Vexilar Fishphone

[FishinFools]

Called Vexilar. The Fishphone WILL be on display and demoed at the St. Paul show starting tomorrow. None will be available to be purchased at the show. Android App is done, IOS app on Tuesday next week. FYI only one local retailer pre-ordered and therefore has stock.

[gritsnham]

Really be careful on this one guys. I heard that the technology vex is using was passed on first by another player in the industry because of poor wifi reliability, bad construction and super slow lag time in the 2 or 3 second range. I'm going to wait on these until everyone's is out and we can compare. Might be late this season or early next but so be it.

Also unless you have a tablet or external power source for your phone, watching streaming video on your phones will kill your battery very quickly. Not many guys seem to be thinking about battery draw on video use.

I must totally agree with this post. You are not going to get the 6 hours the unit has out of your smart phone so unless you have a power source it seems kind of limiting.

Also the screen may be slightly improved but will still depend on the actual camera that is on the unit and of course water clarity. I will also take a wait and see approach.

The frozen lake tundra just doesnt seem like the place for a table for me and my iphone screen sounds too small to be an improvement over the aquaview I have.

[Chad Holst]

When i purchased my Iphone, after several years of saying i wouldnt, i was talked into getting this case for it, Its called a Mophie. After having it for almost a year now, im 100% GLAD this guy sold me on the case. One of the big expenses i didnt want, was replacing all my phone chargers with Apple product chargers. I had vehicle, home, office...charges with mini usb that ALL companies, except apple, uses. (its actually a law, that apple pays a fine for not adhering to) Well the kid that sold me this expensive case ($80!!) explained i would want some kind of case..so theres $20 i would spend anyway. then i would have to buy atleast 1 home and 1 vehicle charger...theres $45 a pop EACH... And this case came with an internal battery and the plug was a mini usb...so no need to use apple chargers. SOLD. and it has worked great. Yes, its a bit heavier, but it has made my phone last so much longer on 1 charge. When my phone is dead, i flip the switch on the case and it charges the battery. the case is about the same as 2 phone batteries, so i get 3x the life. the best thing is when im charging the phone, the case is charging to, so it charges twice as fast as with just the phone.

With this case, im thinking i could get about 8 hours out of my phone if constantly pulling the bluetooth connection from the fishphone camera. Thats a pretty long time, as i doubt i would use it that much in one day. The TV in our house comes with a USB connection to tether a smart phone to the TV to see the phones screen on the TV. So im thinking we could have a 32" camera screen, in HD res for...$180. Thats worth a shot for me. I know some TV's have built in Wifi/bluetooth, but why use that in the ice house when i got my 32" HD LED for $99.

Lets hope this "lag concern" has been thought of and worked out. If so, i think they are in for a good ride.

[DTro]

A 2-3 sec lag could be a dagger in this one...

I sure hope that's not true.

[SkunkedAgain]

On my iphone 5 I can watch two 1.5hr movies in a row without a recharge, and that's using about a medium setting on brightness. If you lowered the brightness it would probably last longer. I don't know why the battery is such a concern for folks. Shut down some apps every once in a while!

[DTro]

I bet my RAZR Maxx could easily go 6hrs. In fact I believe it is speced to 6hrs of 4GLTE streaming and I've seen confirmed tests of 24hrs straight with the display on at full brightness.

[Kodiak]

just get a usb 12v adapter and wire into your light batteries in your shack...done.

[DTro]

Ok, someone must have checked this out at the show today.

Let's hear about it!

[FishinFools]

Anyone?

[LundProAngler]

I heard they are not going to be available at all this year.

[DTro]

Here they are putting them together.

[FishinFools]

Per Vexilar, they are available NOW through one local retailer. One only.

[CJH]

I bet my RAZR Maxx could easily go 6hrs. In fact I believe it is speced to 6hrs of 4GLTE streaming and I've seen confirmed tests of 24hrs straight with the display on at full brightness.

^ This. Battery in your phone should not be an issue, and there are easy work arounds if it is.

LAG is the MUCH bigger concern.

Interested to see how this one works out. Of course I don't sit long enough to use my Micro very often when I am runnin' n gunnin'.......

I'll be at the show tonight, hoping to check it out.

[DTro]

Well I couldn't find anyone to go fishing with me today, so i took a ride over to St Paul myself.

