Better known for its 360-degree handled cameras, Insta360 is now looking to enter your home or work office with the Wave, a speakerphone with an AI twist.
The Insta360 Wave is basically a professional-grade speakerphone, such as those you might find in a corporate office meeting room, complete with a 3D array of eight microphones and the ability to pick up hi-fi 48kHz audio from 16 feet away. Adaptive beamforming, active acoustic cancellation, and automatic gain control are also included to help deliver natural sound without disruptive audio spikes.
A touch screen interface allows for quick control over mics and volume, and the adaptive beamforming lets users slice from five pickup patterns, which Insta360- details as:
- Omni: 360-degree pickup for group discussions.
- Cardioid: Focused front capture for online meetings and podcasts.
- Supercardioid: Suppresses ambient noise even further, perfect for busy offices.
- Figure-8: Captures front and back, ideal for two-person interviews.
- Stereo: Wide, natural audio for creative recordings like ASMR or music.
But then AI is added to power the noise reduction features to cut out more than 300 different types of background sound, according to Insta360, such as keyboard taps and street noise. And “AI dereverberation” is used to remove hollow or distant tones from desired audio and deliver crisp, true-to-life sound in its place.
Part of the ‘secret sauce’ to the Wave is the ability to pair it with the Insta360 Link 2 webcam, effectively creating a full audio-and-video setup that won’t require professional installation or a load of people hunching over a laptop’s webcam.
Sounds smart
However, what stood out to me is the smart tools the Wave has. It can use AI to transcribe in 99 languages, identify speakers and label their voices, set up workplace-specific glossaries and meeting summaries, and tap into ChatGPT and Google Gemini to deliver AI chat and Q&A functions.
The wrinkle here is that a lot of these features will need to be paid for as part of the Pro plan to get the most out of them; this costs $99.99 annually or $17.99 a month in the US.
While meetings may be the target use of the Wave, I could also see it being used as a strong and smart podcasting tool for in-person recordings with multiple people. Given how there’s seemingly a never-ending amount of podcasts, with more and more people or organisations getting into the space, TechRadar included, the Wave could be a great podcasting tool.
It’s on sale today with prices starting at $299.99 / £279/ AU$519.99. And my colleagues over on TechRadar Pro will have a review of the Wave soon.
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