Obsbot Tiny 3 4K webcams review: Simply the best

Obsbot has become a jack of all trades with the Tiny 3 series of robotic webcams, geared toward podcasters, streamers, and musicians, as well as the more traditional single- or dual-purpose user. And while the pricey $349 Tiny 3 is the best webcam I’ve tested, you’ll also get excellent audio and video quality with the Lite, plus about 90% of the features for $199. That’s a lot more for your money than similarly priced competitors, and it’s a much better value than the fully loaded Tiny 3, making the Tiny 3 Lite a clear Editors’ Choice candidate.

The company has significantly upgraded the weaker side Small 2: My voice. Almost everything else has also been improved, including support for 1080p and 120fps streaming, greatly expanded and updated tracking, and better video quality. Obsbot has also added some useful new tools in its virtual camera since the last time you used it, such as background replacement and a basic teleprompter, though other new capabilities aren’t fully developed yet.

The cutting-edge Tiny 3 has gotten smaller with every generation, and now it actually qualifies as “tiny” (1.5 x 1.5 x 1.9 inches and 2.2 ounces, without the shrunken stand, too). Not only is it the smallest robotic webcam available that can fit comfortably on your laptop screen; It’s also smaller than many non-motorized models, despite having a larger sensor and multiple microphone pickups.

Obsbot’s ability to pack class-leading performance and features into a device of this size is a technical achievement in my opinion. But it also comes to that painful $349.

to set

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	Obspot Tiny 3	Opspot Tiny 3 Lite
sensor	1/1.3	1/2
Native resolution (megapixels)	50	48
Maximum video resolution	4K	4K
Maximum number of frames per second	4K@30fps, 1080p@120fps	4K@30fps, 1080p@120fps
Original field of view (degrees)	70	66.9
Built in mic	Yes	Yes
PTZ (Automatic Pan/Tilt/Zoom)	Yes	Yes
Zoom in	digital	digital
Focus type	PDAF/MF	PDAF/MF
Vertical video orientation	Yes	Yes
Auto/manual exposure	Yes / Yes	Yes / Yes
Human development report	Yes	Yes
The program runs on Windows/MacOS	Yes / Yes	Yes / Yes
price	$349	$199
release date	January 2026	January 2026

The low-end Tiny 3 Lite makes some sacrifices compared to the premium Tiny 3: the Lite version has a less flexible stand, a somewhat smaller sensor, lacks the top desktop display and whiteboard, and is slightly larger.

And they both work with the Nintendo Switch 2, for what it’s worth.

Great sound

Both Tiny 3 webcams include a Mms Solid-state microphone array with omnidirectional and two-way pickups. MEMS technology enables microphones that are smaller, perform more consistently, are less prone to distortion and generally provide a wider frequency response.

The Obsbot Center program offers five different modes, the most prominent of which is the Pure Audio mode, which transmits unprocessed audio for uses such as recording music. It looks a bit fuller and flatter, and I can see the differences (using Adobe test(Spectral Frequency Display and Analysis) between them and the other modes – significantly less filtering, especially at low frequencies, and less quantization.

Although the microphone is good, keep in mind that it doesn’t have the frequency response range of a professional microphone (at low levels, since its range starts at 50Hz instead of the usual 20Hz), and you can’t get as close to the microphone as you’d like. At the same time as it launched the Tiny 3, Obsbot announced a new $59 wireless microphone Fox Cwhich connects to cameras via GFSK (instead of Bluetooth).

My overall favorite for speech (and default) is the Spatial Audio mode, optimized for stereo pickup, which I think offers the most natural speech and a small amount of noise cancellation.

The two directional modes (one front-only and one front-and-back) sound very similar to a gaming headset’s microphone, and are optimized for voice clarity by boosting higher frequencies and incorporating noise cancellation. Two-way mode is intended for applications such as audio streaming. Because they’re robotic, Tiny 3 models can flip or rotate to focus on multiple subjects, and can be enhanced with powerful new voice tracking.

My least favorite is Smart Omni Mode, which uses AI to process audio from everyone and everywhere in the room during a typical conference session. To me, the result sounds muted, as if there is no gain (or negative gain). If you plan to stream or record in 120fps and 1080p mode, the Smart Omni is the only option, which is disappointing.

However, I would really like to have equalization, because I hate my voice and tend to reduce high frequencies where possible. The more you get, the more you want of course.

Top flight video

Despite the different sensors, the video quality of the two webcams is broadly similar, and both are very good: excellent auto white balance as long as the lighting isn’t too warm, top-notch auto exposure, and reasonably low noise and color saturation shift in low light.

