Xiaomi Yi has became one of the most popular cameras of the year in just a few months after its release. My review of this camera became one of the most visited pages on the website. I compared this this tiny action cam and wrote about its best accessories.
So is there anything else that can be said about it? Hell yeah!
I have been receiving quite a lot of emails from guys asking what particular button does, what icon on the app means, etc. Even though I wrote about most of this already, we all are visual human beings, and we all like presentations rather than boring text, right?
That is why I decided to create a virtual tour of Xiaomi YI showcasing product in an interactive and fun way, which you can use as a interactive manual of some sort.
Enough talking, time for a tour! To infinity and beyond!
Interactive Xiaomi YI
Here is little experiment I was working on. If you wish to have near real-life experience on how to use Xiaomi YI, feel free to click on a button or a toolbar icon depicted in the image below. Once you click on it, the short instruction on what a button does will appear on the left side of the image, or above the photo, if you are on a mobile device.
Virtual tour
When buying a product, sometimes it is really hard to know exactly how it looks like. That is why modern day web stores implement videos, and even 360 degrees view. Unfortunately, so far I was unable to find such good presentation of YI, so I decided to create one of my own. Screw you rich corporations, I am doing this my way.
I hope this virtual tour helped you understand how Xiaomi YI looks from all angles.
But, wait, since YI does not have an LCD display, all settings can only be changed via the app. “And how does app work?”
I am so glad, you asked, because I will demonstrate that to you as well in next few paragraphs.
Your two cents, ideas, questions and contribution?
That’s it for now. If you have an idea how to improve this virtual presentation or want to contribute in any way, just drop a comment below. Found a mistake or have a questions? I will be glad to answer and help you out. Just hit that post a comment button and make your voice heard. Don’t be shy.
At the end, if you found this page helpful, please help me out and share it with your friends on Facebook, Twitter or Reddit. That would spread a word about this website of mine.
Until next time, to infinity and record!
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Pavle, first off – congrats on your succesfull presentation! I wish more people would be as thorough.
Then, what I’d like to know is about the cam app: which level Android will support it? As I’m using my phone for, er, actually telephoning, recently I have discovered that many apps for the wireless connection to photo/video devices require at least v.4… while my phone still runs on v2.3, more’s the pity!
As for the errors and typos… There’s two in the “Top LED Indicator” (weather instead of whether, and its instead of it’s).
And I also added you on my G+ page. Hope you have ever more visitors! 🙂
Hi Fil,
Thank you for spotting those typos, I was so excited to publish this, that I did not proofread it. I will correct those typos asap.
About the APP, the best way to try it is to simply install it on your phone. If it opens, than its compatible. Here is the app link. If you are logged in into gmail (google store as well) you should be able to see right away if your phone supports it, Google does that for you. Below the headline, you will see something similar to this.
Hope that helps.
Nice review / tutorial! Why can’t the manufacturers do simple things like this vs printing manuals only those with 20/10 vision can read?
Well done.
Thanks
Hey Glen, thanks a lot. I agree this is way more fun then manuals, perhaps after seeing this some of them will start creating tours similar to this one. I will make tours for few more popular cameras for sure.
Pavle:
You wrote that the Mi corporation might produce a view screen and 2400 m.a.h. battery for the Yi! Any more info?
Hi Mike,
Its not official by Xiaomi, but these were launched few days ago. I will get mine soon I hope.
You can get LCD and Battery pack together or separately on GB (link) or on DX (link). Not sure if they can be bought elsewhere. I am also unsure if they are same or not, waiting mine to arrive from GB, and if its different, I will get one from DX to test as well.
Hope that helps.
Pavle:
You wrote that the Mi corporation might produce a view screen and 2400 m.a.h. battery for the Yi! Any more info? Also, can you inform as to which video format the Yi exports to pc?
Mike, comment got double posted. Anyway, format is MP4. You can download samples to preview on your PC. Links are in my review of YI.
This is really cool! Thanks for doing this.
You are welcome Chao, glad you enjoyed it!
This is truly excellent Pavle. Every action cam and dash cam manufacturer should have this kind of virtual tour online. For that matter so should a lot of other products. I don’t know your views on it or how such things work but I wonder if this is something you can or want to copyright. It just seems like you put a lot of hours into this and you should get due credit even if you don’t ever intend to charge money for it (please don’t, or at least give me a free pass!). Anyway just a thought.
I’ve enjoyed your YouTube videos and your postings at Dash Cam Talk and this is still more icing on the cake! Thanks and cheers 🙂
Wow Joe, thanks for a very kind comment. No worries, this site all guides, videos etc will be free forever 🙂 Indeed it takes quite a lot time to crate something like this.
I guess the next is our little project on SJ4000 🙂
Hi! My yi cam fogs after a while of use! And i did use anti fog chips. Did you encounter this kind of issue while using the yi cam?
Janine, I assume you are talking about underwater recording. Unfortunately besides the fact that I haven’t used this camera underwater, I can only advise you to try different fog inserts. It is probably due to the heating of the camera, which is quite normal for YI.
Superb Job… Thanks… It really helps a lot… Well done…
Glad it helps Pandji 😉
Thank you, Pavle for such a thorough and unbiased review. I found it to be very informative and helpful.
Thanks so much for kind comment, appreciate it.
What a fantastic review! Thanks to you I think I am going to purchase the Yi camera for my upcoming trip to Central America! I’d like to ask one thing before I do, does the app need a wifi connection to control the camera’s settings or can this also be done using a cable. I’m asking this as I don’t think I’ll have wifi in all locations I am visiting so it would be a shame if I was only restricted to one setting.
Best wishes,
Shivani
(UK)
This is great. For people like me who do not officially have the YI on sale in their countries, it’s such a wonderful feeling to have somebody work on the usability and performance of such a device so extensively, that it quite much feels like I’m actually testing the device myself. really hats off to you. You really made the choice much more simpler over other action cams as now i know all the cons and pros which were beautifully covered in your detailed review and virtual tour. Nice work!
and i forgot to mention , i’m buying a YI. Strangely at the time of adding it to the cart I actually already had added almost all the ‘best accesories’ you mentioned in the review. Thanks again.
I have to say, your review is fantastic and I just bought the international version.
I’m commenting here because the links to the guide appears to be broken, see if you can fix them.
Thanks, if the guide is half as good as the review for sure it’ll be useful 🙂
Thanks for the kind words. Unfortunately the software we used to present clickable images has been discontinued, so we can’t longer display them, hence the article is no longer useful, sorry for the inconviniece. However, for any questions feel free to ask us in the review article, our team or other users will certainly have some ideas to help.