The UGREEN FineCam Pro

It’s been a while since I wrote about my desk setups or how much I rely on having decent audio and a good camera with face tracking, so my return to work in early September seemed like a good time to do that. I’d meant to post this then, but said work was enough of a pain to delay it until late October… But that’s beside the point right now.

Apple users are used to face tracking and auto-framing by now, but I have been using professional videoconferencing systems for many decades. In fact, back in the mid-90s, I did quite a bit of work on videoconferencing over ISDN and ATM, including hacking NetMeeting into submission… But it took the pandemic and my OBSBOT camera to finally feel personal tech had caught up with the times.

After another bout of back pain this year and a return to my makeshift standing desk, I decided I’d take a look at the webcam market again to see if I could get another OBSBOT (or at least a true gimbal camera) to sit atop my battered Surface Pro 3, which was (until recently) the centrepiece of said “desk”. It has a perfectly usable Windows Hello camera, but I tend to get restless and something that keeps me in frame is nicer to my callers.

I considered the software route first, but I couldn’t find anything that would work with the internal camera and wouldn’t kill the PC (Teams is enough of a challenge for it these days). Trying one of the (excellent) Logitech Brio 4K cameras I still have made me realise I needed to move the camera itself, too. And I didn’t want anything that would require extra software in Linux or on a Mac later.

There’s enough junk software out there already, after all.

But OBSBOT-style cameras were around €200 a pop when I looked, so getting a new one for a secondary desk was a no-go, and I decided to try something cheaper, gimbal-less, but with enough sensor resolution for decent cropping and zooming.

The UGREEN FineCam Pro stood out to me for two reasons–what seemed a decent price for a nominally 4K-capable sensor and its compactness, since it took up far less volume than most other options.

Disclaimer: I bought this one myself; however, my usual review policy applies, because I consider this a bit of a “low effort” review.

The reason I bought it in April was that the built-in firmware handles gesture-controlled framing and zoom itself–with driverless support for Windows, macOS and Linux, and thus complete software independence (which I think will be useful for anyone in alternative platforms).

And why finally write about this now? Well, because I’m testing a brand new Qualcomm-based laptop that does head tracking completely in software, and thought this was worth noting while comparing setups–more on that in a future post about the laptop.

The camera itself is… OK, I guess. It’s an 8-megapixel sensor capable of 4K at 30fps or 1080p at 60fps, has “phase-detection autofocus” and pretty decent lighting sensitivity, as well as two microphones with noise reduction, positioned for stereo capture if you use it for vertical video, which… I didn’t. Audio from those was reported as being good, though.

The rest is mostly creator frills: the mode dial switches between seven dubiously useful built-in filters, and there is a privacy cover.

The camera comes with a magnetic mount and a small tripod, which is another concession to the “creator” audience, and the magnetic holder fits neatly atop my Surface display and lets me detach and reposition the camera without disturbing the mount (it also made it easy to move the camera off-centre when using a sidecar monitor, which is a very “me” thing to do, but which might be of interest to other people as well).

For some stupid reason (yes, I know it’s probably the creator audience, but it’s still stupid) the camera defaults to vertical orientation, which I suppose comes hand in hand with its mode dial and effects.

That dial is clearly geared at people doing social media, but gleefully ignores the fact that even on TikTok (which I don’t use but am regularly kept apprised of) nobody seems to use those effects, and, as you’d expect, I didn’t use them either (except once by mistake).

Additionally, the USB-C port seems to have been purposefully positioned at the most inconvenient position possible on the back–the weight of the cable tore off the camera from the magnetic mount and the cable protrudes from the back too much, adding to the imbalance.

It took me a little while to figure out the right distance at which to hold my hand to enable tracking, but after a while that became second nature (I’m used to having to do that with my OBSBOT as well, because for some reason there is no way to set that default even after years of firmware upgrades).

Picture quality in Teams calls was good, with smooth tracking–but of a different flavour than the OBSBOT. The differences in quality and motion are subtle, and in practice I’m mostly the one who notices.

But here’s a pro tip: perform the magical tracking gesture incantations before you enter the call, if you can, otherwise people will feel compelled to wave back, even in very formal official settings…

I don’t regret my purchase, but I do think it would be pretty safe for UGREEN to simply remove the mode dial and move the USB port to the side. I’d much rather have a smaller camera than a selection of filters I never use.

I haven’t tried the plainer FineCam, but its shape is pretty much the form factor I’d want. Put the Pro’s camera hardware and tracking into that enclosure, and I’d be perfectly happy not having to see the dial…