iON Adventure: a hybrid of a professional extreme camera and a DVR with a G-sensor and GPS
The “recipe” of making a hybrid of an auto-recorder and an extreme camera, widely used by domestic brands, looks like this: it takes a registrar, is in a waterproof case and comes with a set of mounts (on flat surfaces, steering wheels, helmets, etc.). At the same time, developers forget that special requirements are imposed on action cameras - for example, when shooting extreme video, there are extremely sharp and constant changes in angle (plus shaking and upheaval), for which the “hardware” of conventional recorders is not always ready. Moreover, when creating the “hybrids” described above, inexpensive auto-registers are usually used: if you take the advanced model as a basis, and even add a good set of fasteners to its package, then it will cost more than 10 thousand rubles. As a result, "hybrids of autoregs and extreme cameras" usually act normally in the first role, but pass in the second. The extreme video shot on them often turns out blurry, fuzzy and with a bunch of artifacts.
Today I will talk about the implementation of a slightly different approach to creating an “action registrar”. The model that will be discussed in this post is called iON Adventure. My colleagues and I have written about American extreme iON cameras more than once: first they compared the iON Air Pro Wi-Fi with the GoPro Hero3 White Edition , and then they looked at the iON Air Pro 2 Wi-Fi . Now this brand, having eaten a four-legged animal in the field of sports cameras, has set about creating a “hybrid”. The output turned out to be quite an interesting model, which can successfully act as a device of both the first and second type (that is, a professional sports camera and a car recorder).
However, there is one small caveat regarding the role of the sports camera. The iON Adventure package only comes with car accessories (a list below). But the mounts for the handlebars of bicycles and motorcycles, flat surfaces and so on are not in the box. Yes, iON Adventure is equipped with a proprietary CamLOCK interface, so the "action recorder" is fully compatible with mounts available for conventional iON sports cameras. Another thing is that these same mounts will have to be purchased separately. Personally, this moment does not bother me at all, since my favorite “extreme sport” is swimming with photographing sea fish at a shallow depth - up to 2-3 meters. In this case, no fasteners are needed, and the case of the iON Adventure is waterproof: with this device you can dive to a depth of 10 meters,
The iON Adventure package includes:
• miniUSB / USB cable.
• Universal charger with 4 different plugs - travelers will appreciate it.
• Dual USB adapter with a plug in the cigarette lighter for a car (that is, with an additional port for charging other gadgets).
• CamLOCK interface + metal plate for screwing it on.
• Safety belt.
• Adapter from miniUSB to AV.
• Suction cup mounts.
• L-adapter for tripod. The tripod itself is not included, but if you take it somewhere and screw it onto the iON Adventure, the camera lens will look up. So an adapter is needed.
• Car mount with a separate slot for mounting CamLOCK'a with the registrar.
• Bag for carrying.
• Box for storage (it is metal and is part of the packaging).
• A bunch of waste paper, including a thick instruction in several languages, including Russian.
As you can see, iON Adventure really isn’t fastened to the steering wheel. But to the car - easily, and you can install the device both in the cabin and outside it. For example, on a door glass or on a hood. I tried this way and that. In the photo iON Adventure is on the door. I was impressed by the diameter of the suction cup (the air from under it is pumped out using a special handle): it is truly huge compared to those used in the mounts of conventional recorders. I think this is good: it will be better to hold on and will not fall off during sharp turns. I also checked this - I'll show below.
The case of the model is high-quality, but already plastic, - unlike iON Air Pro Wi-Fi and Air Pro 2 Wi-Fi, where a combination of plastic and metal was used. The lens is now located not on the side face, but on the side surface of the “cylinder”. You can’t say more about the case, I’ll just note that it’s nice to pick it up. Especially after many “local” autoregs made badly.
Of the unusual, I note the lack of a screen and Wi-Fi support in the base package. Yes, for iON Adventure you can buy a proprietary Wi-Fi PODZ adapter from iON, and then the ability to connect an “action recorder” to smartphones / tablets will appear. But “in the database” the device can be configured and reconfigured only when connected to a computer using a special program (it is located in the device itself). On the computer, you also have to watch the video. At first, I was worried about “aiming” the iON Adventure on the road, but in practice there were no problems - you just need to position the device horizontally and make sure that the lens does not “squint” up or down.
A set of typical "registration" options in iON Adventure is present. So, there is a cyclic mode (recording in segments of 5 minutes in 720p mode and 3 minutes in 1080p mode). Recording can start automatically when the engine is started, and if the device is not connected to the cigarette lighter, then click on the large button on the right side face. Around it there is a large "ring" indicator; it will turn pink, and that’s it, the recording has begun. (By the way, this very bright “burning” annoys me a little.) Even in iON Adventure, a G-sensor is implemented that automatically transfers the “emergency” (that is, received during sharp braking, shock, turns, etc.) video to an indelible zone on memory card, thereby protecting it from being erased during a cyclic dubbing process.
