Back when Razer released their webcam with integrated ring light, we genuinely thought it was going to be a thing. Well, we were wrong, as it remained a niche product in the category. Heck… even Razer decided to remove the ring light entirely in its next iteration. The Movo WebMic, on the other hand, embraces the same webcam with ring light design while going a step further by adding a built-in microphone into the mix.
That’s right, it’s a webcam with a ring light that’s also a mic, giving you a veritable all-in-one peripheral for your videoconferencing setup. No need to plug in three separate accessories before every Zoom call, as this thing has everything you need to look good and sound good whether you’re gossiping with friends, holding a remote meeting with clients, or livestreaming on your favorite social media platform.
The Movo WebMic combines a webcam, a condenser microphone, and a ring light in a single device, with all the hardware mounted inside a dome-shaped enclosure. It’s quite a sight to look at, with the webcam lens at the center, which is surrounded by grilles with a ring light along the edges. Yeah…it’s something else. The whole thing is designed to be mounted on an included stand that also doubles as a handheld grip if you want to move around while staying in frame, although it also comes with an adjustable clamp for mounting it on top of monitors like any standard webcam.
It comes in two models: HD Pro and 4K Pro, with the former getting a 1080p camera with 30 fps refresh rate and the latter sporting a 3,840 x 2,160 sensor with 25 fps. Both webcams use the MJPEG video compression format, which, it’s worth noting, has high bandwidth requirements, so you’ll probably need decent upload speeds if you’re going to use the 4K model.
The Movo WebMic is equipped with a condenser microphone that uses a cardioid pattern, which means it will pick up sound directly in front, since that’s where you’ll need to be to stay in the camera’s frame. It has a signal-to-noise ratio of 80dB, a sensitivity of -45dB, physical volume controls, and a physical knob in the back for gain control adjustment, making it easy to tailor your audio tone. There’s also an audio jack, in case you want to monitor how you sound in real-time (if you care about how you sound, you definitely should), while a mute function lets you quickly turn audio off by long-pressing the volume button.
The ring light, on the other hand, uses 30 LED bulbs and has a color temperature of 5600K, which, the outfit claims, gives a natural tone that promotes a balanced and neutral look onscreen. It comes with three brightness settings, with a control in the back for quickly switching from one to the other. The whole thing, by the way, measures just 4.75 x 4.5 x 4.5 inches (height x width x depth), although the height increases to 9.5 inches once attached to the included stand.
A Kickstarter campaign is currently running for the Movo WebMic. You can reserve a unit for pledges starting at $89.