Eken H9R action camera

I took some videos of the bike ride on my cell phone. But it's inconvenient with a cell phone. But action cameras are made for the very purpose of taking videos during sports. So I got one - specifically the Eken H9R.

I chose the Eken H9R action camera because it should work seamlessly in Linux and as a webcam. So in this article you will learn my hands-on experience with the Eken H9R camera and its use with Linux.

Parameters

Photo resolution: 12M, 8M, 5M, 4M

Time delay when taking photos.

Video resolution: 4K25, 2.7k30, 1080p30, 1080p60, 720p30, 720p120.

So the camera can also do 120 frames per second, so you can shoot fast action and slow it down.
The battery lasts about 2 hours. Which at 1080p30 or 720p120 video resolution takes about 16GB. So I got her a 32GB micro SD card and one spare battery ;-).
The R model can also be controlled wirelessly.
WiFi to connect to your phone.

The camera also has a real time clock, but it resets when you change the battery :-(. Charging via USB or the battery can be removed and charged in the charger.

The camera uses the masstorage standard to transfer data to your computer, so when connected you see the camera as an additional drive.
If you take the SD card out of the camera, it acts like a web camera of the uvc video standard when connected to a PC.

Unpacking the camera

Video of opening the package and unpacking the camera:

First Power On

Video of the first switching on of the camera:

Connecting to a computer

If the Eken H9R is equipped with an SD card and connects to a computer. The camera acts as a mass storage device.

Here is the dmesg dump:

[41957.885355] usb 3-3: new high-speed USB device number 9 using xhci_hcd
[41958.013538] usb 3-3: New USB device found, idVendor=04fc, idProduct=5311
[41958.013541] usb 3-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[41958.013542] usb 3-3: Product: iCatchtek SPCA6350
[41958.013543] usb 3-3: Manufacturer: iCatchtek Co Ltd
[41958.013545] usb 3-3: SerialNumber: 01.00.00
[41958.013973] usb-storage 3-3:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[41958.014018] scsi host6: usb-storage 3-3:1.0
[41959.047767] scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access iCatchtek SPCA63 1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
[41959.048120] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdd] 62521344 512-byte logical blocks: (32.0 GB/29.8 GiB)
[41959.048239] sd 6:0:0:0:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
[41959.048241] sd 6:0:0:0:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 2b 00 00 08
[41959.048713] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdd] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[41959.051574] sdd: sdd1
[41959.052396] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI removable disk

Camera connection When the Eken H9R is without an SD card and connected to a computer, the camera acts as a uvcvideo standard video device. And the camera without work straight works as a webcam. So you can use it for recording, video calls or live-streams. The camera also has a microphone that appears in the system, but so far no sound has been heard from it.

Here is the dmesg dump:

[42056.959800] usb 3-3: new high-speed USB device number 10 using xhci_hcd
[42057.089039] usb 3-3: New USB device found, idVendor=04fc, idProduct=6350
[42057.089042] usb 3-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[42057.089043] usb 3-3: Product: iCatchtek SPCA6350
[42057.089044] usb 3-3: Manufacturer: iCatchtek Co Ltd
[42057.089046] usb 3-3: SerialNumber: 01.00.00
[42057.089496] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device iCatchtek SPCA6350 (04fc:6350)
[42057.090606] uvcvideo: Unable to create debugfs 3-10 directory.
[42057.090651] uvcvideo 3-3:1.0: Entity type for entity Extension 3 was not initialized!
[42057.090662] uvcvideo 3-3:1.0: Entity type for entity Processing 2 was not initialized!
[42057.090664] uvcvideo 3-3:1.0: Entity type for entity Camera 1 was not initialized!
[42057.090717] input: iCatchtek SPCA6350 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb3/3-3/3-3:1.0/input/input21
[42057.152502] usb 3-3: current rate 65536 is different from the runtime rate 48000
[42057.165858] usb 3-3: current rate 65537 is different from the runtime rate 48000

Videos recorded

I've already shot some videos with the camera. The first one I have already edited. And two have already been posted. You can watch them here.

Riding in a hook behind a smoking car (to Liberec by bike 1/2):

Riding between slow cars (to Liberec by bike 2/2):

Live stream on filesystem BTRFS filmed with Eken H9R camera:

Into the water with the Eken H9R camera:

Use

Demonstration of how to use the camera:

Resources

The camera comes with Downloadable Eken H9R manual.