😞 Sorry Birna! This is definitely not the experience anyone is supposed to have with the Unleashed! 😞
It's really odd with the battery-draining loop! We tested with the Unleashed M on other Z cameras, and found that they continue to power the Unleashed for just over 2 seconds after turning the camera off. We first had added a delay of 3 seconds to increased the delay to 5 seconds now, which should really be more than enough.
I'll try to get a Zfc or Zf for testing as soon as possible. It's really sad that Nikon decided to get rid of the Accessories terminal on these cameras! I hope they don't continue that trend!
Unleashed '22 M doesn't work with Z fc
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birnaofthenorth
- Posts: 30
- Joined: October 9th, 2023, 9:04 am
The really odd thing is that the battery-draining behaviour had disappeared after my first upgrade to the latest firmware. It only returned after I had done a factory reset, *then* updated firmware again?? I have no idea what is going on here.
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birnaofthenorth
- Posts: 30
- Joined: October 9th, 2023, 9:04 am
OK, cycling battery out/battery in a few times perhaps made the 22M regret its stubborness to accept the firmware upgrade. No more endless clicking when the Z f is switched off.Yay.
However, the M still refuses to connect to any of my BLE GPS units. It "sees" them and I get the message 'tap to pair', but thereafter nothing happens. When I go to 'Accessories', the QStarz (or the GL-770M if that is the one I'm trying) says 'Disconnected'. And stays that way. No GPS is ever recorded.
I can release the camera shutter through the app, but then image preview on the Z f is locked up. I have to turn the camera off/on to see the preview. Next image, same story.
Why have I this sinking feeling of just wasting away my time here???
Added 5 minutes later:
I spoke too early. The endless clicking circle has started again on the Z f when the camera is switched off.
However, the M still refuses to connect to any of my BLE GPS units. It "sees" them and I get the message 'tap to pair', but thereafter nothing happens. When I go to 'Accessories', the QStarz (or the GL-770M if that is the one I'm trying) says 'Disconnected'. And stays that way. No GPS is ever recorded.
I can release the camera shutter through the app, but then image preview on the Z f is locked up. I have to turn the camera off/on to see the preview. Next image, same story.
Why have I this sinking feeling of just wasting away my time here???
Added 5 minutes later:
I spoke too early. The endless clicking circle has started again on the Z f when the camera is switched off.
Last edited by birnaofthenorth on December 18th, 2023, 11:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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birnaofthenorth
- Posts: 30
- Joined: October 9th, 2023, 9:04 am
Updated my android app to 3.1.0 and tried again if I could make the 22'M work with either Zf or Z fc. M updated to latest firmware.
No way. Sooner or later the M caused the camera to either display a flashing disk light (Zfc) or an endless clicking (Zf), in both cases quickly draining the battery. No pairing with my Qstarz -- app says it's been paired, but always disconnected. Sometimes I can get the app to function as a remote for few minutes, then the M disconnects and I have to start all over again. No GPS data is ever recorded -- needless to say.
I noticed a strange 'power plug' icon next to the battery indicator on the Z fc. This icon occurred intermittently without any apparent underlying pattern. Weird as everything else with this Unleashed project.
My patience has long been lost. My hopes of getting something of value for the money invested in the Kickstarter project likewise are vanished into thin air.
No way. Sooner or later the M caused the camera to either display a flashing disk light (Zfc) or an endless clicking (Zf), in both cases quickly draining the battery. No pairing with my Qstarz -- app says it's been paired, but always disconnected. Sometimes I can get the app to function as a remote for few minutes, then the M disconnects and I have to start all over again. No GPS data is ever recorded -- needless to say.
I noticed a strange 'power plug' icon next to the battery indicator on the Z fc. This icon occurred intermittently without any apparent underlying pattern. Weird as everything else with this Unleashed project.
My patience has long been lost. My hopes of getting something of value for the money invested in the Kickstarter project likewise are vanished into thin air.
