The Insta360 Link is hands down the best webcam I have ever used. It's made by the company Insta360
and they're most well known for their 360 action cameras, but they're now taking that expertise and
they're applying it to webcams. It's basically like if you were to make a wish list of all of
the things that you would love to see in a webcam and all of those things show up in this webcam.
You get beautiful 4K images through a half an inch sensor. You can also ensure that you always stay
in the frame, even as you move around through the magic of AI. You could also demonstrate things in
front of you on your desk using something called Desk View. Those are just a few of the features
that this webcam has. As full disclosure before we jump into this, I received this webcam for free,
but this is not a sponsored video and I'll also share things that I don't like about this camera.
Let's start with what you get. The camera itself is fairly small in size. Here it is side by side
with my cell phone. The camera is attached to a gimbal and this allows it to rotate around
and keep the subject in the frame. On the base, you have these two holes and these are the dual
microphones and you use those to capture audio. In between those, you have a tap pad and if you
tap it once, it'll start tracking the subject. If you tap it twice, it'll recenter the camera.
In back of the base, you have a USB-C port. The camera also comes with a USB-C
cable and you also get a USB 3 adapter, just depending on which ports you have available.
You also get these four stickers and you can place these in the corners of a whiteboard and this way
you can focus in and zoom in on the whiteboard. You can also pick up an optional $30 tripod that
you can attach this camera to. To set up your webcam, you can attach it to the top of your
monitor using the included clips or you could also attach it to a tripod using a quarter inch screw.
Once you plug the webcam into either a Windows or a Mac PC, it'll just automatically detect it.
Here I am in Microsoft Teams and I see it as one of my available webcams. Of course, if you want to
take advantage of the full functionality, they recommend downloading the 360 Link Controller
software. You can download it directly from their website. Let's open up the software to see
what's possible. Here I am in the Link Controller software and right away you see the preview right
in this area so you can see how good the camera looks and personally, I think it looks pretty
good. Now, one of the things I like testing out is how quickly the camera can focus and one of the
neat things is here I can hold something up to the camera and you'll notice how quickly it focuses
on that. Now when I pull it away, it'll rapidly focus on me again. In the bottom left-hand corner,
you can turn the preview on or off and especially if you want to use this webcam with Zoom or Teams
or OBS, you have to turn off the preview in this app before you could use the video feed elsewhere.
To the right of that, here you can choose the resolution and this is a 4k camera. So here
I see the highest resolution possible. One of the really neat things is you could also choose
portrait orientation. When I select this, it physically rotates the camera and now I see myself
in portrait. This is especially good if let's say your audience is connecting on a mobile device. To
the right of the resolution, this is where we have some of the advanced functionality of this webcam
that truly differentiates it from the competition. First off, we have something called tracking. And
when I enable this, this is now identifying my face using AI. And as I move around, the camera
physically moves to follow me and to track me. It's not cropping in on a certain section of the
photo, it's actually physically moving the camera. And the range of motion is truly impressive. Here
I can turn off tracking by clicking on this button again. To the right of that, we have whiteboard
mode. So here I'll hold up a whiteboard, remember order your cookies. And I placed these stickers in
the corners of the whiteboard to help the camera identify where the whiteboard is. Now I can turn
on whiteboard mode, so now it's looking around and it's finding the whiteboard and look at this,
it zooms in on the whiteboard so my audience can see it very clearly. That's pretty cool. To
the right of whiteboard, there's also something called overhead mode, and when I click on this,
the camera will point downwards. Right now, it's just looking at the base of the camera,
but here if I pull it out, it'll simply look down at wherever I position the camera. This
works especially well if let's say you have your camera mounted overhead. To the right of overhead,
there's also something called desk view mode, and this one is really neat. Here when I click
on desk view mode, the camera rotates to about a 45-degree angle and it'll show whatever's on
my desk. So here I could write some notes or I could demonstrate something and my audience will
be able to see perfectly. And it also uses tech to adjust the image so it looks like an overhead
shot. This one's pretty impressive. Now that we've looked at some of the special modes, I
also want to show you how you can manually adjust the image. Right up here we see the preview of me.
I could use my mouse to adjust the position of the camera. So here I could pan from side to side. I
can also use my mouse wheel to scroll in or here I could scroll out. That was a little bit close.
Right over on the right-hand side, I can also use these controls to make slight modifications
to where the camera looks, or here I can make more drastic changes to the positioning of the camera.
Over here I could also zoom in and out and this goes a little bit quicker than using my mouse
wheel. So, let's say I really like this shot right here. I mean, it's got me centered in here. It
looks good. Right down here I can click on this plus icon and this will add it as a preset. So,
this way I can jump between my presets very quickly simply by clicking on these different
buttons. Also, once I'm all done and let's say I want to go back to the zoomed out,
just default view. Right up here I can click to reset or I could simply double tap on the camera
and that will also reset to the default position. When I'm all ready to record, right down here, I
could either take a screenshot by clicking on this button or to the right of that I can also record a
video. In the top right-hand corner, I also have some additional settings that I can configure.
