OBSBOT was founded in 2016 and has been producing some of the most innovative and interesting cameras ever since. Almost two years ago, we took a look at its first gimbal-mounted webcam, the OBSBOT Tiny. It was ahead of the game, featuring 4K resolution, a large sensor, HDR, AI, and other features that other brands are only now beginning to include. It was great but, as a first-generation product, had room for improvement.
Enter the Tiny 2, OBSBOT’s latest webcam. It takes everything that the original Tiny featured and improves upon it. Featuring a bigger sensor, better resolution, better gesture control, voice commands, better auto-focus, better low-light performance, and even more modes and features, it’s a great 4K webcam and the most intelligent you can buy today. It's slightly more expensive than the competition, but those extra few dollars pay off with more consistency and less planning before hitting record.
Specifications
Current Price: $329 (OBSBOT Store)
OBSBOT Tiny 2 - What Is It?
The OBSBOT Tiny 2 is an intelligent PTZ (pan-tilt-zoom, gimbal mounted) webcam designed for game streaming, video conferencing, content creation, and remote learning. It offers a high, 4K resolution and a large light-gathering sensor for improved low-light performance and image quality. It’s also enhanced with a number of AI features that take advantage of its gimbal mounting, allowing it to smoothly track your movement aroulnd the room and intelligently adjust zoom to keep you perfectly framed. It can also be controlled with voice or gesture commands or using an optional remote control.
Gimbal-mounted webcams are a relatively new phenomenon, beginning in the mainstream with OBSBOT’s original Tiny webcam. And while it might seem odd to mount a stationary camera on a gimbal, it has practical benefits that make the Tiny 2 easier to use and much more versatile. Positioning the camera is far easier: you won’t need to stand up, adjust, sit, stand up, adjust sit, ever again. You simply adjust the position of the camera’s gimbal using software, including zoom, until you’re perfectly framed.
If you’re a streamer, it also means you’ll never have to worry about moving out of frame again. If you want to get up, all you need to do is raise a palm to the camera and it will begin tracking you throughout your room. The software even allows you to dial in the part of your body the camera will zoom and focus on from standard to motion, upper body, close-up (head and shoulders), headless (abdomen), to lower body. You can also set your own tracking position for the camera to keep up with. For cooking, dance, and music streamers, this are useful features that offer greater control and options than competing webcams.
The AI built into the webcam also allows you to intelligently track other things which can be useful for remote work, school, or streaming your desktop. Desk Mode flips the camera down to focus on your desktop (you’ll need some kind of tripod to extend the camera out from the top of your monitor). Whiteboard Mode identifies and focuses on a whiteboard. Hand Mode identifies and follows your right or left hand.
The other claim to fame offered by the Tiny 2 is its image quality. With a 4K30 or 1080p60 resolution, it’s able to capture high-resolution or high FPS video to suit your content. It also features a large 1/1.5-inch sensor, which is nearly triple the size of the Logitech C920 that dominates twice today. It’s also larger than the 1/2-inch sensor in the Insta360 Link webcam and the 1/1.8-inch sensor in the Elgato FaceCam Pro. It’s still hair smaller than the Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra, however.
The reason this matters is overall detail and low-light performance. Larger sensors are able to gather more light, making them better for shooting in non-ideal lighting scenarios. They’re also able to retain greater overall image quality and can offer an improved depth of field for blurrier backgrounds similar to DSLR cameras.
The OBSBOT Tiny 2 enhances this further with dual native ISOs, allowing it to handle transitions between light and dark and harsh conditions on either end of the spectrum with improved colors and detail. An HDR mode is also promised but wasn’t available for testing ahead of the review. Even better, when sending video over 1080p, it is completely uncompressed for the best image quality.
OBSBOT also sells the Tiny 2 on the quality of its autofocus. While other webcams use phase-detection or alternative methods to identify and crystalize subjects, the Tiny 2 utilizes all-pixel auto-focus. OBSBOT claims a 4x improvement over other webcams as “every pixel on the 50-megapixel sensor surface contributes to accurate and 4x faster focusing, even in low light.” And while that might be true, against the webcams it’s competing against, all of them felt equally fast in my testing. While not the leap I had expected, the autofocus is fast and reliable swapping between subjects.
The Tiny 2 utilizes the OBSBOT Webcam software for all of its customizations, controls, and positioning settings. The software allows a large amount of control, far closer to a traditional mirrorless camera than a webcam, and right in line with other competing flagship webcams. More so if you include the beautification effects and filters when used as a virtual camera.
Inside the software, you’re able to control all of the different AI tracking tools, adjust the position, zoom, and FoV of the camera (Wide, Medium, Narrow), and save these settings to quickly recall in the future. On the Image tab, you can adjust the exposure and focus, both customizable with manual settings with a focus slider, shutter speed, and ISO setting. White Balance can be set to auto or dialed in with color temperature (still no tint slider, unfortunately). There are also sliders for Contrast, Saturation, Sharpness, and Hue.
When used as a virtual camera (sending the software video feed through to OBS, Zoom, Google Meet, etc.), you can also apply a number of beautification filters. These soften your skin and shape different parts of your body (body slim, leggy, legs, waist, shoulder, and head settings). Note that these do not work if you are sending the direct feed into a system like OBS.
Finally, the software allows you to dial in which voice and gesture commands are active. The Tiny 2 actively listens to you and monitors your movements. Raising your palm enables tracking. Making an L with both hands and pulling them apart zooms in while pushing in zooms out. Saying “Hi, Tiny” wakes the camera or “Sleep, Tiny” puts it to sleep. You can also tell it to track you, zoom in or out, or swap to preset position 1, 2, or 3. If you’d rather be more inconspicuous, you can also use keyboard shortcuts to control the camera and have your audience be none the wiser.
