With the release of the VIRB X and XE action cams a year ago, Garmin finally gave consumers a reason to choose its action cam over a GoPro.
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Garmin has announced a 4K Ultra HD action camera that includes Global Positioning System, voice control and a colour LCD touchscreen for easy control. And while the lower-priced GoPro Hero4 Silver does have a touch screen, it only records 4K at 15 frames per second vs. 30 frames per second for Garmin’s new camera. It allows you to easily operate the camera while it’s carefully mounted somewhere, but like using Siri or other voice-activated assistants on your smartphone, you have to start every command with an awkward “OK Garmin” to get it to listen-which will, of course, end up in all your videos.
You can pick a Garmin Virb Ultra 30 up today for $500 (£380). In addition to the camera itself, the model is joined by a waterproof case created to work with the camera’s LCD.
Your active lifestyle is about more than just video and audio. And animated G-Metrix data gauges to show how far, high, and fast you can go. The captured G-Metrix data helps during post-processing, meanwhile, to select the most interesting parts of your footage.
It features vibration alerts for running prompts, activity tracking milestones and virtual pacing progress, while vibration alerts can also be set up for incoming calls, text, emails and calendar events, with other connected features including music controls, automatic uploads and software updates.
In addition, the action cam includes support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and ANT+, to pair with a variety of external sensor devices from Garmin and others.
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Joining the high-quality video is a high-sensitivity microphone, says Garmin, which isn’t impeded when the camera is in the waterproof case.