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birnaofthenorth
- Posts: 30
- Joined: October 9th, 2023, 9:04 am
The latest frimwarre A 3.14 really did not much to solve the severe issues encounterd by the 22'M. Perhaps the Zf which I used fror testing did not run down its battery equally rapid? The drain is substantial and non-sustainable over time, however.
The 22'M claims it is connected to accessories but has the memory span of a fruit fly, so easily forgets what accessories it has been paired with or even worse, insists on using an old configuration instead. For example, I pair it with the Qstarz, the next time the M reconnects -- after a long initilaization pause - it wants the Transystem GL-770M instead. Now, the GL-770m happens to be paired with the 18'N2, but the Unleashed app apparently ignores such facts and has long ago forgotten it should use the Qstarz. And so it goes, round after round with rapid disconnects, slow reconnects, and memory loss. Any attempt of getting the app to remember and recall the configuration fails. No GPS data is ever recorded.
If I select the non-use of GPS (and ignore the main reason for getting into the Foologgraphy Unleashed project in the first place, which was to get GPS seamlessly), I might use the Unleashed app on my Android as a remote release. The main issue now is that the app claims most settings are not available/supported, AF in particular is greyed out, but notwithstanding that, using the release button by the app makes the camera do AF anyway. Now this is a disaster as I have set the camera to use AF-ON button only, but the app overrides this and therefore leads to hopelessly misfocused images. The camera is locked so I have to turn it off to get a preview of the disasterous image, which perhaps saves some strain on my blood pressure?? So again the Unleashed is UTTERLY, COMPLETELY, UNUSABLE.. Sorry, but that is the truth after 3 months of 'improvements' that lead to nothing.
The tragedy is that all the functionality I want is present if I use the Unleashed 18'N2 on my Z5/6/7 cameras. Through the same app too. There is no longer any AF-ON override, so focus is preserved, I can do intervals and time lapse, and I get GPS recorded. The 18'N2 operates on its own for recording GPS (through the GL-770M) so I don't need to run down the battery on my phone. Why, oh why, am I denied such a perfect solution for my Z fc/Z 30/Zf?
I have used the previous Foolography units for many many years and never, ever, been disappointed. Now I see the Unleashed 22 as an unmitigated disaster.
The 22'M claims it is connected to accessories but has the memory span of a fruit fly, so easily forgets what accessories it has been paired with or even worse, insists on using an old configuration instead. For example, I pair it with the Qstarz, the next time the M reconnects -- after a long initilaization pause - it wants the Transystem GL-770M instead. Now, the GL-770m happens to be paired with the 18'N2, but the Unleashed app apparently ignores such facts and has long ago forgotten it should use the Qstarz. And so it goes, round after round with rapid disconnects, slow reconnects, and memory loss. Any attempt of getting the app to remember and recall the configuration fails. No GPS data is ever recorded.
If I select the non-use of GPS (and ignore the main reason for getting into the Foologgraphy Unleashed project in the first place, which was to get GPS seamlessly), I might use the Unleashed app on my Android as a remote release. The main issue now is that the app claims most settings are not available/supported, AF in particular is greyed out, but notwithstanding that, using the release button by the app makes the camera do AF anyway. Now this is a disaster as I have set the camera to use AF-ON button only, but the app overrides this and therefore leads to hopelessly misfocused images. The camera is locked so I have to turn it off to get a preview of the disasterous image, which perhaps saves some strain on my blood pressure?? So again the Unleashed is UTTERLY, COMPLETELY, UNUSABLE.. Sorry, but that is the truth after 3 months of 'improvements' that lead to nothing.
The tragedy is that all the functionality I want is present if I use the Unleashed 18'N2 on my Z5/6/7 cameras. Through the same app too. There is no longer any AF-ON override, so focus is preserved, I can do intervals and time lapse, and I get GPS recorded. The 18'N2 operates on its own for recording GPS (through the GL-770M) so I don't need to run down the battery on my phone. Why, oh why, am I denied such a perfect solution for my Z fc/Z 30/Zf?
