Is the Pilot Era the prosumer 360 camera we’ve been waiting for?

360 cameras remain a small but growing sector of the camera market. Ease-of-use, or lack thereof, is one thing that has been holding back widespread adoption of 360 cameras. A new IndieGoGo campaign from startup Pisofttech is looking to change that. With ridiculous specifications and a market-beating pricetag, the Pilot Era might just be the best prosumer 360 camera available. I can’t wait to get one loaded up on my DJI drone. Because it weighs in at only 690 grams I don’t think I will need an Inspire, as you need for the Insta360 Pro.

Android OS on the Pilot Era

The first thing that really sets the Pilot Era apart is its built-in touch screen and integrated Android OS. This camera basically has a smartphone built into it! Gone are the days of painstakingly linking your camera to your smartphone. You can just turn on the Pilot Era and instantly have access to all the features and functions you are looking for. The Android OS backbone will also make future upgrades trivial to implement. But wait, there’s more! The camera does all the stitching for you right on the camera. So you can forget the slow step of post-processing on a computer. The Pilot Era will stream 4K video pre-stitched and real-time stitch 8K video onboard.

Pilot Era Specs

The specifications of the Pilot Era are best-in-class. As you can see this 360 camera pretty much blows away the competition in every category. Despite being lighter and less expensive than the competition, the Era has a crazy-long 3.5-hour battery life and a built-in half-terabyte SSD hard drive. It sports 9-axis stabilization, GPS, and a 3.1-inch touch screen. See below for a comparison to the other prosumer 360 cameras.

The Pilot Era looks to be well ahead of the competition in many ways. Source: Pisofttech IndieGoGo campaign

Pilot Era IndieGoGo is where to buy

Right now the Pilot Era is available at a special price of $1999 on IndieGoGo. Based on the information we received we think the MSRP may be around $2799. Now is the time to get the Pilot Era if it looks as appealing to you as it does to me. We hope to get our hands on one in about a week, so check back for a review.

Here is a shot that I took from an LG 360 Cam on top of a hobbyist drone in Mexico. Darth Vadar was along for the ride.

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