As we are getting even closer to the release date of the next major Horizon update, we decided to create a small experiment.

We all know by now that Horizon shoots perfect horizontal videos, even if you rotate your device while shooting! We wanted to stress Horizon’s capabilities by using it under extreme circumstances.

Experiment Setup

We attached an iPhone on the front wheel of a car using duct tape and some wires, placed its front face camera at the center of the wheel and took it for a ride! Car’s top speed reached up to 50 km/h (31 mph).

Also, by making use of AirPlay, we were able to monitor the iPhone camera feed on our Macbook in real time.

Analysis

So, what is the conclusion of this simple yet exciting experiment?

Horizon was able to maintain the orientation of the video, but after a while it had to deal with something called centrifugal force.

This bad fella confused the iPhone’s device motion algorithms into thinking that the gravity vector was constantly changing, so the iPhone couldn’t figure out the real gravity vector.

Moreover, the lines of the resulting video look curved and create a cool wobbling effect.

This is because of the iPhone’s “Rolling shutter” camera: when an iPhone captures a picture, it scans the camera input top to bottom and this takes time. Because the rotation speed of the camera is close to the scanning speed, straight lines turn to curved ones!

Result

We are working on an updated version of the experiment that will probably produce better results under this extreme situation!

Here’s the short clip of our little experiment in Vine and also the video that was recorded by Horizon from the front wheel.

We will be back with more experiments soon! Till then stay tuned for the upcoming Horizon update for iOS!

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