Pivo works!

[LetItBe]

I’ve been playing with mine while I trained my dogs. For obedience it would be fine as we’re together except for recalls and stays but for agility I haven’t figured out to get it to track the dog and not me. So work in progress there, if anyone has gotten it to work for this please share.

I rode with it for the first time today(horse beta + iPhone 11 Pro) sharing the covered arena vertically in half. Occasionally, it would focus on the other horse but when I rode by it it would come back to me. Overall it worked really well for riding and I can’t wait to use it for lessons and clinics as well as the occasional check in on myself.

LetItBe

[Gardenhorse]

@EventingMaff

Mine arrived last weekend. I rode Tuesday and it would. not. track. me. I had it in Beta Horse originally and that was a flop. Tried again in regular horse and it seemed to re-find me more often but then my phone overheated and died so I didn’t get the video to confirm.

Tried again this AM in the indoor and it seemed to be tracking me most of the time. Lost me at times but would pick me up again (just based on me being able to see the back of the phone). But when I dismounted and clicked ‘stop record’ it did the “Making Magic” notification and then after 30+ seconds of patient waiting the app crashed. Reopened and no video. ARGH!

Not giving up quite yet but am so far really disappointed.

For reference I have a Pixel 2 (~2 years old) and did Horse, Fast, Predictive off, exposure on, zoom on, back camera.

If you’re on Facebook, the Pivo Horse Riding Community group there is really helpful and people have posted a lot about getting it to work well with specific phones.

[Larbear]

For those that are having some issues, what phones are you using? I just checked the link that MsRidiculous posted and my phone (Galaxy S8) meets the minimum. I’m contemplating upgrading my phone to either the S9 or the newer S10 thinking I will maybe have better results with an upgrade phone.

[Larbear]

My Pivo came today and straight away I’m into problems. Anyone have problems creating an account? I downloaded the app but it will not accept my email address to create an account. It says my email address is invalid. Has anyone run into this issue?

Editing this to add that apparently when I let my phone populate the email field it was putting a space at the end. Removing the space solved the problem. Lol oops duh!

[bathsheba8542]

Just got mine and tried it this morning - it worked great! Thanks especially to MsRidiculous for all the information that allowed me to get started right away.

[Reynard_Ridge]

@GraceLikeRain

Good to know. I have a love/hate relationship with my Pixem. It will be the bomb.dot.com for 5 rides in a row and then refuse to sync up, track behind the motion, etc. for the next 3 rides. It was such an investment I’ll keep using it until it implodes but perhaps the Pivio will be a better replacement when that time comes.

I had the same experience with my Pixem. Seeing the success people were having with the Pivo, I wrapped up my Pixem, sold it (on the FB group) and bought the Pivo. Total net loss, but, I figured with the Pivo gathering steam, the Pixem wouldn’t be worth much in a few more months. Pivo just arrived, so no review yet, but I have a friend who is very happy with it. It’s got to be better than the Pixem.

[callyhan]

Any Canadians order one? I ordered back on July 27 and tracking says it’s stuck at customs for almost a week now.

[slp2]

Thank you Bluedrifter for sharing this! I have been noodling about buying a Pixio or Soloshot for a while, and now I’m so glad I didn’t plunk down the money. After reading your post, I ordered my PIVO and it arrived on Saturday. I did review the tips on the FB Riders community and my first try was a total success. I got good footage in the outdoor and the indoor arenas It tracked me and my horse perfectly. This week, I taped 2 entire lessons and it was amazing. The quality is better than I get from a person holding the camcorder—because it’s much steadier. Bonus that you don’t have to coerce a spouse or horse buddy into taping you!! There are a few quirks about it—but for the price point (I paid $160 for the silver package----and the Pixio /Soloshots are about $950 US) I can certainly live with a few quirks!!

A couple things I learned from others that may help folks having problems with tracking. It’s very helpful to provide contrast for the app to identify your horses “shape”. So, if you are on a dark horse, riding in dark footing—put a white saddle pad and white boots on. The camera will have an easier time picking your horse up. Also—if there are several horses in the arena—it can get confused. It is locking onto the rectangular shape of the horse—and if another similar “shape” comes into the frame, it may lock onto that. I have been fortunate to have the arena to myself when I used it this last week.

I am very pleased with how mine is working—and I know people who investing in the more expensive systems that aren’t using them because they are not easy to use I found the PIVO super easy!

