I came across this little gem while browsing the Five Below website looking for things to review. It’s rare that they carry microphones, so I knew I just had to get my hands on it for my Budget Tubing series.
What I’m looking at today is the U Youse Selfie Stick with SoundCam. Basically it’s just a standard selfie stick with a built in microphone. The packaging claims that it’s “the first ever SoundCam”, and I’ll only give them half credit for that claim. I’ve seen other selfie sticks with built in mics before, but admittedly this is the first one that I’ve seen with a discreet mic. All of the others made it quite obvious that they had a mic built in, and ultimately had tacky plastic karaoke or newscaster themed shells on theirs. Plus, all of the other selfie stick/mic combos I’ve come across were priced in the $10-40 range.
As for the types of content creators that would get some use out of this product, I’d have to say vloggers or any other creator that would capturing video on the go using their cell phone. It’s especially useful for when you want to take some overhead shots, since it extends to about 39 inches or so while keeping the mic firmly in your hand. The shaft also has an indentation along its entire length to keep your phone from rotating and ruining your shot.
Of course, the focus on using this with your phone does bring about one of the negatives with this little device. The phone mount is integrated, as opposed to a detachable one that uses a standard 1/4 inch bolt mount. It’s not a huge deal for most people, but I use a more traditional selfie stick as part of my overhead camera rig. That being said, the phone mount itself is very well designed. Not only does it use a nice rubberized material to grip your phone, but it even curves inward a bit for added security.
The last feature that this selfies stick has is a shutter button. It’s very useful, but at the same time it looks like this is the cause of one of the biggest negatives plaguing the device. Yes, it’s useful in that it allows you to start/stop your recording in iOS or take a still while recording on Android, but I think there might have been a goof up in either QA testing or a the design stage. Apparently the signal from the shutter button interferes with the mic, and that affects each phone OS differently. On Android you get a bit of occasional electrical interference, while on iOS the phone won’t pick up the mic and even thinks you pressed the shutter button if there’s a loud noise.
Fortunately I was able to get the mic working on both phone systems, but it did require the use of a couple of adapters. I used the TRRS (aka 4 pole or multi-jack) to dual TRS (aka standard stereo 3.5mm jack) adapter that came with the U Youse gaming headset I reviewed a while back to split the signal. I then used a dual TRS to single TRRS adapter to put just the mic signal into each phone. The end result is a clean signal in Android, and an actual signal in iOS. Of course, this does render the shutter button useless, though a Bluetooth shutter button is just $1 online.
After getting the mic to work properly, I can say that I actually really like the overall sound quality. It has a much better bass response that may of the lavalier mics I’ve used in the past, and does so without all of the extra cables. Of course, since it’s not attached to your person it does pick up a bit more environmental noise due to the needed sensitivity.
All in all, I really want to like this device, but the fact that I needed to use added adapters (which you can get online for around $1.20 total) to fix some audio issues means that I can’t give it a shining review. If you want to take a chance on the possibility that mine was a fluke or you’re willing to buy the adapters needed, then go for it. It definitely delivers decent audio at a much lower price point than many other products (including decent lav mics), but I really wish it worked properly right out of the box.
