Insta360 Wave Review: Professional hands-free kit with AI functions

The next revolution from Insta360 is here. With the Insta360 Wave, the manufacturer is offering a professional speakerphone or conference microphone that aims to score points thanks to innovative AI functions and combine intelligence with user-friendliness. We took a closer look at the device in our test.

Technical data

The product	Wave
Number of microphones	8
Sampling rate	48 kHz
Frequency response	20 Hz to 20,000 Hz
Polar pattern	omnidirectional, cardioid, supercardioid, figure-eight, stereo
Memory capacity	32 GByte
Rechargeable battery	9,800 mAh
Battery life	12 hours
Connectivity	Dongle, Bluetooth, USB
Special features	AI chip; AI noise reduction; AI summary, AI transcription
The price	319 euros

Insta 360 Wave test: design and workmanship

Simple, high-quality
Cool, floating design with touchscreen
Impeccable workmanship

Even at first glance, the Insta360 Wave clearly stands out from classic hands-free devices. The device is not only a work tool, but also a real eye-catcher on any desk or conference table. Initially, the Wave presents itself as a rather plain, black “tube” that is around 198 mm high and measures 64.3 mm in diameter.

With a weight of 490 grams, the hands-free kit is also quite light and pleasantly portable. Thanks to the rubber on the underside, it also has a secure grip on surfaces.

But it gets really exciting when you switch on the Wave using the button on the back. This is because the upper part is then lifted up and the 1.82-inch touch display underneath is revealed, which can be used to operate the microphone.

The floating design looks modern and almost futuristic without being playful. The Wave radiates professionalism, especially in an office or studio environment. A green LED light strip indicates that the microphone is ready for use. If it lights up yellow, this means that the battery is charging.

The workmanship is impeccable: nothing wobbles, the buttons and touchscreen respond precisely and the housing has a high-quality appearance. Thanks to the choice between graphite black and polar white, it can be visually adapted to different working environments – discreet for business rooms or more striking for creative setups.

The fold-out shape is not only a design detail, but also functional. When folded, the Wave is pleasantly compact and easy to stow away; when unfolded, it reaches 248 mm and thus offers more stability on the table. All in all, the Wave leaves the impression of a well thought-out premium product that clearly sets itself apart from cheaper competitors in terms of design and workmanship.

Commissioning and functions

enormously versatile
Customizable directional characteristic
Cooperation with webcams

Setting up the Wave is surprisingly simple and user-friendly. Whether via USB, Bluetooth or dongle – the connection to PC, Mac or mobile devices is established in just a few seconds. The strength of the 1.82-inch touchscreen becomes apparent from the very first start: instead of struggling with complicated button combinations or apps, you can make all settings, adjust the volume, mute the microphone or start recordings at the touch of a finger. A swipe is even enough to upload finished recordings directly to the cloud.

The range of functions is particularly impressive, going far beyond what you would normally expect from a hands-free device.

With its five polar patterns (omni, cardioid, supercardioid, figure-eight and stereo), the Wave can be perfectly adapted to the situation at hand. While omni recording is ideal for team meetings, cardioid ensures focused voice recordings in meetings or podcasts. Creative professionals can capture particularly wide and spatial sounds with the stereo mode, which also makes it interesting for music or ASMR.

The expandability is also ingenious if you move within the manufacturer’s cosmos: In combination with the Insta360 Link 2 webcam (our test), a complete audio-video system is created. The Wave automatically recognizes who is speaking and controls the camera accordingly. For hybrid teams, this means smoother meetings without having to switch cameras manually.

Internal memory and AI functions

32 GB internal memory
Transcription and AI features
Free basic plan

The Wave also has 32 GB of internal memory. This allows up to 1,000 hours of audio to be recorded – without the need for a connected computer. Features such as markers during recording or AI pre-recording, which also saves spontaneous ideas or unplanned moments, are particularly practical.

However, the AI features of the Insta360 Wave are really exciting: together with Insta360 InSight, the new meeting assistant, the Wave becomes a real control center. Transcriptions in 99 languages, speaker recognition, industry glossaries and automatic summaries save an enormous amount of time. The ability to automatically create to-do lists or generate AI-supported FAQs is particularly exciting – practical for both work meetings and content production.

As with comparable AI tools such as the PLAUD Note Pin (our test), artificial intelligence is of course not for free. But: The Insta360 InSight free plan already covers a lot.

You get it every month at no extra cost:

300 minutes of AI transcription
Standard AI summary templates
Highlighting & screenshot tools
Unlimited cloud storage
Speaker tags
Voice recognition

Additional transcription minutes can be purchased individually: You can choose between 120, 600 or 3,000 minutes.

Alternatively, there is a Pro plan, which can be purchased monthly or annually. This adds the following extras to the Basic plan:

1200 minutes of AI transcription
User-defined summary templates
AI speaker recognition
Industry & custom glossaries
AI chat

However, we did not have any details on prices at the time of testing.

