Benro Connect

It would be nice to simply tap the background of a page to return to where you were. Navigating the app is made impossible when you press soMe items and realise you’re in the wrong place. You can’t then return to the previous page to try again. Also some markers to let new users know which way to mount a lens including the Astro module. And an arrow showing which way your phone should be pointing when calibrating the compass. Does this really need to be done every time you start the tool 🤷🏼‍♂️ surely once calibrated it should remember and only need recalibrating if it goes off target. It would be better to use two or even three stars to align with for pinpoint accuracy. In future plate solving should be introduced, far more accurate than GPS, I know, I’ve been shooting with the Pentax Astrotracer for years. A big issue today, I got a perfect 3x3 practise panorama this morning then another 4x3, wonderful ….. but ….. this afternoon it won’t do it, no matter what I try it displays “shoot failed”. Extremely disappointing. Earlier I ,because I shoot Pentax (and you still haven’t sorted out the support properly) used liveview on my camera and when the Polaris knobs had stopped spinning I used an IR remote to fire the camera and got a perfect 3x3 pano. The issue was there was not enough time between shots for it to settle and me to fire the IR remote so I had a look to see if there was a way to adjust the time between shots. After that I can’t use the pano function at all 🤷🏼‍♂️ It’s a wonderful and surprisingly well built item but it needs tweaking. Incidentally, I noticed earlier on Facebook a post that said there is an update to the app that includes the Messier objects, as I had downloaded the app only yesterday I’m a little surprised I didn’t get these in my app, I’ve been to the App Store and it says I’m up to date. Very odd.

This app and its capabilities renders the hardware useless. The alignment method is insufficient and it doesn’t work consistently. The UI is awful. The camera interface doesn’t function properly and overall makes this awesome hardware almost completely useless. The focusing is incredibly hard with the app and sometimes, I just align then disconnect the camera to focus and by some miracle able to take a few photos before something else goes wrong. If I knew about the horrible app experience, I would have never dropped $1200+ on the hardware. Please fix this.

The concept and idea is great. But the equipment fails and does not connect to the App when “Cellular data” is “on”. When data is turned off, it connects only to the Benro device, but after connecting all cables…the app does not connect to the live view on the camera. Canon R5

It took a week for customer service to respond to a password reset request, so that wasn’t great. We are still missing 2 star alignment, which many Astro photographers believe would significantly improve the star tracking. Holy grail seems to work well so that is positive.

Congratulations, with your latest update my phone will no longer connect! Awesome Benro!

Can’t connect to a7riii with iOS 16 without turning off cellular. Once connected you can’t get the camera in live mode so you have no visual. You can’t kill the app without resetting your phone. Returned the Benro Polaris. Nice try but it is far from a usable product.

Arrrrggggg

Useful

The Polaris was a crowd source funded product and Benro has been busy working on getting units delivered to backers while also adding promised functionality to the app. They are also listening to users who are using it in the field and are making tweaks and improvements based on these suggestions. While not perfect, the software / hardware combo is very usable for star tracking even with longer lenses (100-500mm range), panoramas and more. I give the software 5 stars because it’s very functional and getting better all the time. And Benro doesn’t deserve the 2 stars they are getting from those that seem to not realize that “Kickstarter” type purchases is like purchasing beta units are we are the beta testers. For those that have issues with firmware updates they need to do 2 important things. 1) Format the micro SD card in the Polaris right before attempting the update and 2) Make sure you have good cellular reception on your phone since your wifi is being used to connect to the Polaris. The. your firmware update will work. Keep up the good work Benro and continue to make this product better with each update.

It won’t let me upgrade polaris even after upgrading app. Gets stuck at 50%