So this is the EMEET S800 webcam, and it’s come as a bit of a surprise as for a webcam, it has quite an impressive spec which we’ll get into later. But they’re marketing it towards content creators rather than your usual office workers, which I think is pretty bold, especially with Elgato lurking around. But EMeet do a string of video webcam and streaming products, so why should this feel any different, right? They sent me one to check out, and I’ve done just that. Let’s go.
The EMEET is a fairly small website in size though quite surprisingly heavy. It’s cylindrical with flat ends and has a monitor clip included which does come with a tripod mount screw hole. In the rear, you can find a tiny radiator to vent heat though this thing doesn’t get very hot anyway and a USB Type-C cable which unfortunately isn’t very long. I would liked to have seen a much longer cable here, especially for people with wide setups. The whole thing is black and shiny and has some branding on the sides. But the most important part I suppose is the front. It’s got a Sony 1/2″ sensor which is pretty fancy for a webcam and its widest aperture is f/1.8. It can zoom up to four times and has a privacy hood which can be closed and opened by twisting the front wheel.
Its autofocus capabilities are stunning, to say the least focusing very quickly on what’s put in front of it and its focusing distance is rather small too which is nice if you’re doing some top-down stuff on your desk. It says 0.3 seconds autofocusing time in the specs and I can kind of agree with that though without timing it properly myself I can’t confirm it. Though the camera is fast I can give it that anyway. Just take a look.
The EMEET S800 is capable of filming at a maximum of 4K at 30 frames per second though if you did want smoother footage, this can be dropped down to 1080p at 60 frames per second. Do be warned though that the EMEET software will not hit that 4K resolution. For that, you will need to use something like OBS Studio to be able to capture those types of resolutions. It’s a firmware thing and EMEET confirmed it for me. Whether anything like a fix is on the way is beyond me but who knows? Okay, let’s talk about software.
Let’s take a look at how this camera performs as a streaming camera.
And finally, let’s take a listen to the audio quality from the dual microphones on the front.
One thing I can’t seem to find a setting on within the EMEET software, and that’s to do with some kind of faux blur effect. The closer you get to the webcam you can see it will blur the background when it focuses on a subject. But as I’m sitting at my desk playing games, streaming, using this camera as intended that way, I am a bit too far away from it to get any kind of shallow depth of field effect. I suppose I could find some kind of filter, or use NVidia Broadcast and use the effects that way, but it’s just a shame it didn’t come with it natively. Also and It’s something I don’t usually use myself, but there’s no way of setting the EMEET S800 to be a virtual webcam like you can with Elgato’s Facecam. If you have the Facecam software open you can opt for OBS Studio to pick it up as a Virtual Camera. Not the case with the S800.
But even after all that, for £89 currently on the EMEET website, the S800 is phenomical little webcam! A little narrow for my taste. I do like a wide-angle shot more akin to my Facecam, but still if you’ve got the distance to place the camera further back and get everything into view really nicely, then this is a great choice. More so for content creators too it’s definitely one of the better webcams I’ve seen in terms of quality on the market.
