OBSBOT is primarily known for its PTZ (Pan, Tilt, Zoom) webcams, including the Tiny and Tail series of webcams, but the company has another little secret weapon. It removes the PT from PTZ and gives you a powerful webcam with a very small profile that will make you look great, whether on a Zoom call or on stream.
In the box, you get the OBSBOT Meet 4K, a magnetic mount, a privacy cover for the lens, a USB-C to USB-C cable with a USB-C to USB-A adapter and a travel bag to carry the camera and your accessories. The Meet 4K itself has very little on the device. On the top, there is a button meant to put the camera to sleep or resume its function.
You’ll find an LED indicator on the top right of the front of the OBSBOT Meet 4K camera to indicate, with several colours, when it is turning on, active, in auto frame mode, when virtual backgrounds are turned on or when it is upgrading. On the back, you’ll find the USB-C port to connect the OBSBOT Meet 4K to the computer, and on the bottom, there is a ¼” thread for mounting on a tripod or other mounting option.
The OBSBOT Meet 4K contains a 1/2.8” Sony sensor with an f/2.2 aperture, capable of 4K/30 or 1080p/60 video with 4x zoom and a field of view up to 85 degrees. It can be set to have auto or manual focus via the OBSBOT Center software (which we will dig into in a moment), and it has two onboard omnidirectional mics with noise reduction.
“The OBSBOT Meet 4K contains a 1/2.8” Sony sensor with an f/2.2 aperture, capable of 4K/30 or 1080p/60 video with 4x zoom and a field of view up to 85 degrees.”
The camera is capable of being a plug-and-play device, showing up as OBSBOT Meet 4K Stream Camera on your computer, but if you want to really squeeze the potential out of this webcam, you need to connect it to OBSBOT Center, the software solution for the company’s webcams (formerly known as OBSBOT Webcam).
In the software for the OBSBOT Meet 4K, you’ll find a control console, allowing you to control the framing of your image, including zoom and position, or you can choose to select auto framing, which will frame you up even if you move around the room, zooming in on you if necessary. You can also select group mode, which will frame up multiple people should they appear on camera.
The “Image” tab will control all aspects of the overall quality of the video, giving you both manual and automatic versions of these controls. You can control the focus (autofocus gives you global and face options), exposure (auto letting you do a general exposure or it can measure the lighting on your face), anti-flicker, white balance and the usual image controls such as contrast, saturation, brightness and hue. This tab also lets you toggle on HDR, but I have found it to negatively impact my image, so I keep it off.
Under the “Beauty” tab, you’ll find options to introduce background blur into the video and select from a number of AI retouch options. These range from facial touch-ups, like subtly changing the shape of your face, smoothing your complexion or even whitening your teeth. There are body alterations that can thin out your waist or broaden your shoulders, among other things, and a whole tab where you can apply makeup. There are some presets to help manoeuvre this a little easier, as well as several filters that you can apply.
Under the “More” tab, you can set your device to auto-sleep, mute your mic when in sleep mode, activate noise reduction and apply a virtual background, which is in beta. Firmware updates, software updates and crash logs can be done from here. You also have access to a video preview window that lets you change your camera’s resolution, record video directly from the app or take screenshots.
The quality of the OBSBOT Meet 4K is among the best I have seen and can easily rank among the Elgato Facecam Pro, Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra and HyperX Vision S, but this comes with a pretty big but.
Through all of my testing, I have noticed that the camera can get a bit hot. More than a bit, in fact. Within 20 minutes, the camera is hot to the touch, and within 20 minutes of activation, the camera will cut out after a while. I did a little research and found this to be a common claim, even appearing on a blog on OBSBOT’s own website, so it’s safe to say that it isn’t uncommon, but it isn’t necessarily a deal breaker. In terms of how long it lasts, we’re not talking about a period of time that is too short.
“At $199 USD, the OBSBOT Meet 4K is considerably cheaper than the competition that I listed above which, given its comparable quality, makes it an excellent buy.”
It is up for several hours, so you should be in good shape as long as you aren’t running really long streams (4 hours +). If you are using this for teleconferencing, you’ll have no issue at all. It is worth noting that the camera quality never drops out while it is running hot. You can also mitigate this further by shooting in 1080p/60 rather than in 4K, which is recommended anyway unless you are streaming in 1440 or 4K and are using the camera in a lot of full-screen scenarios.
One thing that would have been on my wishlist would have been a much wider lens. To see a field of view more in the range of 95-110 degrees would have been nice to have to give you even more freedom when moving around given the fact that the camera doesn’t pan to follow you. This isn’t a showstopper, but as a large-headed individual, a wider lens is as much a gift for my viewers as it is for me.
At $199 USD, the OBSBOT Meet 4K is considerably cheaper than the competition that I listed above which, given its comparable quality, makes it an excellent buy. It’s a compact camera that won’t get in the way in your setup and will pack a big punch in terms of its overall quality. The fact that it also has a worthy software solution puts it among my top choices for a webcam in all categories.
