away a couple of millimeters of material from the inside of the LayerLens. The placement of the lens means that the LayerLens protrudes from the bottom of the camera.
I ended up using the LayerLens upside down.
When I tried to use the camera for the first time, didn't work well. I turned it on and started testing it out a bit, but I could not get the camera to charge the battery. I plugged it into my computer and various USB chargers I have with the camera on and off, and nothing worked. I had to buy a set of spare batteries and external charger. I was able to use the charger to charge the original battery and the two spares.
The only way to change any of the settings is through an app on your phone. The Android app wouldn't install at all on my Nexus 7, and the iOS app is completely in Chinese. This post shows the English translation for all of the settings. I probably wouldn't have been able to do much without it, and the default settings aren't great. By default, it starts in photo mode, records video at 1080p30, and has the auto low light setting on. I changed them to start in video mode, record at 1080p60, and disable auto low light.
After all of that, I was ready to record some test footage. I flew roughly the same circuit with each camera on my mini quad because there is no room to mount both cameras on it at the same time. Here are the results (check the video description to see which camera is which):
The Xiaomi footage definitely isn't as good as the GoPro, but it might be good enough.
The Xiaomi is slightly larger than the GoPro in every dimension, but it is lighter.
The thing about the design that I find the most strange is the lens. It is in a different location than the GoPro's lens, and it is slightly larger in diameter. This makes it incompatible with most if not all GoPro housings and lens covers. In order to use a LayerLens on the Xiaomi, I had to sand away a couple of millimeters of material from the inside of the LayerLens. The placement of the lens means that the LayerLens protrudes from the bottom of the camera.
I ended up using the LayerLens upside down.
When I tried to use the camera for the first time, didn't work well. I turned it on and started testing it out a bit, but I could not get the camera to charge the battery. I plugged it into my computer and various USB chargers I have with the camera on and off, and nothing worked. I had to buy a set of spare batteries and external charger. I was able to use the charger to charge the original battery and the two spares.
The only way to change any of the settings is through an app on your phone. The Android app wouldn't install at all on my Nexus 7, and the iOS app is completely in Chinese. This post shows the English translation for all of the settings. I probably wouldn't have been able to do much without it, and the default settings aren't great. By default, it starts in photo mode, records video at 1080p30, and has the auto low light setting on. I changed them to start in video mode, record at 1080p60, and disable auto low light.
After all of that, I was ready to record some test footage. I flew roughly the same circuit with each camera on my mini quad because there is no room to mount both cameras on it at the same time. Here are the results (check the video description to see which camera is which):
The Xiaomi footage definitely isn't as good as the GoPro, but it might be good enough.
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