Here I’ll click into image settings and here I can adjust things like the exposure, the white
balance, and all these different settings to get the image to look exactly how I want it to look.
On the far-right hand side, I also have more settings and these are some really interesting
ones. Right up on top, I have gesture settings and here I can use a gesture to kick off different
modes on the camera. Here for instance, I can hold up my palm and this kicks off active tracking.
I can also position my hand in an L and this way I can zoom in by lifting up my hand or here I can
lower it to zoom out and I can also jump into whiteboard mode. So lots of different options
there. Down below I also have some tracking settings. Here I can adjust the tracking
speed. I can turn on auto tracking simply by positioning the camera at a subject. So here
I can manually position the camera to look at me and then it knows that it should track me. I
could also simply position myself in the camera, single tap, and then it'll know to track me. So,
there are lots of different ways that you can turn on the auto tracking mode.
Down below this is one of my favorites. There's also something called AI Zoom. Here I'll turn
this on. So, the AI automatically detects where my head is. Here I'll turn on tracking
mode and now when I lean back here, you'll see it zooms in and frames my head within this shot.
Here if I switch to half body, it'll zoom out a little bit more. So, the software understands and
identifies the different parts of my body and then you also have the whole-body option. Down below
you also have many other settings that you can configure, so well worth looking at what you can
do with them. Up on top, one other setting that I want to call out. If you click on the ellipsis or
the three dots, here you can also access most of these features just by using hotkeys. So,
it makes it really quick to access all of this functionality. Once you exit out of the app
and you're no longer using the camera, it'll automatically go into privacy mode where the
camera points down and it'll no longer pick up any images. One thing that I really like about
the Insta360 Link is that you can use it together with many different third-party apps. To use my
Insta360 Link in an app like Microsoft Teams or any other app like Zoom or Discord, simply
go down to where you can select your camera. Here I'll click on these settings gear and right here
I can choose my camera. Make sure to select the Insta360 Link. You can also choose the Insta360
Link as your microphone. Now before you turn on the camera in the third-party app, make sure to
go back to the Link Controller software. In the Link Controller software in the bottom left-hand
corner, make sure to turn off the preview within this app. Back now in Microsoft Teams here,
I can turn on the camera preview and here I see the feed from the Insta360 Link. Now one
thing you might be wondering is, well, how can I zoom in or how can I turn on the different modes?
Let's go back to the Link Controller software. In the Link Controller software in the top right-hand
corner, we can click on this icon and this turns on miniature mode. Down here on the bottom, I
have this mini bar and it gives me all the primary controls of the Link software. Here for example,
I can launch my different modes. I can jump to my different presets. So, I have all of these same
controls directly in whatever app that I happen to be using. You can also use your Insta360 Link
directly in software like OBS Studio. And this is perfect for streaming to say Twitch or YouTube or
Facebook. Right down here, simply click on this plus icon and select video capture device. Here
I can select my device and I'll pick the Insta360 Link and then click on okay. And right here, I see
my image directly in OBS. If you're interested in learning more about how you can use OBS Studio,
be sure to check out the video right up above. Down in the bottom right-hand corner, here I can
start streaming or here I can start recording so many different options. Lastly, you can also use
the link together with NVIDIA Broadcast and this really enhances the functionality of the camera.
You can use this if you have an RTX graphics card. Right here, I have the camera selected
and you can apply all of these different effects to your image. Here for example, I can blur the
background and this gives it this really high end DSLR look. Down below, I can also apply all of
these other effects to my video. So, it's another way to enhance or extend the capabilities of the
Link webcam. All in all, this is the best webcam I have ever used, but there are some drawbacks.
The first one is that you cannot use this with Windows Hello to log into your Windows PC.
To be able to use that, you need an infrared sensor, and this camera does not have that.
The second thing is it includes some built in microphones and they're pretty much what you
would expect for a webcam. They get the job done, but they're not amazing. This is what the audio
sounds like directly through the webcam. If audio really matters to you, you'll probably want to
use an external microphone. Lastly, and probably the biggest deal breaker is the very steep price
for this webcam. It's significantly more than most other competition in the webcam market.
That being said, you get a lot more functionality, but maybe the tracking doesn't matter to you.
Maybe you don't need desk view. Maybe you don't need a 4K camera. If that's the case,
this camera is likely overkill, and you could find something cheaper. All right, let me know
down below in the comments, what do you think of this webcam? At least for me personally,
this is going to be my primary webcam moving forward. To watch more videos like this one,
please consider subscribing and I’ll see you in the next video.