For quite a long time, all of us have been paying attention to the rumors and leaked information regarding Samsung’s Galaxy S7. We finally know that the phone will be unveiled on February 21 during Samsung’s Unpacked event. The company released a video teaser for such event and while it didn’t show many details about the phone, there was a man wearing a VR headset, leading to the assumption that Samsung could introduce a device related to this technology. Now, reports are coming through that besides the new flagship phones, Samsung is likely to announce the Gear 360 VR camera.
Just as its name suggests, the Gear 360 (with model number SM-C200) is a compact spherical camera capable of recording 360-degree content with two fisheye lenses that record 180 degrees, it might be another device from Samsung’s Project Beyond. The camera will provide a truly wireless experience, it uses a Bluetooth connection to pair with the devices and since it has its own battery, there’s no need to plug it to any other source, plus, it features internal storage to save the recorded content. The camera can be used from a companion app called Gear 360 Connect and although the compatibility with the new Galaxy S7 phones is obvious, it might be compatible with recent flagship phones from the company. Additional software includes the Gear 360 Gallery and a remote viewfinder app, so users can tweak some settings such as HDR, white balance, exposure and ISO. More sophisticated features from the app include a Liveview option, VR view, dual view, panoramic view, time lapse, looping video and the ability to switch between recording 360-degree content and 180-degree content, as well as using the front lenses or the ones on the back.
The content can have a maximum resolution of 3840 x 1920 pixels when recording 360-degree content and using both lenses while a single lens can record 180-degree content at a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1920 pixels. A connected phone can be used to watch the Gear 360 video feed live, but it is still unknown if it will be able to stream the content to additional devices including those docked into the Gear VR headset, which would certainly be interesting. Pricing and availability details are still unknown.