Vexilar had a unit set up there, but it wasn't connected to a display. I asked if it was a working unit and he said yes it was, however his phone was IOS and it was only working on Android currently. So I asked if could DL the app from the Play Store and try it. Unfortunately the app wasn't available yet but he offered to email it to me. So we did that.

Keep in mind that what I'm about to say was based upon that emailed app and it might not be the final working version. I'm not sure.

I was able to connect to the camera with my phone very easily and without issue (just like connecting to a hotspot) and got a nice clear picture. However there WAS INDEED a small amount of lag. Nowhere near anything like a couple of seconds though, more like a couple of milliseconds. But it was enough to notice. I would compare it to webcam on your laptop....just slightly behind. Will it make a difference when fishing? Who knows.

The next thing I tried was taking a still shot and capturing a short segment of video. Its pretty easy as there is a camera/camcorder button. I did that and I noticed right away that there is no feedback to when the video starts/stops/saves. You just tap the button and hope you hit it I guess.

The next thing I tried was walking a distance away to see how stable it was. I got about 20ft away and the feed froze and got very choppy. Not sure what caused that, but it happened each time I got about 20ft away.

When I got home I wanted to try and mess with the still shot and video I captured. I opened the APP, but it won't let you go any further unless you connect to a camera (I noticed a library button on the video feed and wanted to try that). I couldn't go any further, but at that point I also couldn't back out either. Neither the back button on the software nor the back button on my phone worked. I had to hit the Home button and do a force close.

So instead I went into my Files folder and found a FishPhone folder with 4 items (1 picture and 3 videos). Unfortunately I cannot get the videos to play on my phone or my PC. I was however able to get the picture. I'm not impressed at all by the resolution of the picture, hopefully the video will be better.

Personally, I think the version of the App I was provided needs some work, but when it was up and working, the image was clear and it worked pretty darn good. And it was impressive to see the feed on my phone and be able to control the LED. The slight amount of lag could possibly be an issue when used for fishing though and I would suggest trying it out with your phone/tablet on a demo before pulling the trigger.

Again, this is just from what I seen of the demo unit and the demo App. For all I know the final version could be different.

Here is the image I captured.

[Ben626]

Thanks for all the above Info. The longer this is taking the less I'm interested. Maybe I'll consider vexilars Fish scout camera and upgrade my FL-20 to a flasher camera combo.

[wishing for walleyes]

I just bought one online for $129 with free shipping.

I`ll try one for that price.

[FishinFools]

Are you sure that is not the "sonarphone" (SP100)?

Best price I could find for the Fishphone was $169. Care to PM me and share where you found it for $129?

[wishing for walleyes]

Yes it is the sonar phone...my bad

[DTro]

Did anyone else try it out at the show?

[bakwardbob]

I just got mine from Scheels in Mankato. It was marked $10 over retail at $199.99. But on their HSOforum it is on sale for $169.99. They matched the price.

The app is still not in the store.

Could you possibly email me that app? I will PM you.

Thanks

[DTro]

So you are able to buy the unit, but no app available yet?

Huh..

Yeah, I sent if off to you. Good Luck!

[JeffB]

For those that have bought the fish phone or the sonar phone I hope they work great for you and you enjoy them. I haven't seen or tried one, but I wouldn't want either one. The fish phone doesn't seem to save much space compared to a regular camera and it ties up your phone so you can't actually use it as a phone while using it for fishing. I can see a few extra phones dropping down the hole with people trying to prop them up to uses them for fishing then reaching for it to answer phone or text. I'll stick with a stand alone flasher and camera. They will sell a few right away for people who need there phone to do everything then it will fade imho.

[DTro]

Not just phones.

Tablets, Smart TV's, laptops, etc.

Its a cool concept no doubt.

[bakwardbob]

Thank you DTro for the app.

I am using a Galaxy S4 and it works well. Seems simple enough to set up with the correct password. Software feels a little buggy, but works.

Very little delay. Took some snap shots and they look good. You can really control the brightness of the LEDs. They can get super bright, blinding in fact.

The range was very good at my home. Went in my basement and no lag. We will see how it works out on the ice.

If anyone has any questions, just let me know. BTW you still get phone calls when using apps on phones.

[DTro]

Good info, thanks

Did you try capturing a video?