I have used the previous Foolography units for many many years and never, ever, been disappointed. Now I see the Unleashed 22 as an unmitigated disaster.
Hi Birna,
I have a glimmer of hope for you! We just released Firmware version A3.2.0 and B3.2.0 with fixes for some of your issues!
We have had the Zf for 2 weeks now and have done some tests and a few improvements.
1) we were able to reproduce the shutdown loop resulting in battery drain. We added a check that we only cause the USB reconnection delay (which fixed this issue in an earlier FW update) only for Nikon cameras, so as not to impair quick reconnection on other cameras. However there's one case that we missed, and it seems you ran into: if you turn on the camera, and turn it off again before we could establish the USB connection, the Unleashed did not get the info that it's connected to a Nikon. Hence the USB reconnection delay was not active, and you'd run into the shutdown loop again. This is fixed in the Firmware 3.2.0 released a few minutes ago. We now add the delay if it's a Nikon, or if we don't know which brand it is yet.
2) We made some improvements to the connection to external GPS receivers - we noticed that with the GL770m that we just got, that in the rare occasions that the Unleashed could not establish a connection, it would get stuck on that, and not retry until the next reboot/power cycle of the Unleashed. this is not a big issue on the Zf as it powercyles every time the camera goes into standby, but on the N1/N2 the Unleashed is only power cycled when you change the camera battery, and only reboots after deep sleep, which has significant delays on those cameras. Entertaining two or even three bluetooth connections at the same time definitely reduces the reliability and speed at which a connection is set up. So if you're having trouble, you might want to disable the Unleashed in your app, after activating Geotagging. The Unleashed M will also reconnect to the external GPS and the Camera for geotagging. You need to watch the Bluetooth icon on the camera's LCD and the LED of the Unleashed for a red blink in-between the light-blue slow pulsing - that means that there is still no GPS data, or the connection to either the camera or the GPS has not finished establishing.
3) there is not really any possibility for the Unleashed to reconnect to an accessory that you have unpaired! There's a very small chance that a newly paired Accessory won't get saved (for example if the camera goes into standby during the pairing procedure, it might look like it finished pairing, but when turning on the camera again, the Unleashed might have had enough time to save the device to persistent memory, so it won't see the newly paired device. But unpaired devices only get removed from the view when they are deleted from memory, so they really shouldn't be able to be "resurrected". To start again with a clean slate, you can always do a factory reset of the Unleashed, which will wipe the persisted storage. Menu -> Unleashed with gear icon -> Your Unleashed -> Settings -> Factory reset (at the very bottom)
4) The real tragedy is that Nikon removed the amazing accessory port from these cameras! with these, the N1 and N2 could directly half-press and full-press the trigger button, write GPS data via two of the pins, get lots of info from the camera, all of which has been taken away from us. The Unleashed M has to do all it can via USB and Bluetooth, and unfortunately, that comes with (sometimes severe) limitations. For example, unfortunately, we couldn't find a way to retrieve the setting whether Back-button AF-ON is active, or not, and so we always activate AF via USB before triggering when FocusMode is set to anything other than MF. So we recommend setting your camera to MF after focussing (we even give you a warning about this in the Timelapse or Bracketing screens). In fact, the back-button AF-ON problem has been with us for a while, but the other way round: people have complained that the Unleashed N1 or N2 didn't autofocus, and it turned out to be because the user had back-button focus on, and the 10-pin port only allows "half-press" and "full-press" rather than "focus" and "trigger". Already then we couldn't find a way to read the setting for the camera to at least give the user a warning.
What we're still looking into:
- implementing some sort of "keep-alive" when connected to the Z f via Bluetooth (ie when geotagging is on). The default standby timeouts on Nikon cameras is only 6 or 10 seconds, which means that the Unleashed turns off, and will have to reestablish the Bluetooth connections to the camera and the external GPS each time the camera comes out of standby. For now I'd recommend increasing the standby timeout.