[Elsari]

@Larbear

For those that are having some issues, what phones are you using? I just checked the link that MsRidiculous posted and my phone (Galaxy S8) meets the minimum. I’m contemplating upgrading my phone to either the S9 or the newer S10 thinking I will maybe have better results with an upgrade phone.

I never even considered my phone might not be compatible. I’ll have to take a look, it’s old. It’s a Galaxy S7 edge.

[SuzieQNutter]

@Elsari

I never even considered my phone might not be compatible. I’ll have to take a look, it’s old. It’s a Galaxy S7 edge.

I did get it work with a Sansung S7. I also have a Samsung S7 edge.

Mine does have a horse mode. It said nothing about silver or red when I bought it it is black.

[Gardenhorse]

@SuzieQNutter

I did get it work with a Sansung S7. I also have a Samsung S7 edge.

Mine does have a horse mode. It said nothing about silver or red when I bought it it is black.

There are two Pivo models - both are black. The initial (and cheaper) version, which I think the website just calls the Pivo is the Red. It has a thin red line/trim around it at the top, right below the part that swivels. The more expensive version ($30-$40 more) is the Pivo Silver. It has silver trim. I believe the main difference is that the Silver can rotate faster.

[Core6430]

I have the Pivo Silver with Android phone, and it works okay with my chestnut mare, but does NOT work at all with my paint.

I’ve tried everything. It stares off in to the distance as if my riding has insulted it.

[Sparrowette]

@Core6430

I have the Pivo Silver with Android phone, and it works okay with my chestnut mare, but does NOT work at all with my paint.

I’ve tried everything. It stares off in to the distance as if my riding has insulted it.

They have a support page. You might contact Pivo and ask if there is a way to make it follow your horse.

https://help.getpivo.com/hc/en-001

[Larbear]

@Elsari

I never even considered my phone might not be compatible. I’ll have to take a look, it’s old. It’s a Galaxy S7 edge.

So I decided to upgrade my S8 to the spiffy Galaxy S20 and I saw a huge difference. I used Pivo when it was about 20 min before sunset and it still did a pretty good job tracking me. I’m pretty certain that I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish much if I was still using my S8.

[Elsari]

@Larbear

So I decided to upgrade my S8 to the spiffy Galaxy S20 and I saw a huge difference. I used Pivo when it was about 20 min before sunset and it still did a pretty good job tracking me. I’m pretty certain that I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish much if I was still using my S8.

Thanks for the info!

[Allusion]

I’ve had my Pivo for a couple of weeks now and I LOVE it. I film all of my rides, and was using a Soloshot3 before the Pivo. It is much more user-friendly and easier to set up, and does the job really well.

From what I’ve noticed, it works best with iPhone models, I use my old iPhone 8 (my iPhone 11 doesn’t have enough memory… gah) and have had wonderful success.

To anyone on the fence: join the Facebook “Pivo Horse Rider Community” group and have a scroll through, the videos and reviews are honest! (They don’t censor the bad reviews/videos.)

[slp2]

Allusion- agreed! I posted earlier about how well my Pivo is working (and it still is). However, my friend bought the same Pivo as me (the Silver package) and she is having some luck—but the video is definitely not as good quality as I am getting. The only difference is that I have an iPhone and she has a Samsung. Mine seems to track much smoother than hers and does a better job with the autozoom. Hers also struggles with losing the horse more often. .So—based on our one random comparison, it does seem that Pivo works better with the iPhone.

Also—agree on the FB Pivo rider community. Some really good tips there and not all the comments are rainbows and butterflies!

[Larbear]

@slp2

Allusion- agreed! I posted earlier about how well my Pivo is working (and it still is). However, my friend bought the same Pivo as me (the Silver package) and she is having some luck—but the video is definitely not as good quality as I am getting. The only difference is that I have an iPhone and she has a Samsung. Mine seems to track much smoother than hers and does a better job with the autozoom. Hers also struggles with losing the horse more often.

What Samsung phone does she have? I just upgraded to the S20 and Pivo tracked my horse very well. I was jumping today and had the camera kinda close to one of the jumps and was pleasantly surprised it didn’t lose me (thought I’d be too close). Really really pleased with the Pivo pod and think this will be so useful!

[SuzieQNutter]

I had a look and mine has the silver line. Yay. I will have another go with the S7. It would be really expensive to buy an S20.

[DLee]

I rode in a Jeremy Steinberg clinic at a barn that had one and paid a nominal fee to use it. Worth EVERYTHING to be able to go home and watch and rewatch and hear perfectly (he uses a microphone) my entire lessons!