HESSIAN

The long awaited Go Pro Wifi app for the iPhone was just released. I downloaded it from the app store. Of course, it couldn't have come out yesterday when I did my last track event for this season.

jimmymendoza

How is it?

Hamish

Pretty sure you need to buy the WiFi backpac to make it work?

HESSIAN

Yup, the camera does require the WiFi backpack to act as the wifi transmitter/receiver for the GoPro camera.
The app for the iPhone and/or iPad lets the phone act in place of the WiFi remote controller fob. So if you have a new generation GoPro (ie. Hero2) and don't want or need the stand alone remote fob for some other reason (we'll get into that a little bit later), you can save some money and just buy the WiFi backpack without the remote fob.
Before you can use anything, you will have to go through the usual firmware upgrades using GoPro Cineform Studio, done separately for each camera and each wifi backpack. When that part is done, connect the WiFi backpack to the camera, power up each component, & go to settings on the GoPro camera. Once there, choose WiFi settings, and select phone/tablet. For a shortcut to the WiFi settings, just short push the WiFi backpack power button.
Next, on your iPhone and/or iPad, go to settings, choose Wifi, and then select the name of your WiFi backpack as the chosen network.
Next start the GoPro app on your iPhone, and if firmware and network selection was done correctly, it should find your camera.
The iPhone app has some pretty cool features. From the main camera control screen, you can turn your camera on and off, and you can see your camera view in a preview screen to ensure your camera is pointing in the right direction and thereby eliminating the need for the battery-draining LCD backpack. In the gears/more panel, you can activate "find my camera," which will make the camera emit a repeating beep signal to help find a missing/misplaced camera. This is a neat idea, as long as you're within a close Wifi and sound radius. And deeper within the settings, you can clearly see and change various camera features such as recording lights, button sound, resolution, battery status, memory capacity, ect, without having to struggle by inputting directly on the camera which can be awkward with it's vague abbreviations & push-button selection.
Several minor disadvantages include a relatively short transmitting range for the WiFi backpack (maybe 20-30 feet). And if you do go outside the WiFi transmission range, the phone will "drop" the WiFi backpack and may pick up another default Wifi transmitter in proximity. When this happens, you will have go back into your phone wifi settings to manually select the backback WiFi network again. This is a little inconvenient, but this did not disrupt the camera recording that was in progress, and I could still regain control of recording.
There is one last drawback, and maybe this is not such a big issue for newer GoPro users. I have both the old and new GoPro cameras, each with a WiFi backback, and have been able to control each camera simultaneously with the dedicated GoPro Wifi remote fob. Having multiple cameras is cool to do if you have different views going on your bike at the same time (ie. front & rear, front & dash, front & rider, front & controllers). However, the new Iphone app will only work with the newer GoPro cameras like the HERO2. So, poor me, I'll still have to use the dedicated remote fob if I want to have multiple camera views when I use my older GoPro HERO HD camera with a WiFi backback.

jarelj

Cool, I'm going to try that!

Vicious

I was under the impression that if you pay the extra money to have your phone act as a mobile hotspot for the Internet. You could use the GoPro behind you and stream directly to your phone. Like the rear view camera. Any chance you could give that a go and see if my assumption is correct?

HESSIAN

Your iPhone or iPad can identify available WiFi networks, and can therefore wirelessly connect with the GoPro camera via it's attached WiFi backpack without having to purchase a carrier data plan. Then by using the GoPro app for your iPhone or iPad, you can preview what the GoPro camera sees. However, there is a significant transmission lag of several seconds between the camera and iPhone, which I believe for obvious safety reasons, would make this an impractical option to be used as a real-time rear view camera.

Marcoma

I just bought 2x Hero2's and a pair of wifi backpacks..... then they brought out the new Hero3 this week with wifi included DOH!

1199 Gnome

I am looking to buy a Go Pro and will wait to see what offers there are at teh UK bike show in November at the NEC.

Gnome

Kam

Just sold my GoPro HD and will be replacing with the new model.

Hopefully got a good friend who can get a discount as I don't fancy paying £360 for the black edition.