Many have been waiting for the next wave of 3D 360 cameras to land, but it looks like some eager consumers will have to wait a little longer. HumanEyes, maker of the Vuze camera and software, announced in an email that its flagship product will not start shipping until March 7, 2017.
Originally, the company planned to ship in Q4 2016, but as often happens, that didn’t pan out for whatever reason. HumanEyes stated that it underestimated how long it would take to finish performing “final testing and certification.”
The email read in part, “We have not taken this decision lightly, and we made it to ensure your experience with the Vuze camera is nothing but the best. We appreciate your continued support and patience.”
The company has been taking preorders for the Vuze system for months now, and it will continue to take more, but it pledged not to charge your credit card until the device actually ships. Further, for any preorders made until today, it will waive shipping fees as a way of symbolically compensating customers for their (continued) patience.
Cameras like the Vuze will be key to the next wave of VR. In 2016, we saw the release of a number of HMDs, from the high-end, PC-based Rift and Vive to the console-based PSVR to the smartphone-based (next-gen) Gear VR and Google Daydream View VR. All are fundamentally consumption devices, and as they say, content is king. Games and other VR experiences are and will remain important to the VR market, but content made by average users will be key to the sustained success and adoption of the technology.
Currently, most consumer-level cameras are little more than 360 cams; that is, they can produce spherical images that you can look around within, but they lack dimension. In other words, they are 360 but not 3D. The Vuze, along with other cameras like the Lucid VR, can capture in 3D, and they’re affordable and promise easy to use software.
They’re coming; but not just yet.