There are two microSD card slots in iON Adventure. One for the needs of an action camera, the second for a recorder. Both of them are under the cover on the left side of the case. There is also a small switch for selecting one of these modes. In the first case, the device writes video in a continuous stream, in the second - in segments. The ability to take photos is also there, and it is implemented weirdly: in the registrar mode, you need to click on the side button to get a picture. But in the action camera mode, this method does not work: you need to buy a Wi-Fi PODZ or a remote control.
And iON Adventure also has a GPS module for recording the driving route. This is necessary for the subsequent video overlay on the card and upload to the Kinomap online service (something like a social network for video recording lovers). To complete this action, you should download the appropriate program - Kinomap Uploader. This is what the car route looks like in this program. Do not be surprised at its intricacies and location "in the water" - my friends and I rode along the frozen river.
In some players - for example, the proprietary player Samsung Galaxy S4 - the coordinates and time / date are displayed directly on the video. (I inserted a card from iON Adventure into the smartphone.)
Before proceeding to demonstrate the results of pokatushek, a few numbers. The iON Adventure uses a 5-megapixel CMOS sensor, the viewing angle of the lens reaches 120 degrees. The clips are saved in two versions: with maximum quality (Full HD or HD), as well as with reduced quality. This option is intended for quick loading on social networks - the volume will decrease, say, from 600 MB to 50.
Here are screenshots of all the basic settings that can be changed on the computer. From the same program, videos can be uploaded to social networks, on YouTube and on iON Cloud. All owners of iON devices on this cloud service are provided with 8 GB of space.
Well, now the video itself. As I said above, we skated on the ice, fixing the iON Adventure on the glass of the side door of the car. The result is such a video:
From the side it looked like this (shot on the Samsung Galaxy S4):
Before the trip to the river, we “stretched out” in the empty parking lot of the supermarket:
The recording quality was quite fine with me: the driver turned the steering wheel very intensively, which led to sharp turns / turns and, as a result, instant changes in angle. In such circumstances, iON Adventure did not disappoint. But Daewoo Lanos pretty surprised, starting to eat not 10-12 liters, but 29.5:
In the city, iON Adventure and I also swept. Here is the video in recorder mode; quite a result, in my opinion. Writes at the level of a good modern black box.
To summarize the impressions. Did you like the device? Yes, for me. If I had a personal car, then, quite possibly, I would take myself an iON Adventure. This is convenient: on the way to some Crimea, he acts as a registrar, and upon arrival at the place you can dive with him. In spring, winter and autumn (that is, when it’s “off season”) this thing will not roll on the shelf, as my underwater camera Kodak C123 Sport does now and like any “purebred” action camera would do. The price of iON Adventure is about 10 thousand rubles, which is expensive by the standards of a conventional registrar, but it is quite normal for a "hybrid". And it’s precisely for a high-quality “hybrid”, of which Adventure is, and not for Chinese registrars with dust and water tight housing, which are full of the Russian market.
Today I will talk about the implementation of a slightly different approach to creating an “action registrar”. The model that will be discussed in this post is called iON Adventure. My colleagues and I have written about American extreme iON cameras more than once: first they compared the iON Air Pro Wi-Fi with the GoPro Hero3 White Edition , and then they looked at the iON Air Pro 2 Wi-Fi . Now this brand, having eaten a four-legged animal in the field of sports cameras, has set about creating a “hybrid”. The output turned out to be quite an interesting model, which can successfully act as a device of both the first and second type (that is, a professional sports camera and a car recorder).
However, there is one small caveat regarding the role of the sports camera. The iON Adventure package only comes with car accessories (a list below). But the mounts for the handlebars of bicycles and motorcycles, flat surfaces and so on are not in the box. Yes, iON Adventure is equipped with a proprietary CamLOCK interface, so the "action recorder" is fully compatible with mounts available for conventional iON sports cameras. Another thing is that these same mounts will have to be purchased separately. Personally, this moment does not bother me at all, since my favorite “extreme sport” is swimming with photographing sea fish at a shallow depth - up to 2-3 meters. In this case, no fasteners are needed, and the case of the iON Adventure is waterproof: with this device you can dive to a depth of 10 meters,
The iON Adventure package includes:
• miniUSB / USB cable.
• Universal charger with 4 different plugs - travelers will appreciate it.
• Dual USB adapter with a plug in the cigarette lighter for a car (that is, with an additional port for charging other gadgets).
• CamLOCK interface + metal plate for screwing it on.
• Safety belt.
• Adapter from miniUSB to AV.
• Suction cup mounts.
• L-adapter for tripod. The tripod itself is not included, but if you take it somewhere and screw it onto the iON Adventure, the camera lens will look up. So an adapter is needed.
• Car mount with a separate slot for mounting CamLOCK'a with the registrar.
• Bag for carrying.
• Box for storage (it is metal and is part of the packaging).
• A bunch of waste paper, including a thick instruction in several languages, including Russian.
