New borescope

[DMike]

Found a new wifi boresope on Amazon.de to replace my old USB borescope that was, well, getting old. Thought to share my first impressions. Not affiliated with Depstech, the seller or Amazon.

The gear is Depstech WF070, 50€ on Amazon.de. Connects via wifi to a tablet or phone, has a 3.9mm 2MP camera, adjustable illumination, 3.5 meter cord (overkill imo), 2000mAh battery charged via micro USB.

Pros:
- Setup was easy, just download app, connect via wifi to the camera.
- The image quality and update frequency are great. Focus depth is acceptable, crispy images up to 10cm and a bit blurred, but ok, from 10 cm to infinity.
- This is an incredibly thin device, could easily inspect the roof drains and even dive into the drain tube using introducer techniques (more about this later).
- The cord is semi rigid, i.e., can be bent to a shape.

Cons:
- The front edge of the metallic camera housing is rather sharp and has potential to cut into the surface of softer materials like the drain tube, causing friction when pushing the camera forwards. Don’t think it could cause damage, though. Probably going to sand the edge a bit rounder.
- Uses Depstech’s own app, which could be a concern for the longevity of the device.
- First security concern, starting the app for the first time, it wants to register with your email (why?). Skipped registration with no evident drawbacks.
- Second security concern, on an iPad, image and video capture creates a ”Depstech” folder in the photo library, BUT to save any images or videos, requires full access to the ENTIRE photo library. Going to use an old iPad dedicated to the borescope.

Photos to follow.

[DMike]

Gear:

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Depth of view:

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Inspecting the drains:

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[DMike]

Using an introducer tube - guidewire technique. The concept is to use a thicker tube to aim at things, then push a thinner guidewire (the camera in this case) through it to enter wanted area, and then push the thicker tube along the guide wire into the area. Only had a rigid tube (from a gardening sprayer) at hands, but the concept works nicely with this thin camera. Managed to get halfway through the drain tube - each drain tube consists actually of two tubes, connected halfway down, and did not want to force the camera and risk disconnecting the tube halves.

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[rdgreen]

Handy piece of gear. Personally I wouldn't be using anything that required access to my email address (hello continuous spam.....at the least) or, more worrying, access to my picture library. Wise move to use an old lap top.