- Adding triggering capabilities (and possibly more) via Bluetooth when geotagging is on. We know this is possible, but unfortunately Nikons have a lot of Bluetooth services, and while the gps related ones are right at the beginning of the list, the triggering ones are all the way at the end of the list. We're already working all sorts of magic to handle all these different devices on an embedded device with only 64 kilobytes of RAM, and keeping these lists of services is simply not possible, and keeping some from the beginning and more from the end is not intended. But we already have some ideas we will try.
Alright, that's all for now, I wish you a merry Christmas and happy holidays!
I have a glimmer of hope for you! We just released Firmware version A3.2.0 and B3.2.0 with fixes for some of your issues!
We have had the Zf for 2 weeks now and have done some tests and a few improvements.
1) we were able to reproduce the shutdown loop resulting in battery drain. We added a check that we only cause the USB reconnection delay (which fixed this issue in an earlier FW update) only for Nikon cameras, so as not to impair quick reconnection on other cameras. However there's one case that we missed, and it seems you ran into: if you turn on the camera, and turn it off again before we could establish the USB connection, the Unleashed did not get the info that it's connected to a Nikon. Hence the USB reconnection delay was not active, and you'd run into the shutdown loop again. This is fixed in the Firmware 3.2.0 released a few minutes ago. We now add the delay if it's a Nikon, or if we don't know which brand it is yet.
2) We made some improvements to the connection to external GPS receivers - we noticed that with the GL770m that we just got, that in the rare occasions that the Unleashed could not establish a connection, it would get stuck on that, and not retry until the next reboot/power cycle of the Unleashed. this is not a big issue on the Zf as it powercyles every time the camera goes into standby, but on the N1/N2 the Unleashed is only power cycled when you change the camera battery, and only reboots after deep sleep, which has significant delays on those cameras. Entertaining two or even three bluetooth connections at the same time definitely reduces the reliability and speed at which a connection is set up. So if you're having trouble, you might want to disable the Unleashed in your app, after activating Geotagging. The Unleashed M will also reconnect to the external GPS and the Camera for geotagging. You need to watch the Bluetooth icon on the camera's LCD and the LED of the Unleashed for a red blink in-between the light-blue slow pulsing - that means that there is still no GPS data, or the connection to either the camera or the GPS has not finished establishing.
3) there is not really any possibility for the Unleashed to reconnect to an accessory that you have unpaired! There's a very small chance that a newly paired Accessory won't get saved (for example if the camera goes into standby during the pairing procedure, it might look like it finished pairing, but when turning on the camera again, the Unleashed might have had enough time to save the device to persistent memory, so it won't see the newly paired device. But unpaired devices only get removed from the view when they are deleted from memory, so they really shouldn't be able to be "resurrected". To start again with a clean slate, you can always do a factory reset of the Unleashed, which will wipe the persisted storage. Menu -> Unleashed with gear icon -> Your Unleashed -> Settings -> Factory reset (at the very bottom)
4) The real tragedy is that Nikon removed the amazing accessory port from these cameras! with these, the N1 and N2 could directly half-press and full-press the trigger button, write GPS data via two of the pins, get lots of info from the camera, all of which has been taken away from us. The Unleashed M has to do all it can via USB and Bluetooth, and unfortunately, that comes with (sometimes severe) limitations. For example, unfortunately, we couldn't find a way to retrieve the setting whether Back-button AF-ON is active, or not, and so we always activate AF via USB before triggering when FocusMode is set to anything other than MF. So we recommend setting your camera to MF after focussing (we even give you a warning about this in the Timelapse or Bracketing screens). In fact, the back-button AF-ON problem has been with us for a while, but the other way round: people have complained that the Unleashed N1 or N2 didn't autofocus, and it turned out to be because the user had back-button focus on, and the 10-pin port only allows "half-press" and "full-press" rather than "focus" and "trigger". Already then we couldn't find a way to read the setting for the camera to at least give the user a warning.
