Insta360 X5 and Google Street View and PhotoSpheres

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Last Updated: 7/20/2025

This is one of my research pages, which means it will be edited and updated as I learn more.

Street View

You can use an Insta360 X5 (or other camera) to record 360 video and upload it to Google Street View. After some processing (mine seem to take 3-7 days each) it will appear in Google Street View as a blue line that others can view. Your account name will show up as the uploader. Here is one of my first contributions, documenting some of the bike/walking trails here in Des Moines, Iowa:

My Google Street View contribution.

You can read more here: https://www.google.com/streetview/contribute/

According to the Google pages, if you upload footage of a “blue line” that is newer than what Google has, they may show your contribution first and previous Google (or user) contributions will show up in the “See other dates” selection:

Google requires and requests a few things:

  1. GPS data is required. It should either be embedded in the video file (the Insta360 cameras do not do this), or provided as a separate GPX text file that can be uploaded separately (the Insta360 Studio has a checkbox for exporting this separate GPX file when exporting the video). Since the X5 does not have a GPS receiver, you must use an external source such as the Insta360 App on a phone or one of the GPS Remotes they sell. If you use the phone all, you have to connect to the camera then start recording from the phone app. The app must remain active the entire recording. Or, you can use the GPS Remote and start recording from that remote. I have tested both, and they both worked for me.
  2. Turn off gyroscopic calibration. This is the FlowState Calibration feature in the Insta360 app or desktop studio. Just uncheck this before expiring your 360 video to an .mp4.
  3. Reduced frame rate. While Google can handle an 8K 30fps video file, if you export with high quality, a short video of a few minutes could still be several gigabytes in size. This takes much longer to upload, and muck longer for Google to process (and potentially reject if there was an issue). There is no way to record lower than 24 fps with the X5, so this requires an extra step. Free tools like ffmpeg can be used to convert an .mp4 file to a lower frame rate, or commercial software such as Apple Compressor can achieve the same thing. Google has these guidelines for which frame rates to use:
    • Under 5 mph or 8 km/h for 1 FPS. (I use this for walking.)
    • Under 30 mph or 45 km/h for 5 FPS. (I use this for biking or scootering.)
    • Under 45 mph or 70 km/h for 7 FPS.
  4. Image quality guidelines. There are also note about the quality level they will accept, and notes on what can be in the video. For example, if the camera is mounted to the top of a car, it should be in the center and not out a window on the side. Google does allow using a nadir logo image, but the size of that image (or the visible car roof or bike or whatever) has to be under a certain size to be allowed in Street View.

My workflow using an electric scooter is this:

  1. X5 is mounted to a fully extended selfie stick, connected to my Best360 backpack behind me. This gives a third-person view that looks like a drone was flying above and behind me.
  2. I record in 8K 30fps mode, using the phone app or GPS remote to start the video and begin capturing GPS data.
  3. In Insta360 Studio I trim the video as needed and then export it out with:
    • FlowState Stabilization OFF.
    • Color Plus ON (you may or may not want this, but I like the brighter colors).
    • Add Watermark ON set to my logo.
    • Export as a 360 Video using a high bitrate as h.265 and Export GPX File ON.
  4. Once the file is exported to mp4, you can then upload it to Google Street View. It will complain that there is no embedded GPS data, then you can click the “three dot” menu in the upload window and upload the corresponding GPX file (same filename as the video file, with .gpx as the extension).

That has worked for me over the past half dozen attempts, but to save time, converting the mp4 down to 1 fps or 5 fps can be done. I will discuss my steps to do this as soon as I get them working reliably. I converted three files the same way, and Google accepted one, and gave me “Video does not contain more than 10 GPS points. Only 0 GPS points found” errors on the other two. From searching, it seems others are having the same problem — including having Google reject the video a few times, then suddenly accept it later with no changes.

TODO: I will update this with steps using ffmpeg (and a script that helps automate it a bit) and Apple Compressor.

PhotoSpheres

This one is easy, with no special processing or steps needed.

You can also upload 360 photos to any place in Google Maps, such as a business or park. These photos will appear in that entry’s listing under “Photos & videos” in the “Street View & 360” category:

Google used to have a way to upload a PhotoSphere (360 photo) to any location. It would appear as a small blue circle. These could appears inside or outside of a building:

…but I believe this was done through their Street View App which has been discontinued.

