OBSBOT Tiny Webcam Review

The OBSBOT Tiny brings artificial intelligence to the webcam market and after using this for 2 weeks I’m seriously impressed. Read on for my OBSBOT Tiny webcam review in full.

What is the OBSBOT Tiny?

The OBSBOT Tiny is a webcam that sat sit on your desk (it’s freestanding), attach to your monitor or laptop using the included clamp or screw onto a tripod. The OBSBOT Tiny sets itself apart from other webcams by utilising artificial intelligence in 3 key ways. Firstly, it has a gimbal built in and the AI features let it follow you around, giving you freedom to move around on your calls, secondly, it uses AI to improve white balance on calls based on your setting and finally, it uses AI to improve audio quality with noise cancellation to focus on your voice.

The Specification

The OBSBOT Tiny has:

1080p video (making it a full HD video webcam) with up to 30FPS for video
2x Digital Zoom
90 degree field of view and a 150 degrees horizontal tilt with the gimbal and 45 degrees vertical tilt.
Connects via USB C
Has a privacy mode
Gesture control features
Dual directional microphones.

Setting Up the OBSBOT Tiny

Setting up the OBSBOT Tiny is as simple as placing the camera where you want it (the monitor/laptop mount don’t stick on which means you can adjust them) and then plugging it into your computer. It works out-the-box with all the programmes you’d expect including Zoom, FaceTime, Teams etc. but if you want to make use of the AI features (especially the gimbal feature) you’ll need to download the OBSBOT Tiny app for Mac or Windows. This app just runs in the background whilst you use the webcam.

From then on you just open your usual video call application and it just works! If you want to enable or disable the gimbal tracking you can do that in the OBSBOT app.

Using the OBSBOT Tiny for Calls

I’m still working from home and have used this for all my video calls over the last couple of weeks and I’ve been really impressed. The video quality, regardless of lighting is brilliant and audio comes across really clearly…the AI movement features have allowed me to move around a bit more and even had colleagues asking about my webcam!

I found that getting the gimbal AI features to work initially took a little playing around in the OBSBOT app but once I’d got that configured they worked perfectly (I’d say the app isn’t the most intuitive in the world). There’s also some zoom options and manual movement controls in the app too which are useful along with the option to lock the movement to make it behave more like a normal webcam.

The other feature is the gesture controls which let you lock the camera in position and zoom in/out with hand positions. The lock/unlock is easy enough to use and just requires holding your open hand up to the camera, the indicator light turns blue and back to green before either starting to follow you or stopping following you (depending what it was doing before). I found the zoom control took more practice and requires making an L shape with your hand (anyone else now singing that Smash Mouth song?!).