In my experience, RØDE is usually making the right decisions when it comes to the gear they release to the public. When the RØDE Wireless Micro came out, it was a great product. It was compact and sounded good. Conspicuous by its absence, though, was a receiver that allowed you to connect to a DSLR/Mirrorless camera.
It was fine to assume that this kit, among all the wireless kits they offered, was for mobile users only. That is, until they recently released the RØDE Wireless Micro Camera Receiver, which made me wonder: were they just late getting this to market, or was it a complete afterthought on their part?
In the box, you get the RØDE Wireless Micro Camera Receiver, a coiled TRS to TRS cable and a USB-C cable for charging. On the receiver, you have a power button on the bottom, a clip that doubles as a cold shoe mount, a 3.5mm jack to connect the TRS cable to the camera and the USB-C port, and two more buttons, one for pairing with the RØDE Wireless Micro transmitters and the other is a mode button that handles a number of different functions.
“When the RØDE Wireless Micro came out, it was a great product.”
The build on the RØDE Wireless Micro Camera Receiver is fine. Not as robust as their more professional mic kits, but it doesn’t feel cheap in any way. The single LED light strip on the front of the receiver does a lot of heavy lifting with no screen to speak of. The light strip, using colours and lighting configurations to let you know if the mics are merged into a stereo output or split into individual channels, indicates the chosen output gain (either low, medium or high), it communicates battery life and just the fact that it’s powered on in the first place.
The problem with the LED strip being positioned where it is is that it is ideally suited for use with a camera operator. A vlogger or someone who just sets a camera on a tripod and works away from it won’t see it in real time, so they’ll need to check on everything before they shoot. This is a general problem across all RØDE Wireless mics, though, as even the ones with screens have that information in the same spot.
Users will also have to rely on the camera’s VU metres (if your camera has a flip-out screen) for audio levels, as there is no indication of what the levels are as you speak. If your camera doesn’t have a flip-out screen, aside from not recommending it for vlogging, I suggest testing the audio levels thoroughly before shooting. The RØDE Wireless Micro Camera Receiver doesn’t offer a safety track for when your audio gets too hot.
“The bottom line with the RØDE Wireless Micro Camera Receiver is that it’s thoughtful of RØDE to make it available for Wireless Micro users.”
A bonus to the RØDE Wireless Micro Camera Receiver, however, is that you can connect it to your computer and use your wireless mics on stream or however else you might want to use a microphone on your computer. It opens up more possibilities that weren’t there before, and that’s never a bad thing.
In terms of quality, I have nothing but good things to say about the RØDE Wireless Micro transmitters, and the receiver doesn’t do anything to hamper that. It delivers the same quality to your device that the mobile receiver delivers. Again, it just feels like something that either should have been there in the first place or left out completely, as now we have an extra accessory that doesn’t pack or charge with the Wireless Micro’s compact case.
The RØDE Wireless Micro Camera Receiver isn’t an accessory you need to buy if you already own the RØDE Wireless Micro. When you register the microphone kit on RØDE’s website, the company will send you a free receiver—you just need to cover the shipping cost. In some regions, the receiver now comes in the box with new purchases, while in others, you still have to follow the registration process to receive one, at least in North America for now.
The bottom line with the RØDE Wireless Micro Camera Receiver is that it’s thoughtful of RØDE to make it available for Wireless Micro users. Still, it likely would have been reasonable to leave this system as a mobile-only option, given RØDE’s broad range of wireless microphone kits.