You can still upload PhotoSpheres associated with a specific map location by using third party tools, such as this website:

https://maps.moomoo.me

You must log in to your Google account, then you can browse to a 360 photo and upload it. If that photo contains GPS data, the map will show that location. If the photo does not contain GPS data, or the image location was inaccurate, you can manually click to change the location, or type in the LAT and LON to set it.

These will show up quickly, but the blue circles either do not appear any longer, or just take a really long time. A test photo I uploaded can be seen when I look through images of a nearby business, but no blue circle is showing up for me yet.

To be continued…

Segway Max G3 firmware finally released.

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Since I received my original Max G3, I have read of at least two instances where folks reported seeing new firmware available … followed by responses from folks saying they did not see anything. Folks also said Segway was doing small rollouts to just 500 users.

Well, nearly two months later from when I first powered up a Max G3 and did the initial firmware update … the firmware appears to be officially released. At least, here in the U.S.A.

  • Battery1 – 4.1.4.8
  • Motor Controller – 1.4.12
  • Vehicle Controller – 1.5.8
  • Bluetooth – 0.3.14

Here are the in-app release notes for each of the four firmware updates:

Does it help?

There is a new option available that controls the acceleration of the scooter. I set mine to the lowest setting, and now the jerky acceleration is much, much better. In a short ride (less than a mile) I tested the same bumps that normally make my Max G3 feel like the motor is cutting off and it is throwing me forward a bit towards the handlebar. That seems to be almost entirely gone.

This is a huge improvement in ride ability. While it is still not quite as smooth and nice as my cheaper Kugoo G5 was, it now makes the Max G3 a scooter I would have still wanted after a test ride.

More to come…

Insta360 X5 firmware 1.1.22 released

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New features for the X5 have been released.

Many of us were expecting this to be released on the 15th after Insta360 teased something new coming on that date.

Could there be something else coming on the 15th, next week?

Here is a YouTuber with a nice overview of the changes:

Will you upgrade now, or wait a week to see if it has any bugs…?

Until next time.

There are many things NOT to like about the Segway Max G3 electric scooter – part 2

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See Also: part 1 and part 2 (and more coming).

Now with my scooter background disclosed, let’s get to the actual subject of this blog entry: The Segway Max G3 electric scooter.

As soon as I knew my Kugoo G5 could not be repaired, I began looking for my next scooter. I was interested only in a name brand that might be sold in actual stores. Brands like Segway, GoTrax and a few others showed up at retailers like Best Buy, Target and Walmart. I decided to focus on those brands and see what they offered that was comparable to my Kugoo.

The GoTrax models I could find at retail looked terribly underpowered and limited for my needs, but Segway seemed to have some comparable models. As I searched on YouTube, I started seeing videos for the Segway ZT3 Pro – a $1000 scooter that looked like it had similar power and range as my Kugoo. After watching a few videos, and seeing that the Segway website offered replacement parts, I decided that would be enough searching. “Just buy it,” I thought. (One could spend weeks or months just researching, and finding every scooter has reviews saying it is the best thing ever, and reviews saying it is total garbage. Not helpful.)

Although the reviews on Amazon looked good (4.6 stars out of 5), my attempt to “just buy it” there was halted when I saw this message:

Frequently returned item

Check the product details and customer reviews to learn more about this item.

How is a product so well rated, but also so frequently returned Amazon has to warn customers about it? To get an answer to that, I headed to REDDIT and asked there. I braced for the expected set of nasty replies and vitriol, which seems to be what REDDIT is mostly good for these days.

To my surprise, I actually got helpful responses. Perhaps the electric scooter community is just nicer than most? (Well, maybe not entirely as there were certainly the unhelpful “Segway is trash!” responses that didn’t bother to explain why that was the case.)

But one response caught my attention. I was asked why I wanted the ZT2 instead of a Max G3? Well, because I didn’t know anything about that model, and when I looked it up, I saw it was $200 more.

After a few nice replies, I learned that the Max G3 was likely a better fit for what I wanted.