What we're still looking into:
- implementing some sort of "keep-alive" when connected to the Z f via Bluetooth (ie when geotagging is on). The default standby timeouts on Nikon cameras is only 6 or 10 seconds, which means that the Unleashed turns off, and will have to reestablish the Bluetooth connections to the camera and the external GPS each time the camera comes out of standby. For now I'd recommend increasing the standby timeout.
- Adding triggering capabilities (and possibly more) via Bluetooth when geotagging is on. We know this is possible, but unfortunately Nikons have a lot of Bluetooth services, and while the gps related ones are right at the beginning of the list, the triggering ones are all the way at the end of the list. We're already working all sorts of magic to handle all these different devices on an embedded device with only 64 kilobytes of RAM, and keeping these lists of services is simply not possible, and keeping some from the beginning and more from the end is not intended. But we already have some ideas we will try.
Alright, that's all for now, I wish you a merry Christmas and happy holidays!
Founder & CEO of Foolography, Hardware & Firmware developer.
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birnaofthenorth
- Posts: 30
- Joined: October 9th, 2023, 9:04 am
"A glimmer of hope" with the A/B 3.2? Well, perhaps a small yes and a big NO.
I managed to update the firmware after 10 minutes of factory resets/repeat failing update of the 22'M/killing app on phone/rebooting phone. This with my Zf.
After the factory reset *and* update, the 22'M still had broken memories of earlier paired accessoires. I managed to remove them after several atempts. If the M is moved to another camera, however, the M still wants to connect to the wrong camera.
I now have an M that understands it ought to use the Qstarz. This won't imply GPS data is delivered, though. Oh no.
With the Z30, I could only get the M to work as a remote trigger. GPS, time lapse, video, holy grail -- nothing worked.. M on the Z30 never accepted the external GPS and in fact, only allowed the non-GPS mode. Afterwards, if the M was put on another camera, it would not allow GPS mode again unless it was subject of a factory reset and the camera battery pulled out/re-inserted. In fact, the same erroneous behaviour is also seen with the Z fc. Neither camera will do video recording through the Unleashed app.
The green disk drive light blinking occurs with the Z30, but apparently not on the Z fc. However, with both cameras the battery is drained within hours.
On the Z f, I now can get GPS recorded -- sometimes. There are long delays and disconnects every time the camera is turned on. Time lapse works, but only N-1 frames out of N are recorded. Holy Grail records 1 frame. and camera preview locks up. I have to cycle power on the camera. Video cannot be recorded through the Unleashed app.
Battery drain on the Z f is amazingly fast and it takes just 4-8 hours to run down a fresh battery, even when the camera is off most of the time. I might have released the shutter 20-30 times at most.
So, sorry. 'Unmitigated disaster' is still is the apt description of the 22'M. I cannot use this product. There are cheaper ways of draining the camera battery.
I managed to update the firmware after 10 minutes of factory resets/repeat failing update of the 22'M/killing app on phone/rebooting phone. This with my Zf.
After the factory reset *and* update, the 22'M still had broken memories of earlier paired accessoires. I managed to remove them after several atempts. If the M is moved to another camera, however, the M still wants to connect to the wrong camera.
I now have an M that understands it ought to use the Qstarz. This won't imply GPS data is delivered, though. Oh no.
With the Z30, I could only get the M to work as a remote trigger. GPS, time lapse, video, holy grail -- nothing worked.. M on the Z30 never accepted the external GPS and in fact, only allowed the non-GPS mode. Afterwards, if the M was put on another camera, it would not allow GPS mode again unless it was subject of a factory reset and the camera battery pulled out/re-inserted. In fact, the same erroneous behaviour is also seen with the Z fc. Neither camera will do video recording through the Unleashed app.