The Insta360 Wave is a unique overall package that combines three core areas. On the one hand, you get a classic speakerphone such as the Anker S600 (our test), an AI assistant for meetings and an AI recorder such as the PLAUD Note Pin all in one. Pretty cool.

Battery life of the Insta360 Wave

9,800 mAh
12 hours battery life
5 hours charging time

Insta360 equips the Wave with a 9,800 mAh battery, which enables wireless use for a full 12 hours. A really strong battery life. However, the audio solution takes a long time to charge: the Wave is fully charged in five hours – unfortunately, there is no fast charging function.

Audio quality and practical test

8 microphones
48 kHz, 20 to 20,000 Hz
Good sound for meetings

Particularly cool: The Wave not only has microphones, but also integrated speakers. So if you like, you can replace your PC speakers with the speakerphone. The audio quality is nothing special and is hardly suitable for listening to music or streaming films and series, but it is sufficient for meetings and conversations – other people can be heard very clearly and in great detail.

At the heart of the Insta360 Wave is the 3D array of 8 MEMS microphones, which picks up voices at 48 kHz with a frequency response of 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. In practice, this means that voices not only sound clear, but also natural and authentic. Even if you are up to 16 meters away from the device, intelligibility is maintained – an advantage for larger conference rooms.

The AI-supported sound enhancements, which ensure that voices are recorded clearly and distinctly even in noisy environments, are outstanding. The noise suppression filters out more than 300 types of background noise. In the test, keyboard clicks, air conditioning noises and traffic noise disappeared almost completely.

The reverberation reduction ensures that voices remain clear and present even in reverberant rooms. The automatic gain control (AGC), on the other hand, prevents quiet voices from being drowned out or loud speakers from being overdriven.

In practice, the Insta360 Wave proves to be extremely versatile. In the office meeting, every participant could be clearly understood, even when several people were speaking at the same time. However, you should not expect truly professional sound quality from the microphones, for example for dubbing videos or podcasts.

Test recording Insta360 Wave (super cardioid):

Insta360 Wave test recording (omnidirectional, noise reduction):

I find the audio quality offered to be good, especially for meetings with several people or for brainstorming, especially as you have a number of options thanks to various recording patterns.

The Wave reliably picks up voices behind or next to the microphone, while the noise suppression reliably reduces ambient noise without the voices sounding too artificial.

Transcription, summary and more

Using the Insta360 Wave is very user-friendly. Simply press the “Record” button and the microphone starts recording. When you finish the recording, it is immediately uploaded to the cloud so that you can access it on your PC or notebook.

Alternatively, the display shows a QR code that you can use to call up the summary or transcript on your smartphone so that you have all the details at your fingertips.

The quality of the German-language summary and transcription currently varies greatly. The Wave does simple things, such as brainstorming a shopping list for the weekend, very reliably and accurately:

Creating to-do lists doesn’t always work reliably. With the shopping list, I had hoped that a list of things I wanted to buy would be created. But that wasn’t the case:

It becomes much trickier when technical or industry terms are added to the mix. Then the German translation shows visible weaknesses: “Insta360” becomes “Inter Six D”, sometimes “Interphysics” or “Interflüicsy Wavem Mikrofon” or similar.

Here is an example from the manufacturer’s official press release, which I have simply translated. The original text:

“Insta360 today introduced the Insta360 Wave, a professional speakerphone with integrated AI recording software that sets new standards in clarity, intelligence and ease of use for meetings, podcasts and more.

The Insta360 Wave not only features a cool floating design, but also a 3D array of 8 microphones, advanced AI-powered noise cancellation and reverberation reduction, and seamless integration with the simultaneously launched Insta360 InSight AI meeting assistant.

The Insta360 Wave serves as a complete solution for recording, better communication and sharing conversations. It will be available from September 25, 2025 in the Insta360 Store, Amazon and other retailers from €319.”

In summary, the whole thing looks like this:

So the basic idea remains the same, only the implementation currently offers a lot of room for improvement in German. However, the summary in this example is much more accurate:

Nevertheless, the summary and transcription function is very good, especially if the manufacturer does a bit of fine-tuning here. Especially for group meetings, interviews or brainstorming sessions, the functions are very practical for obtaining a structured and clear summary that can then be easily copied or shared.

Insta360 Wave test: Conclusion

The Insta360 Wave is a successful and incredibly versatile conference microphone solution, especially for teams and meetings. Thanks to its eight built-in microphones, it records voices crystal clear from all directions and at an impressive distance, while also effectively filtering out ambient noise if desired.

Thanks to practical AI features, a summary and a transcript are also created immediately, which can be easily shared on a smartphone, PC or laptop. However, the information is not always entirely precise, especially when it comes to industry jargon and other technical terms. The manufacturer definitely has some catching up to do here. Although I don’t know how much better the paid Pro plan works here.