Lumina AI Webcam Overview for HD Video Calling & Streaming

Not too long ago, I wanted a brand new webcam for Zoom calls, and I got here throughout the Lumina webcam – a cute-looking machine that provides 4k DSLR-like digicam high quality, auto color tuning and numerous different fancy AI-based options.

Let’s take a more in-depth look to see if the Lumina webcam is best for you.

Lumina Webcam Overview: A Webcam Powered by AI

Proven within the hand of a 3-year-old for dimension comparability!

Lumina is the world’s first webcam powered by AI. It sits on high of your desktop or laptop computer pc monitor, serving to you look higher on video calls with DSLR camera-like picture high quality.

It provides options reminiscent of adaptive color correction, a practical shallow depth of area ‘bokeh’ impact to blur your background, a digital digicam to comply with your face round for excellent framing and Deep Fusion to spice up pixels in low gentle.

In a sea of ugly, black, plasticky webcams with no thought to aesthetic design, the Lumina webcam is refreshingly fashionable in its svelte, powder-coated aluminium physique, accessible in 4 enticing colors.

Appropriate with Home windows and Mac, a downloadable Lumina app is required to regulate the Lumina webcam, providing you with entry to all the varied options which will be mechanically set or manually adjusted to your preferences.

Lumina Webcam Specs

• Most Decision. 4K @ 30fps.
• Minimal Decision. 1080p & 720p as much as 40fps.
• Megapixels. 8.3 MP.
• Sensor Sort. 24.84mm² 4K SONY Sensor.
• Lens Sort. 5 Ingredient Glass Lens.
• Area of View. Configurable 65-95 Levels.
• Mount. 1/4” Tripod Appropriate.
• Physique Dimensions. 22 x 22 x 70 mm.

Minimal system necessities:

• Appropriate with MacOS 10.14 or greater and Home windows 10
• 4 core Intel i5 6600 @ 2.7 GHz or equal

Advisable system necessities:

• Any Apple M1
• 4 core Intel i5 8400 @ 2.5 GHz or greater
• 4 core AMD Ryzen 5 2500X @ 3.6 GHz or greater

Lumina Construct High quality & Design

With out eager to sound like I work in advertising, from the second you begin unboxing the Lumina webcam, you understand this can be a webcam like no different!

The packaging is harking back to an iPhone – in truth, it’s nearly a direct rip-off, however which means that the unboxing is a pleasurable expertise, and so it ought to be for what’s a luxurious product.

Contained in the field, you get the Lumina webcam, a metallic color correction card, a folding mount on your display and a hex key. 

Hooked up to the entrance of the Lumina is a magnetic privateness cowl, the identical color because the webcam, however sadly utterly unattached – if you take away it from the webcam, it’s only a tiny free object that you just’re sure to ultimately lose.

A privateness cowl is a pleasant inclusion, however a hinge or another form of attachment would have been a greater thought to maintain it from being misplaced.

Lumina webcam with privateness cowl indifferent and stand connected.

The matte, aero-space grade aluminium end of the Lumina seems and feels wonderful and is a refreshing change from the ugly black plastic monstrosities we’re used to balancing on the highest of our displays.

It’s accessible in 4 very Apple-esque colors: rose gold, gold, silver, and atomic gray, and the mount is black, which ought to assist mix into your laptop computer or desktop monitor.

You’ll want to screw the Lumina webcam into its mount, then unfold the mount and steadiness it in your display. The insides of the mount are cushioned and tactile to offer some grip to cease the digicam from slipping off.

One factor I discovered a bit of odd was when screwing the webcam onto the mount, there’s no ‘cease’ to the screwing course of – it simply retains spinning freely.

The webcam additionally ‘floats’ on its mount, fairly than being mounted in place, presumably to offer some picture stabilisation when you’re working with a laptop computer…? 

The webcam strikes round freely on its mount.

Should you personal a sexy Mac or Home windows pc, you’ll undoubtedly respect proudly owning equipment that complement the design of an object you spend hours sitting in entrance of! 