The green disk drive light blinking occurs with the Z30, but apparently not on the Z fc. However, with both cameras the battery is drained within hours.
On the Z f, I now can get GPS recorded -- sometimes. There are long delays and disconnects every time the camera is turned on. Time lapse works, but only N-1 frames out of N are recorded. Holy Grail records 1 frame. and camera preview locks up. I have to cycle power on the camera. Video cannot be recorded through the Unleashed app.
Battery drain on the Z f is amazingly fast and it takes just 4-8 hours to run down a fresh battery, even when the camera is off most of the time. I might have released the shutter 20-30 times at most.
So, sorry. 'Unmitigated disaster' is still is the apt description of the 22'M. I cannot use this product. There are cheaper ways of draining the camera battery.
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birnaofthenorth
- Posts: 30
- Joined: October 9th, 2023, 9:04 am
The 22'M evidently has blown its tiny brain and is effectively dead.
First, whatever camera I put it on, the Unleashed app says 'Initializating', hangs there for a few minutes, then declares itself 'Disconnected'. An hour later the Unleashed app cannot find the M at all, just is stuck on 'Searching for more...'?. I have recycled the camera, pulled then re-inserted the battery, rebooted my phone, nada. The M is dead.
Meanwhile, the Unleashed app happily runs and operates the 18'N2 on my Z5/6 without any hiccup. Everything works as it should. The contrast couldn't be bigger.
Please give the details for returning the defectivre unit.
First, whatever camera I put it on, the Unleashed app says 'Initializating', hangs there for a few minutes, then declares itself 'Disconnected'. An hour later the Unleashed app cannot find the M at all, just is stuck on 'Searching for more...'?. I have recycled the camera, pulled then re-inserted the battery, rebooted my phone, nada. The M is dead.
Meanwhile, the Unleashed app happily runs and operates the 18'N2 on my Z5/6 without any hiccup. Everything works as it should. The contrast couldn't be bigger.
Please give the details for returning the defectivre unit.
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birnaofthenorth
- Posts: 30
- Joined: October 9th, 2023, 9:04 am
At present I'm waiting for a replacement unit. However, this unit has been stuck in Germany for nearly 2 weeks now, accoring to DHL tracking. Thus I have no idea when. or if, it will ever arrive.
Meanwhile I'm using Nikon's Snapbridge app on my android phone. It works for a change. It's main drawback is GPS is not very precise unless I'm stationary for a while, and it can only be used with a single camera. at any time However, as the Unleashed can be used with none, so far Snapbridge it is.
The Unleashed 18'N2 works perfectly on my Z5/6/7 models, though. Wish the same applied to the 22'M -- a pipe dream apparently.
Meanwhile I'm using Nikon's Snapbridge app on my android phone. It works for a change. It's main drawback is GPS is not very precise unless I'm stationary for a while, and it can only be used with a single camera. at any time However, as the Unleashed can be used with none, so far Snapbridge it is.
The Unleashed 18'N2 works perfectly on my Z5/6/7 models, though. Wish the same applied to the 22'M -- a pipe dream apparently.
Hi Birna,
I wrote an email to you on the 10th of January, asking whether you'd prefer to get an N1 or N2 for one of your other cameras as a replacement, and told my colleague to wait for your reply before shipping it out. We haven't received a reply yet. We can still ship out a new Unleashed M for you today if you like.
We also made another Firmware release last week, with even more improvements for the Unleashed M on Nikon cameras!
I wrote an email to you on the 10th of January, asking whether you'd prefer to get an N1 or N2 for one of your other cameras as a replacement, and told my colleague to wait for your reply before shipping it out. We haven't received a reply yet. We can still ship out a new Unleashed M for you today if you like.
We also made another Firmware release last week, with even more improvements for the Unleashed M on Nikon cameras!
Founder & CEO of Foolography, Hardware & Firmware developer.