And that’s how I decided to buy a Max G3 directly for Segway.

“Segway.com is trash!”

Unfortunately, after spending over half an hour trying to buy the scooter there, I gave up. The site would get stuck, “Next” buttons going nowhere, and refuse to let me put in a valid billing address. I’d enter my shipping address, then when it wanted me to enter a billing, it would then change both to the billing (a post office box, which they cannot ship to). Lather, rinse, repeat.

I even had a $100 discount code someone on REDDIT offered me and there were some extra promotions (extended warranty, etc.) I could get if I bought direct.

But I couldn’t.

Someone on REDDIT suggested using Best Buy since “they are easier to return to.” I decided to go that route, even after a chat with their customer service said they could not price match the $100 discount on Segway.com. Bummer. At least I could get 0% interest financing if I wanted, or a 10% bonus ($120 credit?) from Best Buy.

I ordered on Sunday evening, and the scooter arrived the following Tuesday morning. I did the quick assembly (attach handlebars and insert four screws, attach license plate holder) and let it charge.

Segway Max G3 first thoughts

I was blown away by how well the scooter seemed to be designed. While it is stupid and annoying to buy something you cannot use unless you “activate it” (what do people without cell phones do?), this nonsense is getting more and more common.

You bought it, but are not allowed to use it. Yet.

Once I activated the scooter, I ran through the app and looked at things that could be customized. It was neat being able to enable higher speeds, including a speed faster than my Kugoo G5, and having the nice display with auto-lock when you walk away from the scooter. The built-in “Find My” support, really impressed me. No more trying to hide an AirTag somewhere and hope a thief wouldn’t find it.

But all of this ended when I rode the thing…

Disappointment Drive

First, let me say that this scooter is zippy. It has intense acceleration — even without BOOST MODE. Possibly too much, even. It is very aggressive, and I would sure like a way to lower that. My electric bike has a similar “problem” where, if you are at a cross walk waiting for the light to change, starting to peddle will engage the motor and try to jump you into traffic. (It took many rides to get used to that eBike trying to kill me!)

I feel similar with the scooter, though I expect I may get used to it. I really hope there will be a way to reduce the acceleration. I like to get to top speed, but I don’t need to get to it that fast.

The next issue is how badly this thing rides. Compared to the Kugoo G5, this thing (maybe due to the thin tires) it just so much rougher and challenging. While it handles bumps okay, hitting any bump makes it feel like it is slowing down to brake (or the motor cutting off). I tested with the traction control feature ON and OFF: no difference that I could tell. I also tested with and without the energy recovery (which, as you slow down, causes the wheel to generate power to send to the battery). No difference that I could tell.

Between the jerky speedups and the erratic feel of “just riding,” it was not nearly the pleasant experience I had when first learning to ride the Kugoo scooter. Or the GoTrax.

If I had test ridden it first, I would not have bought it.

Sadly, in this world of “online order everything,” test drives are impossible. I am convinced had I had a chance to ride this first, I would have never purchased it. And if this had been my first scooter to try, I probably would have decided scooters were just not for me.

Overall, while it does seem to be a “really good” scooter, the riding experience for this $1200 scooter is a huge step back from the $800 Kugoo G5. My ride down to the post office and back (8 miles) was not fun.

Some searching on Facebook groups and REDDIT groups let me know I was not alone. The term “jerky acceleration” comes up often, with some folks saying theirs is just fine, and others saying it is jerky. The interesting thing is that even Segway Support has a document about “jerky acceleration” (though the problem they describe is a hardware defect).

After so many people told me I was the problem and my scooter was fine, I turned to Segway Support. After going back and forth with them (great support, by the way), they suggested I return my scooter for replacement. The things I, and many others, described were not supposed to be that bad.

Even though I ordered online, I was able to return my Max G3 to a Best Buy store. They had none in stock, and shipping to store would take many more days than directly to me, so I had them refund the unit, and then went to order it. Unfortunately, I was unable to do this since I had yet to receive my new Best Buy credit card I signed up for to get the special offers when buying the scooter. I had to go back to the store and let them order it, and wait for the replacement to arrive.