At simply 100g (3.5 oz) and 22 x 22 x 70mm, it’s compact and light-weight, that means it received’t overwhelm a laptop computer display.

Being a photographer, I used to be excited and intrigued by the included color card, additionally superbly designed in aluminium. Nevertheless, this can be a characteristic that’s nonetheless in Beta, so unavailable till additional discover – I’ll replace this Lumina overview when it’s launched.

Lumina App & Webcam Setup

Focus stays on face regardless of nearer objects showing in body.

The Lumina crew have clearly put quite a lot of thought into making the set-up means of your new webcam an pleasant and private expertise.

A webcam is, in any case, a really private product, projecting your face and voice throughout 1000’s of miles to family members or co-workers all over the world.

With each Lumina buy, you obtain an e mail from the Lumina ‘household’ which invitations you to put in the Lumina Studio app after which schedule an onboarding name.

I need to admit I didn’t do the decision, however it was good to see numerous suitable time choices, even supposing I dwell in Australia and the crew is in Austin, Texas!

When you’ve downloaded the software program and put in the Lumina app, the subsequent step is organising the precise webcam, which includes simply plugging within the USB kind C cable into your pc and the opposite finish into the Lumina webcam.

There are two digicam settings accessible to make use of: Lumina Uncooked and Lumina Plus.

Lumina Uncooked is rather like utilizing the webcam with none of its fancy AI-powered options. It’s good to have as a ‘baseline comparability’, so you’ll be able to see how significantly better (hopefully!) you look if you launch Lumina Plus.

You’ll want to unlock the Lumina Plus setting with a product key throughout set up, and when it’s put in, you’ll be able to change between your commonplace pc digicam (when you’ve got one) and the Lumina Plus digicam inside the pc app you’re presently utilizing.

Lumina Uncooked is suitable with a lot of the main conferencing functions, together with:

• Zoom
• Google Meet
• Microsoft Groups
• OBS
• Skype
• Cisco Webex
• Adobe Join
• BlueJeans
• OBS Streamlabs
• Ecamm Reside
• iMovie
• WhatsApp
• Loom
• Restream.io and lots of extra.

Lumina Plus is suitable with:

• Zoom
• Google Meet
• Microsoft Groups
• OBS
• Cisco Webex
• Skype
• Ecamm Reside and lots of extra

The apps I take advantage of probably the most are Zoom and Skype, so I’m happy to see that they’re each supported. Nevertheless, Lumina Plus isn’t suitable with native macOS apps, reminiscent of FsaceTime or Safari, which can disappoint some customers.

See the picture under for an inventory of all of the supported apps, and what pc working programs you should utilize them on 

Supply: Lumina

When you’ve loaded the Lumina app, you can begin fiddling round with all the varied sliders and controls or go away every thing precisely as it’s for a surprisingly first rate computerized setup (often known as ‘Scene’).

Should you’re wanting to make use of the Lumina Plus options from inside your chosen videoconferencing app, you merely select Lumina within the listing of supported cameras – after putting in, it turns into the default possibility, though this will likely rely in your OS and system preferences.

Lumina Digital camera Options

DSLR-like Picture High quality

Extremely wide-angle area of view could be helpful in some conditions.

Should you’ve ever tried to improve your video chat high quality by utilizing a DSLR as a webcam, you understand what a fiddly course of it’s… and more often than not, not definitely worth the effort.

Lumina offers DSLR-like high quality in a webcam, due to a 4K 5-element f/2.0 glass lens with a 24.84mm² sensor and a customisable area of view, between 65 and 95 levels.

What this implies in observe is that the f/2.0 aperture of the lens attracts in additional gentle for higher publicity management in low-light conditions and offers you the power to blur the background, albeit with a computer-generated bokeh impact.

Should you’ve ever used the iPhone’s Portrait mode when taking a photograph, you’ll know the way this background blur impact seems. With the Lumina app, you’ll be able to really management the power of the blurring impact – you’ll be able to create a depth of area that’s so shallow that every thing behind you is totally blurred and hidden.

