Insta360's Ace Pro 3 might have FCC approval, but Simon Wyndham still expects it and DJI's Action 7 to wait until spring 2027.
We've been spoiled this year. There has been a run of strong action camera releases, including a whole new platform from GoPro, the gimbal camera wars between Insta360 and DJI, and plenty more.
When the rumor mill kicked into high gear around the Insta360 Ace Pro 3 and the rumored DJI Osmo Action 7, it was easy to assume the launches were imminent.
However, Simon Wyndham thinks differently, and he presents a compelling case for why the reality might be otherwise.
In short, he argues that a busy year and Christmas discounting make a 2026 release improbable. He also says he has not been briefed on either camera, which he would expect ahead of a pre-Christmas launch. For all the stop-start release shenanigans this year, journalists and the channel were all primed to go in the background. Releasing two major cameras cold would be a brave move. His prediction isn’t even a Q1 2027 release for the new cameras, but a Q2 one.
On the much-rumored one-inch sensors, he reckons both companies face the close focus and hyperfocal distance problems that affected GoPro's Mission 1 Pro. He notes that DJI's Action 6 addressed this with a mechanical iris that stops down to f4, which reduces the benefit of a larger sensor. He suggests Insta360 might skip the larger sensor unless it adopts a mechanical iris, and says bigger sensors would also mean bulkier lenses, complicating wide-angle and boost lens attachments.
Could the Ace Pro 3 and Action 7 shift toward vlogging, leaving helmet and body mounting to smaller cameras such as Insta360's Go Ultra and DJI's Osmo Nano? It's possible.
Moving on to the wish list, he hopes DJI offers full D-Log rather than D-Log M, expects 10-bit I-Log from Insta360, and would like Insta360's Cine Look modes combined with I-Log. On slow motion, he reports rumors of 240 fps on the Action 7 and 120 fps on the Ace Pro 3, and expects the Ace Pro 3 to stay at 120 fps. He considers 8K60 a likely addition, and he reckons the Action 7 will keep DJI's shared battery system and the Ace Pro 3 will keep its own.
Finally, he considers dual lenses and Lidar unlikely. But given that we're already well into November and steaming towards the end of the year, it won't be too long before we know for sure