Insta360 Moves Beyond 360 Cameras With Mirrorless and Smart Glasses Plans

Insta360, also known as Shadow Stone or Arashi Vision in its native China, did not invent the 360-degree camera, but it dominates the category. The Verge reported that the company spent $298 million on memory chips alone, more than GoPro’s entire valuation, as it prepares to ship large numbers of cameras. Its newer ambitions extend beyond the two hemispherical lenses that made its name.

Richter told The Verge that Insta360 is not targeting Meta’s AI glasses or professional photographers using DSLRs, and it is not trying to replace the smartphone camera. “We don’t try to fight against the rise of the smartphone in photography and content creation,” Richter said. He described an opportunity between smartphone users and professional cameras, driven by a growing trend of people wanting to express themselves.

If Insta360 were to sell a pair of smart glasses, Richter said, “we wouldn’t necessarily compete with companies on smart intelligent features.” The focus would be helping people conveniently capture high-quality images, not putting an AI assistant on a user’s face. The Verge reported that this approach would not eliminate the “pervert glasses” problem, but it might allow Insta360 to make headgear that is obviously a camera rather than a covert spying device.

Insta360’s smart glasses ambitions have not been widely reported, The Verge said, and it could find only one brief mention of them. Founder JK Liu previously confirmed that two mirrorless cameras are already in development. One will have a shape “you have never thought of before,” Liu told MyNavi News in August, according to The Verge. Liu reportedly became a billionaire when Insta360 went public last year. Richter told The Verge that mirrorless cameras for Insta360 would focus on making a camera more convenient and suited to a new generation of content creators, not necessarily what is already on the market.

Those categories would be only the tip of the spear. Insta360 has already pushed into areas dominated by its Chinese rival DJI, including drones, gimbals, gimbaled baby steadycams, and modular action cameras. IDC estimates that Insta360 has 20 percent of the worldwide handheld smart camera market, compared with DJI’s 73 percent share. In the second quarter of 2026, Insta360 had 43 percent of the detachable action camera market, 17 percent of non-detachable GoPro-style action cameras, and 6 percent of gimbaled cameras with its new Luna Ultra, according to IDC data cited by The Verge.

GoPro was a distant third in IDC data, with 3 percent of the smart camera market in the second quarter of 2026, after shipments fell by half to 200,000 cameras in the quarter. Canon, the traditional market leader, shipped 4.5 million digital cameras last year, according to Nikkei data. DJI shipped 4.3 million cameras last quarter alone, according to IDC.

Insta360’s founders have described a grand vision of becoming the robot cameraman for the world. That does not necessarily mean an actual humanoid robot, but an expectation that devices can do more of the capture, motion, and editing themselves, automatically understanding a user’s intent with built-in AI technology. The company’s latest Insta360 X6 includes an onboard AI model and enough processing to automatically create a highlight reel from footage while the camera is plugged in and charging. It also has a 2.0 version of the InstaFrame feature that can track and frame a selected person and automatically produce a video.

Insta360 is also launching a new feature for the X6 that can create 3D Gaussian splats with one tap in the company’s smartphone app for free. Insta360 spokesperson Caroline Chen said cloud servers take an hour or two to process the video, and users get only four free splats per month, according to The Verge.