Zoom and a number of the different conferencing apps supply a background blurring impact, however none that I’ve examined are anyplace close to nearly as good because the bokeh impact produced by Lumina.

As for the ultra-wide area of view, this lets you present extra of your background within the shot – see the instance above the place all the width of my 4.5m extensive house workplace seems within the background. 

It’s good to see that regardless of such a large area of view, there’s no noticeable distortion. It’s additionally nice to have the ability to embody a number of background if you need to give some context to your subsequent video name, like displaying off one thing behind you whereas speaking.

As for video high quality, that is the place the Lumina webcam shines – that is the place your {dollars} go! I examined the webcam with my Macbook Professional, which I’ve connected to an exterior Benq monitor.

I’ve all the time been glad with the video high quality of the usual Macbook digicam, however it’s annoying to make use of with an exterior show arrange, since my eye stage isn’t on the laptop computer’s display anymore – that is what led me to purchase a separate webcam.

When in comparison with the Macbook’s digicam, the Lumina webcam offers significantly better video high quality, even simply in its Uncooked setting. While you activate Lumina Plus, the distinction is evening and day, with my face correctly uncovered, accurately colored and razor-sharp (I really needed to manually dial down the sharpness setting!)

I don’t use any correct lighting for my Zoom calls, so it’s good to see how the Lumina webcam can regulate every thing based mostly on the present (poor) lighting situations in my room.

The adaptive color correction system did a very good job of creating my face look the precise color with none additional tweaking. Nevertheless, relying on the color of the sunshine in your room, chances are you’ll have to make some minor changes within the app.

Being a photographer, I’m comfy making guide changes to varied image-related settings, reminiscent of Hue, Saturation, White Stability and Publicity.

Nevertheless, for anybody else who might not find out about this stuff, the onboarding name or any of the varied Lumina on-line tutorials can be advisable to get probably the most out of the webcam’s video high quality.

AI Cameraman Follows your Face

Cameraman will be adjusted in superior settings

It is a actually cool characteristic and one that can undoubtedly assist make your video calls much more skilled… and will even impress whoever you’re speaking to!

AI Cameraman works in Zoom mode, with Lumina’s synthetic intelligence recognising your face and following it within the body to maintain it in sharp focus, readjusting the background blur behind you as essential.

Fairly than the precise Lumina webcam shifting, the software program creates a form of mild tilt/roll impact which is delicate and never jarring for the viewer – it’s simply sufficient to raise your videoconferencing name with out making the viewer surprise if another person is within the room filming you!

You may regulate numerous superior settings of Cameraman, together with the velocity of motion and offset on an x and y-axis.

General, Cameraman is a neat method to provide help to look higher in your Zoom calls.

Deep Fusion Boosts Pixels in Low Mild

By analysing a number of exposures pixel by pixel, one other expertise unique to the Lumina webcam is one thing known as Deep Fusion.

The result is a clearer, extra detailed remaining picture with any darkish areas boosted, so the ultimate publicity seems higher.

Working at the side of the color correction algorithm, Deep Fusion additionally takes benefit of the Lumina’s f/2.0 aperture and extremely extensive angle lens to disclose extra particulars in your scene.

I discovered that this helped significantly in my house workplace later within the day when it was nonetheless too early to warrant using my workplace gentle, however the daylight had dropped sufficient that utilizing my built-in Macbook’s webcam resulted in barely murky picture high quality.

It’s simple to see why this premium webcam calls for a premium price ticket with options reminiscent of this that basically enhance the picture high quality of your calls.

Lumina Webcam Options

Lumina vs Logitech Brio

Within the premium webcam class, there’s actually just one different common machine that’s akin to the Lumina, and that’s the Logitech Brio.

Nevertheless, when placing the Lumina vs Brio collectively, you begin to discover why one is clearly the higher possibility.