The biggest difference between the two is the way the sensors handle HDR. The higher Tiny 3 can simultaneously increase gain in dark areas and reduce it in bright areas, providing more balanced exposure across the frame rather than blowing out highlights and overwhelming shadows. In practice, the effect was more subtle than I expected; It wasn’t as aggressive as I wanted in bright backlighting, whether white or RGB, though it did a better-than-usual job of exposing colors on the back wall. The lights themselves remained very dim.

The Tiny 3 Lite performed similarly to competitors, effectively reducing bright areas while leaving shadows and midtones relatively unchanged.

If you need speed, 120fps video at 1080p is unique at the moment, and certainly captures action more clearly than the 60fps mode, but 4K at 60fps may offer better clarity if the action falls somewhere in between the two.

Tracks

Autofocus is fast and accurate, although if you use tracking mode, both tend to adjust focus a bit too often; Cameras don’t have enough control over depth of field to throw you out of focus often. Although phase detection focusing isn’t as frequently sought after as typical contrast detection, I find the short pulse annoying enough that I still turn off autofocus most of the time.

Automatic tracking and framing is where pan-tilt-zoom webcams differentiate themselves from fixed cameras. Because a PTZ camera can pan and tilt, you don’t face the same limitations on the area it can cover, and when framing, the subject is always in the center of the lens and sensor. Obsbot has significantly improved its already excellent tracking accuracy – perhaps the new voice assistance option, which complements the camera tracking (it’s difficult to isolate effects), helps. You didn’t need any improvement in tracking speed.

My favorite addition is object tracking, which works very well and can be useful for how-to videos. Simply draw the object’s bounding box in the preview window, and you’re ready. The body can be relatively small.

Audio tracking is also great, especially if you have multiple speakers or if other tracking options don’t respond quickly enough. It only works in trend modes, which makes sense.

Hand tracking is a little better, but somewhat puzzlingly, it still has trouble determining left and right when it has a choice. I still have to put the relevant hand in front of the camera to direct it. Disappointingly, although the Tiny 3 supports desktop mode, it can’t do track tracking in that mode, which is intended for properly oriented top-down video.

Virtual camera tricks

When a webcam feature requires processing by the system it’s connected to, it uses a virtual camera for things like background removal, filters, etc. I tend to separate them from hardware-based features because they are less reliable than camera hardware-based ones and can result in lower video quality. On the other hand, adding features in software is much easier than adding features in firmware.

Obsbot has added background replacement, which works much better than what you usually get from conferencing software because advanced background removal works well (basic doesn’t).

On the other hand, Obsbot’s new default avatar and voice are undercooked at the moment. You can create motion capture profiles, which you can then assign to one of four similar characters with some audio effects. If the webcam was supported by other software, that would be great. But the avatar and voice are clearly more proof-of-concept features than real features at the moment, given the limited options. While you can assign props to avatars, the program does not understand that props should not pass through characters. You also have to create an account to use the features, which will likely follow a licensing fee (Obsbot uses third-party software), and only works on Windows.

There’s also a new eye contact feature, the latest fad in video conferencing, that makes it look like you’re looking into the camera when you’re not. is used Nvidia Maxineso it only works on systems with a GeForce RTX 3050 or better. I didn’t find it as off-putting as most eye contact apps I’ve seen, but I did get some random weirdness, like my eyes staring through my glasses when they weren’t.

It’s all about the $$

This barely scratches the surface of the Tiny 3’s webcams’ capabilities, like the nifty gestures and voice controls — though I disable gestures because I fumble my hand when I talk and end up turning something on or off. There’s also the Obsbot Center’s ability to manage multiple cameras, countless tracking options, and more. We’ve covered a lot of the basic features in Small review 2.

The Tiny 3 Lite’s built-in stand, as opposed to the Tiny 3’s magnetic attachment that lets you lift and tilt the camera, is its biggest drawback. Even on a PTZ camera, being able to raise the height of the camera so you’re not looking down is really useful.

I also found that I needed to balance these small webcams on my gaming monitor, which was too thick for the small stands. Being able to adjust the camera’s position allowed it to balance more securely. Light just fell. I think it’s time to go to OLED. It has a tripod, so this isn’t an insurmountable problem.

The Tiny 3 is pricey, but it’s designed for travel and has a bag (the Insta360 includes one, too), if those things are important to you. It’s a great little webcam, but the $349 price tag is really expensive. The $199 recessive model is expensive, but much more justified, and the Tiny 3 Lite delivers at that price. As an incentive, Obsbot is offering trade-in discounts ranging from $20 to $100 through the end of February for models from all brands.