Look for part 3, shortly…

Segway Max G3 battery range tests

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Last Updated: 8/9/2025

This page will have real-world milage from a full charge of a Segway Max G3 electric scooter. As I add new entries, I will add notes about what modes and speeds the scooter was used in. This data is pulled from my Google Spreadsheet which you can also view for more details.

If you only see a few lines, you can scroll down to see the rest of the data.

If the above spreadsheet does not appear, you can view it directly in Google by this link:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JLHODzT0rHM8j7HqzIONhAYdAPIy0QwH1X1bI4haOsM/edit?usp=sharing

There are many things NOT to like about the Segway Max G3 electric scooter – part 1

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See Also: part 1 and part 2 (and more coming).

This blog post serves as my “first impression” of the Segway Max G3 electric scooter. However, thoughts like this are meaningless if you don’t know the background of the person doing the thinking. Some “professional scooter reviewer” that goes through fifty scooters a year, spending maybe a week with each one, has a very different opinion on scooters than someone who spends years with the same model.

Likewise, folks who are used to $3000 scooters probably have very different views on $500 scooters.

In order to let you know if my thoughts even matter to you, here is a rundown of my “scooter background.”

2020: The Kugoo G5 made me a “scooter guy.”

In December 2020, I got my first electric scooter – a $799 Kugoo G5. This was a review unit I was sent, and as I wrote about at the time, it was dead on arrival. After some weeks, I was able to receive a replacement unit, and that one worked great. After a few weeks of getting used to riding it (I had never even ridden a skateboard, so the whole experience was new to me), it became my new favorite means of transportation. If I lived close enough to work to ride it there each day (weather permitting), I would have started doing that and been quite happy. It was a joy to ride.

I became a “scooter guy,” even though I had previously had zero interest in them, and thought they were dumb.

Here is the Amazon listing for that scooter:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09L81Q3VV?ref_=ppx_hzod_title_dt_b_fed_asin_title_0_0

As you may notice by the awful reviews, I was not the only one that had a problem with the unit. Amazon even pulled the listing, and shut down the reviews. I was never able to post my review there.

The Kugoo G5 was a wonderful riding experience. It had 10″ air filled tires, and they were wider that I expected on a scooter. This made rides very smooth and it handled small bumps easily. It was also a very powerful scooter, able to speed up hills in my neighborhood without any struggles at all.

The Kugoo G5 was lacking in a few areas. First, the Kugoo app was crap. Every time I ran it, I had to search and find the scooter and connect to it. Since you had to use the app to “lock” the scooter (which was dumb since anyone could download the app and unlock it), I was constantly having to “disconnect and reconnect” when I went back to the scooter and wanted to unlock it.

Second, my unit started squeaking as I rode it and there was zero maintenance guides I could find anywhere about what I might do about it.

Third, while it did fold down, it was cumbersome to do that, and when you folded it, the front wheel went up so the base would rest awkwardly on the floor.

And fourth, it was heavy. It was a real pain to get up and down the steps to m apartment. If it was easier to fold down, I would have just done that and carried it, but since that was a pain, I ended up trying to lift/roll it up the steps. I sure wished I had a lighter scooter every time I did that.

But beyond those items, it really was a wonderful scooter — far beyond what I would have expected from a brand I’d never heard of. I routinely got around 45 miles on a charge, and never had any issues with it … until it broke. But more on that in a moment.

2023: The GoTrax Apex Max made me a dual-scooter guy

In 2023, I got a GoTrax Apex Max. At $399, it was half the cost of the Kugoo G5. I referred to it as my “toy scooter”. It had much less power, with much shorter range and a slower top speed. BUT, it was lighter, and I could easily pick it up and carry it without needing to fold it down.

However, it was so underpowered it could barely drive up my street. A slight incline would cause it to slow down to 7 mph. Had the hill been any longer, I would have been walking it.

BUT, it was a great “easy” scooter to use for running a few blocks away to pick up a TO GO order or whatever. I wouldn’t dare try to ride it anywhere else since I expect I would get stuck on a hill or just run out of battery.

It also had no way to “lock” it so I had to carry it when I entered a business, and would only park it when I could be on the other side of a window keeping an eye on it.

2025: The Kugoo kraps out.