As you can see, iON Adventure really isn’t fastened to the steering wheel. But to the car - easily, and you can install the device both in the cabin and outside it. For example, on a door glass or on a hood. I tried this way and that. In the photo iON Adventure is on the door. I was impressed by the diameter of the suction cup (the air from under it is pumped out using a special handle): it is truly huge compared to those used in the mounts of conventional recorders. I think this is good: it will be better to hold on and will not fall off during sharp turns. I also checked this - I'll show below.
The case of the model is high-quality, but already plastic, - unlike iON Air Pro Wi-Fi and Air Pro 2 Wi-Fi, where a combination of plastic and metal was used. The lens is now located not on the side face, but on the side surface of the “cylinder”. You can’t say more about the case, I’ll just note that it’s nice to pick it up. Especially after many “local” autoregs made badly.
Of the unusual, I note the lack of a screen and Wi-Fi support in the base package. Yes, for iON Adventure you can buy a proprietary Wi-Fi PODZ adapter from iON, and then the ability to connect an “action recorder” to smartphones / tablets will appear. But “in the database” the device can be configured and reconfigured only when connected to a computer using a special program (it is located in the device itself). On the computer, you also have to watch the video. At first, I was worried about “aiming” the iON Adventure on the road, but in practice there were no problems - you just need to position the device horizontally and make sure that the lens does not “squint” up or down.
A set of typical "registration" options in iON Adventure is present. So, there is a cyclic mode (recording in segments of 5 minutes in 720p mode and 3 minutes in 1080p mode). Recording can start automatically when the engine is started, and if the device is not connected to the cigarette lighter, then click on the large button on the right side face. Around it there is a large "ring" indicator; it will turn pink, and that’s it, the recording has begun. (By the way, this very bright “burning” annoys me a little.) Even in iON Adventure, a G-sensor is implemented that automatically transfers the “emergency” (that is, received during sharp braking, shock, turns, etc.) video to an indelible zone on memory card, thereby protecting it from being erased during a cyclic dubbing process.
There are two microSD card slots in iON Adventure. One for the needs of an action camera, the second for a recorder. Both of them are under the cover on the left side of the case. There is also a small switch for selecting one of these modes. In the first case, the device writes video in a continuous stream, in the second - in segments. The ability to take photos is also there, and it is implemented weirdly: in the registrar mode, you need to click on the side button to get a picture. But in the action camera mode, this method does not work: you need to buy a Wi-Fi PODZ or a remote control.
And iON Adventure also has a GPS module for recording the driving route. This is necessary for the subsequent video overlay on the card and upload to the Kinomap online service (something like a social network for video recording lovers). To complete this action, you should download the appropriate program - Kinomap Uploader. This is what the car route looks like in this program. Do not be surprised at its intricacies and location "in the water" - my friends and I rode along the frozen river.
In some players - for example, the proprietary player Samsung Galaxy S4 - the coordinates and time / date are displayed directly on the video. (I inserted a card from iON Adventure into the smartphone.)
Before proceeding to demonstrate the results of pokatushek, a few numbers. The iON Adventure uses a 5-megapixel CMOS sensor, the viewing angle of the lens reaches 120 degrees. The clips are saved in two versions: with maximum quality (Full HD or HD), as well as with reduced quality. This option is intended for quick loading on social networks - the volume will decrease, say, from 600 MB to 50.
Here are screenshots of all the basic settings that can be changed on the computer. From the same program, videos can be uploaded to social networks, on YouTube and on iON Cloud. All owners of iON devices on this cloud service are provided with 8 GB of space.
Well, now the video itself. As I said above, we skated on the ice, fixing the iON Adventure on the glass of the side door of the car. The result is such a video:
From the side it looked like this (shot on the Samsung Galaxy S4):
Before the trip to the river, we “stretched out” in the empty parking lot of the supermarket:
The recording quality was quite fine with me: the driver turned the steering wheel very intensively, which led to sharp turns / turns and, as a result, instant changes in angle. In such circumstances, iON Adventure did not disappoint. But Daewoo Lanos pretty surprised, starting to eat not 10-12 liters, but 29.5:
In the city, iON Adventure and I also swept. Here is the video in recorder mode; quite a result, in my opinion. Writes at the level of a good modern black box.
To summarize the impressions. Did you like the device? Yes, for me. If I had a personal car, then, quite possibly, I would take myself an iON Adventure. This is convenient: on the way to some Crimea, he acts as a registrar, and upon arrival at the place you can dive with him. In spring, winter and autumn (that is, when it’s “off season”) this thing will not roll on the shelf, as my underwater camera Kodak C123 Sport does now and like any “purebred” action camera would do. The price of iON Adventure is about 10 thousand rubles, which is expensive by the standards of a conventional registrar, but it is quite normal for a "hybrid". And it’s precisely for a high-quality “hybrid”, of which Adventure is, and not for Chinese registrars with dust and water tight housing, which are full of the Russian market.
