Svbony SC311 WIFI camera followup review

Follow up on the Svbony SC311 WIFI camera 1 year later-Has it improved?

Greetings fellow astronomers.  A little over a year ago in Dec 2023 I wrote a review on the new Svbony SC311 WIFI camera - see my first light review of this camera on my review blog and the Svbony website.  At the time this was supposed to be a new and improved WIFI camera on the block from Svbony based on the Sony IMX662 ultra low noise sensor and because of this astro camera had a lot of promise due to two significant features- totally wireless via WIFI and a well known fantastic ultra low noise and highly sensitive Sony sensor.  The Sony IMX662 sensor put in this camera and currently used in many other wired planetary cameras is known to produce great Astro images for both Deep sky and for Planetary capturing. I have used the Svbony SV305C planetary camera with the same very sensor the IMX662 and captured fantastic planetary and dso images from it actually and this is one of my favorite planetary camera's (I have several).  In addition to the 2 above features the Svbony SC311 camera another one of the touted features is it has had the cabability to multi-cast at star parties and group events so participants can view EAA live what was been seen or shown on the host telescope by the host or speaker which is a nifty and useful feature.  

So on my firstlight review of the Svbony SC311 WIFI based camera looked at the good and not so good at that time.  But of course since it was just released at that time the camera deinitely had some significant issues and shortcomings (see my firstlight review).  This review is a brief follow up on where things are at with the evolution and development of the SC311 WIFI camera since it's inception  (a little over a year ago now).  At the time of my first light review I captured the moon, sun and some of the planets like Jupiter and Saturn with this WIFI camera and also tested out some of it's deep sky abilities working the new SC311 WIFI camera through its paces.  This camera at that time was improved in many ways especially with higher light sensitivity and a lower noise floor over its predecessor the Svbony SC001 WIFI camera but as discussed during the review there were also some major shortcomings and improvements noted that needed to be addressed by Svbony.  So were any of the shortcomings and any new features actually added or impremented since last year's review?

Back in Nov 2023 when I initially tested this camera-yes I could capture planets such as Jupiter and Saturn etc. and yes the Moon looked great (but it looked great on the older Svbony SC001 WIFI camera as well).  Also I could also get some deep sky nebula's such as the M57 Ring Nebula and M42 The Great Orion Nebula with it actually.  Having said that, image captures especially of the planets were very blocky and had a multitude of really bad compression artifacts due to the MP4 video format the camera uses for capturing video.  With deep sky captures another major limitation found with this WIFI camera is that it was limited to 5 second maximum exposures greatly limiting its imaging capability.  So even at maximum gain and maximum exposure of 5s deep sky capturse were very very limited with what deep sky targets you could actually capture and what detail you could capture.  With the deep sky targets you could actually capture with it such as the Ring Nebula the resultant captures were very dim and devoid of any detail due to the fact that captures were also a highly compressed JPG format used for saving photo captures.  So due to the these limitations yes you could capture planets, some deep sky targets, etc but devoid of detail and resolution due to the highly compressed formats the capture software uses for imaging.  Not good.  The 5s exposure limit greatly limits the cameras deep sky capability a lot not great either.  So at least up to 20s and no or low compression formats would make a huge difference with this WIFI camera and as such in its current state is only really only useful for group EAA sessions not any real astrophotography. 

So there you have it - with both scenario's - planetary and deep sky there were some serious limitations and issues with this WIFI camera observed.  Is this due to hardware and software limitations?  On the software end of things yes it could certainly be due to development issues of the main captuing Svbonyastro software and its lack of full development to get this camera out the door.  On the hardware side of things yes it could also be the hardware limitations with the older WIFI protocal used, hardware transfer limits etc.  We will really never know as I could never could get a straight answer from Svbony on any of these issues or questions.  Maybe the issue is the WIFI protocal used (4G not 5G or 6G WIFI that is the current standard) who knows we will never know. The other issue is too much bandwidth being used to share among camera users instead of dedicated performance optimzation limting it to 5s exposures and highly compressed formats perhaps   I do not really know.  Never got any real answers from Svbony or their developers on any of it.  Svbony only told me that they were working on a dedicated astro app for this camera and would take some time.

So here we are now a little over a year later...so where are we at?  What has Svbony actually improved with this camera?  Is their yet a dedicated Svbony Imaging app to overcome some of these limitatitions and implement some features like live stacking, proper file structure etc?   Have any of these limitations acutally been addressed?  When I first received this camera and tested it I communicated to their development liason and their testing team on multiple occasions these core limitations and issues (among with many other improvements and features needed but not discussed here) and although they were duely noted at the time these issues and changes were not addressed at that time and were promised at a later date as a update or dedicated app in the unknown future no timelines ever given.  Since then it seems that some bugs have just been corrected with the SC311 camera over the last year appears to be the effort involved in improving this camera.  Since then and there are really no new changes and real enhancements found in terms of new features or correcting any of these major limitations.   This camera still uses highly compressed MP4 video and highly compressed JPG captures and yes the 5 second limitation is still there none of these fundamental limitations have been addressed at all by Svbony.  There have been no features added or improvements and this camera and the current SvbonyAstro app that controls it is pretty well exactly the same as the one I tested back in Nov 2023 other than a few bug fixes to brightness, language issues, and a select all function added (which is wonky at best).  

Over the last year I have sent several emails off to the developer of this app with no responses at all actually.  Not one response.  You interrupt the meaning to this I do not know but disappointing to say the least.  I have also messaged the Svbony rep and and the developer liason in Svbony and I get the same repetitive response "we are still working on it or we are working on a dedicated app which will take some time".  I have asked them many times to just fix these major limitations then work on major features and a dedicated app seperately and it seems my suggustions unfortunately have fallen on deaf ears.   It is now a little over 1 year later and competition like ZWO, Dwarf among others have been forging ahead and done many many updates on their smart telescopes and their own sottware since then. In addition I would say take a look at these alternatives like the ZWO S50 or ZWO S30 just released as they are very competitively priced now and work much better and are of much better value for your money at this point (and also have much better software support).  

To tell you the truth I do love Svbony and many of their products and they do indeed make some great  telescope gear, etc but I am very disappointed in Svbony with this particular camera product release especially in after software support, improvement and development efforts.  At this point (sorry Svbony) I can no longer recommended the purchase of the SC311 WIFI camera from Svbony.  The camera may still be useful if you can get it on a really really good sale price to users who host group and learning sessions for EAA etc but thats about it.   Even then this camera is a pricey product for that purpose and you would be better off buying a S50 or S30 instead now actually.   I would star clear of the SC311 it is not good value for the money with its current performance and drawbacks and lack of support and development.  I still remain somewhat hopeful that things might improve in the future we will see.  I remain optimistically pessitmistic....Cheers