When it warmed up enough to start riding the scooters again this year, I noticed my Kugoo handlebar was loose. It had a bit of wiggle that it never had before. As I rode it, I felt unsafe from that.

I tried to fix it by tightening some bolts at the base of the stem, but that didn’t help. Eventually, I resorted to disassembling everything I could down there to see if I could find something else to tighten.

I found this:

Yep, the stem broke. That was the “wiggle” I was feeling, and my feeling of being “unsafe” was well justified. The only thing holding it together was a plastic housing! Riding with that broken part could have ended badly.

I tried to contact the Amazon seller, but their account was no longer active. Searching to find the Kugoo website led me to a half-dozen or so different websites with variations like Kugoo Mobility, Kugoo USA, Kugoo EU, etc. I reached out to a few of them looking for a maintenance manual (before I had disassembled the stem), and then again trying to see if any replacement parts were available so I could repair it.

Silence.

Well, almost. One of them which sent me to a blog post that talks about airing up tires, and a confirmation that they had no parts.

At that point, I knew I wanted a replacement scooter and that it would not be a Kugoo. I wanted something from a company that supported their product and had spare parts available.

And I needed it “now” since I did not want to spend the next few months going down the rabbit hole of reading reviews, watching “review” videos, and hanging out in scooter forums asking questions.

To be continued…

A BASIC coin flip…

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Us humans (this is not an A.I. post, bleep bloop) have a tendency to try to find patterns in randomness. For example, when asked to pick a number between 1 and 10, a magician/mentalist will know that statistically humans are more likely to choose certain numbers. There is alot of “human nature” that makes us somewhat predictable.

In a deck of 52 playing cards, if you were asked to predict what card is on the top of a shuffled deck, you probably wouldn’t say Ace of Diamonds, but that card is just as likely to be there as any other. No matter which card you guess, you have a 1 in 52 chance of being correct.

Call it in the air…

When it comes to a coin toss, do you always call heads? Always tails? Or do you alternate?

When a gambling casino game presents a grid of squares and asks you to pick four squares, do you “randomly” pick various squares, or do you just click the first four on the top row?

If it is random, either should have the same outcome.

And don’t get me started on picking lottery numbers. While we do not often see the picked numbers be “1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6”, that sequence should be just as likely as any other.

If it is random.

So let’s play a game in BASIC with a coin toss. Heads or tails will be represented using CoCo’s Color Basic RND() command. Doing RND(2) will produce either a 1 or 2 result.

NOTE: This is not random. This is psuedo random. I have discussed this previously, but for the sake of this blog post we will pretend it truly is random.

Would calling heads every time produce a better result than calling tails? Or would randomly choosing heads or tails each flip be better?

Let’s try…

0 'COINFLIP.BAS
5 'POKE 65495,0
10 W1=0:W2=0
20 FOR A=1 TO 1000
30 V=RND(2)
40 IF V=1 THEN W1=W1+1
50 IF V=RND(2) THEN W2=W2+1
60 NEXT
70 PRINT "ALWAYS GUESSING 1:";W1
80 PRINT "GUESSING RAND 1-2:";W2

This program will “randomly” flip a coin 1000 times and count how many times it landed on heads (1) versus how many times it matched a randomly (1-2) chosen value. At the end, it will print the results:

As you can see, in this “random” test, neither method really proved to be that different. We could also alter the output to print how many times guessing tails (2) would have worked (1000 clips minus how many times it was heads, 511 in this example, so 489 if my math is correct).

But it still feels better thinking we have some “control” over things and guessing rather than always choosing the same guess.

Alphabetically speaking…

Let’s modify the program to select a random letter, A-Z (represented by 1-26). We will now always guess A, versus randomly guess a letter (1-26):

0 'COINFLP2.BAS
5 'POKE 65495,0
10 W1=0:W2=0
20 FORA=1TO1000
30 V=RND(26)
40 IF V=1 THEN W1=W1+1
50 IF V=RND(26) THEN W2=W2+1
60 NEXT
70 PRINT"ALWAYS GUESSING 1:";W1
80 PRINT"GUESSING RND 1-26:";W2

And here is what I get…

Maybe this perspective will help you “always choose tails” or “always guess Aces of Spades” in the future.

