We've got Ricoh Z1 nearly 3 months ago (from a well known German shop). I don't do it often but its time to share my experience with this one.

This camera is my biggest waste of money ever. I choose Z1 over 2 other cheaper competition models because its longer on market and it should have more stable firmware and better customer support than the chinese one.All above were very wrong assumptions! First about support: I know its Corona virus time but for over 2 months from emailing Ricoh customer support to all possible addresses around internet with simple questions about Z1 there is no any help at all.

Ricoh Europe - no reply at all from any emails!

Ricoh USA - sent me link to same third party looking website with the suggestion that there are same good information there. Not even trying to help with the issue! Well at least they replayed!

Ricoh on FB was the only answering (every few day) Ricoh person... it tried to pass me support contact details ... None of them works till today however.

Camera issues in bullet points: 1. Wifi disconnects all the time. With no reason I can't get it to work longer than minutes even within 1 meter distance from the camera.

1. When II manage to switch wifi Off (to not drain battery as it is useless anyway) when you activate plugin and use camera manually WIFI gets ON and drains battery but is can't be use when Plugins are in use even if it works

2. There is no regular manual or PDF available at all for Z1. Instead there is online "guid" where you have to click back and forward going in a circle (i'm too old for that time wasting form) Obvious basic general instruction there but not really simple information like: the difference between green and what blue color lights on front and side of the unit.. How to be sure and recognize: when wifi is Off is ON and when is searching and how to be sure its properly connected you need to play with it to find out and it's more fun when Screen is too small to see the wifi icon all the time and you need to press buttons which may do other things instead of showing you wifi status...

Conclusion: When Camera works it may produce good photos especially when used with third party plugins. It drains battery very quickly especially with wifi ON which cant be used nor disable in my unit. If you need support it does not exist. Wifi disconnecting makes this unit useless to me.

In short it is the most frustrating thing for the money spent.. ever.

I can't use it and will never even look on Ricoh again.

This one is collecting dust on my shelf and it will remind me about this.

Ricoh released the official plug-in "Persons Detection & Counting" for the "RICOH THETA Z1" and "RICOH THETA V" 360-degree cameras.

A plug-in that can detect the number of people present on a 360-degree image taken with THETA and automatically post names and the number of people on Twitter, Google Docs, etc.. It is useful for notifying the congestion status of restaurants and recording the number of participants in the event.

There will be a new Ricoh Theta Z1 released on March 25, says Nokishita . The new Theta Z1 will supposedly have 51GB internal storage capacity. It is substantial increase from the current version’s 19GB capacity.