OBSBOT Tiny 2 - Performance
I won’t bury the lede. The OBSBOT Tiny 2 can produce an outstanding picture and it easily the most intelligent webcam I’ve ever laid hands on. We’re at a time where if you’re willing to pay, you can achieve an image that comes close to mirrorless camera quality at a fraction of the price and footprint. The OBSBOT Tiny 2 competes in that space and is probably the best webcam I've ever tested.
For this review, I'll be looking at the camera's performance solo but also against the Insta360 Link, it's biggest competitor. Both cameras offer 4K resolutions, large sensors, and gimbal-based tracking, so which is the better choice? Until testing this camera, the Link (and Kiyo Pro Ultra if you don't need a gimbal) was my go-to recommendation. That has officially changed to the OBSBOT Tiny 2 thanks to its stellar image quality, low light performance, and just as importantly, the consistency of its results.
Standard lighting, stock settings
First off, let’s look at how the Tiny 2 exists on its own. In the above image, the Tiny 2 is completely stock, setting its own focus, white balance, and exposure. The lighting is just my monitor, a window in front of me to the left and a standard lamp in the corner of the room to my right. There are no zoom settings applied and you can clearly see its wide field of view without visible warping of the image. Straight out of the box, it looks great. There is tons of detail here and the camera does a fantastic job of automatically adjusting lighting and color to deliver a well-balanced, DSLR-like image.
Bright lighting (two key lights), stock settings
Next, we have bright lighting. I have two Elgato Key Lights (a standard and Key Light Air) in both corners of my desk. I also zoomed in a touch. The amount of detail here is tremendous. The large sensor does a great job of pulling in all of that light and returning with added details (especially visible in my hair). Zooming also highlights a bit of the natural shallow depth of field it's able to provide (bokeh, blurry background, etc).
(1) Standard lighting, close-up, (2) standard lighting, brightened exposure
At the same time, I think it's very noteworthy that you don't really need to have tons of light. Between normal and well-lit scenarios, the results are close. By manually adjusting the compensation up, as in the second picture above, you can achieve a very similar look to having the key lights with just a window and floor lamp. You don't need to invest in fancy lighting to look great with this webcam.
Low lighting, stock settings
In the above image, I've closed the blinds, turned out the lights, and am just being lit by the computer monitor and the daylight filtering in through the blinds. It maintains strong color accuracy, has low levels of noise and grain, and still pulls very good (and fast) focus. This is the large sensor at work and it's very good!
Standard lighting, stock settings
Bright lighting, stock settings
Low lighting, stock settings
Against the Insta360 Link, the OBSBOT Tiny 2 has a definite edge in my opinion. When you look closely, you can see that the Link seems to be applying some kind of sharpening filter right out of the box and still isn't quite as sharp as the Tiny 2. It's brighter and a bit cooler, which comes down to personal taste, but I find the Tiny 2 to deliver the more appealing picture out of the box. Low light performance, on the other hand, isn't preference. The Tiny 2 delivers less grain and more consistent colors.
I cannot stress this enough: the Link is a fantastic webcam. It was my go-to choice for personal use since the initial review and is still, in my mind, one of the absolute best available today. The Tiny 2 is simply sharper, smarter, and overall better. That's more than a little impressive considering the competition it squares up against.
OBSBOT Tiny 2 custom settings
If you find the Tiny 2 to be a bit too warm or saturated, you can easily dial in its settings. In the image above, I've increased sharpness slightly, decreased saturation, and slightly increased the contrast of the image. The resulting picture is noticeably sharper, yet cleaner, than the Insta360 Link and is well suited to YouTube videos, streaming, distance work and learning, and content creation in general, and with its simplicity, I think this is genuinely a better, more affordable choice than a mirrorless camera and CamLink for most creators.
Another way the Tiny 2 differentiates itself is with some of its smart features. The motion tracking and zoom are an improvement over the Insta360 Link, so if you’re doing presentations or streaming while you’re moving around a room, it has a definite advantage. Compared with the Link's Desk Mode, which the Tiny 2 also offers, the results are very similar, so there's not much difference in performance or capability there.
Left to Right: OBSBOT Tiny 2, Insta360 Link, Sony a6500 with Sigma 16mm lens
The voice controls, while neat, aren't always practical but are a nice feature to have. If you’re live streaming, in a meeting, or recording a video, talking to your webcam isn’t an option. Where they can be helpful is if you’re setting up the position of the camera away from your PC. Presenting a whiteboard at a distance or even just recording multiple takes standing in the middle of the room, they can be genuinely useful. I also liked being able to put the camera to sleep and wake it up with a voice prompt. For general use, though, the software offers the ability to assign hotkeys and silently control the camera with your keyboard.
Final Thoughts
The OBSBOT Tiny 2 is an outstanding camera. It's out-of-the-box performance is exceptional and it offers the mirrorless camera-like levels of detail. Because of this, it's exceptionally easy to get up and running with, though you'll want to take the time to learn the software and set a default position that matches your environment. I also appreciated that the white balance wasn't easily thrown off by the color of my clothes or different elements in the background like colored lighting. It's offers consistently natural colors and great image quality.
At $329, the OBSBOT Tiny 2 is a bit more expensive than the competition. Since it outperforms the Insta360 Link, I think that's a fair price that's only likely to improve over time. In sheer detail, the Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra wins and is $30 less, but it doesn’t come mounted on a gimbal, is much larger, and lacks the smart features and tracking options of the Tiny 2. It's pricey but excellent, so if you've been toying with the idea of creating your own videos but don't like the investment of a full camera setup and CamLink, this is a fantastic alternative. The same is true for professionals and students. It's simply excellent.
The product described in this article was provided by the manufacturer for evaluation purposes.