And speaking of the future, there is another “random” test I want to experiment with, coming soon.

Until then…

Using BASIC to prove a (dumb) point.

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I recently got lured in to downloading some casual game for my phone. (Thank you, gas station rewards program, for telling me I could earn a bonus from you if I downloaded this stupid game.)

I gave up these time wasters years ago when I realized how much time they wasted.

But with this addictive substance back on my phone, I was thrown back in and realized… nothing has changed. It’s even worse. These games are not games. They are ad platforms. Every few minutes you get an ad. Or, you have to watch an ad to get something you need.

I will repeat… These games are not games. They are ad platforms.

But, once new trend is how many ads for other games I see that offer “real cash” for playing them. They show folks who are broke pulling out their phone and then playing to get the money they need. “It’s just that easy!”

Obviously, if you could easily make hundreds of dollars playing a game, you wouldn’t need to pay to advertise that game. People would all know about it from word-of-mouth and we’d all be doing that.

What is even more amusing (at least to me) is how many ads warn you about “scam games” … while basically being the same game they are warning you to avoid.

But one thing caught my attention… These ads will claim to be “skill based” games. Many of them are card games like Solitaire.

While it is true there is skill to know how to play a certain set of random cards you have been dealt, there is zero skill that can prevent you from losing if you get enough bad hands. Likewise, any “skill” game that uses a roll of the dice you can 100% be guaranteed to lose if you had enough random bad rolls of the dice and your opponent had enough random good rolls.

And that gave me a (dumb) idea…

The house always wins.

As a kid, I remember playing Battleship with friends. In case you are unfamiliar, here is the wiki page for this game:

Battleship (game) – Wikipedia

Basically, you place your ships on a grid, aligned vertically or horizontally, and your opponent does the same. You then call out the coordinate you want to “bomb” on your opponent’s grid, and they tell you if you had a “hit” or a “miss.”

Some of us cheated.

Since there was no way to verify where the ships were, if your opponent called a shot that was a “hit,” you could easily move your piece out of the way to a new spot and report “miss.” Evil. But fun. This caused LONG games, playing until you basically got down to where the ships had no other place to be.

Because of this, I never trusted the Battleship clone I played on my Radio Shack Color Computer. How could I ever trust that computer wouldn’t “cheat” the same way?

But hey, Battleship is a game of skill — after all, it does not use any random roll of the dice or deal of a card.

But the card and dice games are completely “random” and no matter how skilled you are, you can have a hard time winning against bad randomness ;-)

I thought it would be fun to write a simple BASIC Blackjack (or 21) card game, except the computer would cheat. It would have a list of all un-dealt cards, and ensure it always gives the best card to the dealer, and the worst to the opponent. If things were truly random, this is a possibility with a truly random outcome.

The same cheating computer could be done for any random game — just as Monopoly. Imagine ALWAYS getting a roll that makes you pay rent or Go To Jail, while the computer always got a roll that got them to a safe property, or one they could buy.

Shall we play a game?

I will not present code for this yet. I have not written it. But, perhaps one of you will beat me to it.

My idea:

  1. The cards are in a random array of 52.
  2. The computer dealer will always get the best cards. Initially a face card and an ace, then as those cards are depleted, two cards totaling ten. At that point, there is no way the player can ever get two cards at 21. And, if the player got 20, the “house always wins” so even if that happened, the computer wins.
  3. After the player receives its cards, any request to “hit” would be a card just enough to make them bust.
  4. This process would continue through the rest of the deck.

I am unsure if, at some point, it would ever turn into a “fair” game. And this is why I want to write this dumb idea.

Thoughts?

Insta360 X5 night shooting – 360 Video versus PureVideo

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The local government is about to tear down some intersection fountain displays, so I have been capturing them in photos and VR. I was hoping to get some night video as well, with the lights on, but the lights may no longer work.

Anyway, here is a recording using fully automatic 360 “Video” mode, versus fully automatic 360 “PureVideo” mode. The 360 video was then exported as a flat video in 4K, then combined as a split screen using Final Cut Pro. The video is shown in horizontal split screen, then again in vertical split.

What do you think?