New Video! - EMEET PIXY Review
In this video, we are looking at the EMEET PIXY, an affordable PTZ webcam with dual cameras and full AI Tracking. We put it through its paces to see if it can not only hold its own against the brand that have dominated this space for years, but maybe even surpass them as the best value.
Transcript
When you think of a PTZ webcam, you're usually thinking of one of two brands. You're either thinking about OBS or you're thinking about Insta360. But there's another brand out there with a PTZ webcam that's surprised us in the past, and it's this.
This is the EMEET PIXY. In the box, you get the EMEET PIXY. You get a monitor mount that screws into a quarter-inch thread on the bottom of the camera. It's not magnetic like the other ones. You get a USB cable, and you get the documentation.
Now, you notice something different right away, and that's that the EMEET PIXY is a dual camera. And that doesn't mean that you're producing two separate images of yourself, but it's utilizing both cameras to leverage the image information that's being provided to the 1 over 2.55-inch sensor. And that's just to make the most out of a much smaller sensor than you'd normally have.
It also essentially gives it binocular vision, which should help it with its autofocus.
About the EMEET PIXY (Specs)
There's not much else on the camera itself. You have your USB port in the back, and you have the gimbal that makes it a PTZ webcam, and that's pretty much it.
The camera is capable of 4K30 and 1080p60 resolutions. It's got a 73-degree field of view. It's got a three-mic array with AI-powered noise cancellation, so we'll definitely test that out. And it contains all the tracking capabilities of the other PTZ webcams.
So, what do you say we fire it up and have a look for ourselves?
Out of the Box Quality
Now, here it is out of the box. It's a little bit washed out, but not terrible considering what we're dealing with without actually setting anything up yet.
We're on a little bit of an angle. It's just the way the webcam's sitting on. I've got a curved monitor—no worries about that—but don't be thrown off by it being all askew.
Maybe I can adjust it here a bit.
So, let's test out a little bit of simple tracking. If I do the normal hand gesture, which is common for all of them, that turned it on. I could tell because the light turned blue.
So now if I move around, it comes with me. I would say that it's a little bit more delayed than the other ones, and it's a little bit clunkier in its movements, but it's not terrible, especially if you're just trying to make sure that you're in the center of the frame.
If I stand up, it does fine. I sit down, it does fine. If I get really far away, I'm wearing my shorts today because I'm hot. So now it's framing me midway up as I'm a little bit further away.
So it's a little bit more herky-jerky than I would like it to be generally speaking, but again, not terrible.
The light turns yellow if it loses your face too, so it's telling you it's trying to reacquire. It's actually very good at finding you again. I found that even the Insta360, once it lost you, it lost you. OBSBOT got a few little tricks up its sleeve to kind of get it to find you again, but this one actually kind of goes looking for you, and it works.
But now what I want to do is open up their software so we can maybe make some tweaks and make this thing look as good as it possibly can.
Adjusting the Camera in EMEET Studio
Here we are. We're in EMEET Studio right now. It's pretty standard in terms of the kind of software that you find for these kinds of webcams.
Right now, we actually have our tracking mode set up here, and it's on tracking mode because that's what I had turned on. But we can actually turn it to whatever we want.
I can go to standard mode, which just turns off the tracking and it stays exactly the way it is. So when I move around, nothing happens.
Then we can go into privacy mode, which will actually lower the camera and point it down towards the base so that, you know, big brother can't find you.
Down here, you've got some basic PTZ controls. If I click on these, holding it down doesn't do anything. It's basically just a push-for-a-push, which doesn't make for the smoothest stuff.
But if you use this joystick and move it around, it goes exactly the way you want. I think that's pretty cool.
You'll notice you have default locations here. These are presets. You can save different positions as you move the camera around.
You might have something over there that you want the camera to move to and focus on, be zoomed in on, and all that. Then another spot here, and another somewhere else.
So now when I go number one, number two, number three—it does it all automatically. That one's very fast too, so it gets you where you want to be really quickly.
Down here, you've got your audio mode: live mode, noise cancellation mode, and original sound mode.
Original sound captures everything in an omnidirectional way. Live mode focuses more toward you. Noise cancellation mode uses the mic array to eliminate ambient sounds.
Image Adjustments
If we go into effects, we've got the usual setup: brightness, contrast, and auto exposure.
Turning on auto exposure actually made it look a lot nicer immediately without having to do anything.
The color accuracy on this is really, really nice. It's a little bit on the contrasty side—shadows are pretty heavy—but overall, it's solid.
I'm going to desaturate a little bit. These controls take a second to update, so you have to sit on them for a moment.
My only real gripe right now is that it would need a lot of tweaking. Skin tones need a bit of work, but overall it's pretty good.
There's no HDR, which would probably help balance things out a bit more.
Focus and Controls
You can choose different focus modes, including selectable area, center focus, and face focus.
Autofocus isn't available when tracking mode is on—it automatically switches to face focus, which makes sense given the processing demands.
Autofocus works perfectly fine though.
You can also manually adjust focus if you turn autofocus off.
Resolution and Features
You can select your resolution:
4K30
2K30
1080p60
720p30
There's also rotation options, zoom up to 2x, and restore settings.
You also get whiteboard mode and desktop mode, which are pretty standard for PTZ webcams.
Desktop mode tilts the camera down so you can show your workspace.
Audio on the EMEET PIXY
Now let's test out the microphone.
As a creator, I always recommend using a proper microphone. But for teleconferencing, it's nice to have something clear and usable.
Webcams have gotten better at this over the years thanks to AI noise cancellation.
Impressions of the Audio and Video
After listening back, the microphone sounded nice and clear. Noise reduction did a really good job.
It's not broadcast quality, but that's expected.
Two things I noticed:
First, a bit of focus breathing when moving slightly.
Second, some motion blur at 30fps. If you want less blur, you'd need to go down to 1080p60.
Price and Conclusion
The EMEET PIXY is $159.99 USD, and at the time of recording, it's actually under $100 on sale.
Compare that to the Insta360 Link 2 Pro at $249.99 USD or the OBSBOT Tiny 3 at $349 USD.
From a specs standpoint, those cameras beat the PIXY, especially with larger sensors. But EMEET has done a really good job using the dual-camera design to compensate.
If you're looking for a webcam that can handle PTZ tasks for presentations, work, school, or even something like a cooking stream, this could be a really solid option.
Let me know down in the comments what you think about the EMEET PIXY. Is there anything missing that you'd want? Or does it have something the others don't?
That’s going to do it for this one. Thank you so much for watching. If you made it this far, please hit like and subscribe, hit the notification bell, follow me on socials, and join the Discord.
Until next time—let’s get to work.
