First Footage - Great quality, frustrating connection issues, suggestions

General
1

Hello all - we took our first dive into the Folocam tracking today after ordering the bundle with the Comitok Mogo. Our daughter had a 3v3 tournament today with multiple games to try out different settings. I’ll have a review of the app etc. below, but first: The connection to the Mogo struggled mightily with my Iphone 16 Pro. I had tested it multiple times this week at home, and it seemed to regularly drop connection with the Mogo, though once it was recording it never dropped. At one game today it took nearly 10 minutes to finally get it to connect (otherwise showing “Gimbal Disconnected” in the Folocam App). I tried every combination of killing the app, restarting the gimbal, repairing via NFC, restarting the phone, etc…Several times I redid the NFC handshake, and my phone would say “Configuring accessory for first-time use”, and then say “Done”…but upon opening Folocam it said Gimbal was disconnected. Even sitting here in my living room as I write this, the gimbal will connect, then disconnect…quite frustrating! Perhaps related, also regularly appeared to show that I am locked out of the premium features (asking for the activation/restore purchases), then would suddenly flip to show that I had activated the premium features. I am on v1.4.1 FYI.

Otherwise:

Video Quality- Excellent results, can’t ask for much better!

Tracking Quality- Good to very good. Generally the only times the tracking struggled were either quick transitions back and forth, or where the ball was deep in the corner (on a very small field). And, this was with multiple 3v3 tournaments going on around our field, so I am overall very pleased.

Below would be a personal wish list, though some of these Gilbert may have evaluated and determined there is a reason to create the app as is.

  • I think it may be clearer to have “Press To Record” and “Press to Stop Recording” instead of “Record” and “Stop Record”, and a clear recording indicator (such as a red “Recording” overlay indicator or similar. In bright sunlight any feedback is better to confirm it is doing what you want.
  • An on-screen level would be a nice feature.
  • The settings are quite small for me squinting in sunlight (e.g. the blue zoom level on black background was tricky to see and press accurately.
  • Ability to create “Shot Marks” during video using the 2nd phone or Comitok remote (pressing a button to mark a time) would be a very convenient way to identify goals/highlights for future playback. Similarly, being able to create shot marks during playback in the app would be great. Perhaps then a text list of the shot marks could be generated alongside the log files.
  • It would be nice to be able to rename clips,
  • It would also be nice to save clips to the phone photo library, and/or airdrop to computer as well as just USB Transfer.

Generally, I am excited for the prospect of the great work Gilbert has done here!

2

Thanks so much for the detailed feedback. This is extremely helpful.

I’m sorry about the connection issue with the Mogo. I haven’t received any reports of this issue from other users, so I’m not sure what could be causing it. Do you happen to have another iPhone you could try, just to see if the issue is specific to that phone? If the issue persists, I’ll send you a replacement Mogo for free.

As for the features you requested, I’ll definitely try to add the play-marking feature in one of the next versions. Multiple users have suggested this feature, so it is high on my list. I’ll consider the other suggestions as well, but I’d like to wait until more feedback comes in before deciding which ones to prioritize.

3

I would support better visibility into if you are recording (e.g. - red outline on the screen). I usually have to re-check im recording by click the screen and ensuring that the ‘Stop Record’ pops up.

Also love the idea of a level to support proper setup.

4

After using it more, I’ve also experienced the occasional connection issue. Everytime the Mogo powers up, I go through the “setting up device for the first time” and will take a bit to get the numbers in the corner showing that it’s paired after I launch the app.

I’ve had a couple times where it lose connection after this pairing setup and the gimbal will go limp and stop tracking while recording, maybe 5-10 minutes after I’ve setup and raise the tripod.

5

@eddy159357 Did you mean that you go through the NFC pairing process every time the Mogo powers up? You should only need to do the pairing once.

One thing you can try is updating the firmware on the Mogo. Download and run the Comitok app, then check the firmware version. My Mogo is currently on version 1.0.63.0.

6

Yes, every time the Mogo powers up. I will try updating the firmware thanks.