Why I Regret buying the LiveU Solo

Hello and welcome back to a new video. So

recently I've been playing around with

this LiveU Solo device and it's come to my

conclusion that it's not very good. I'm

very disappointed with it and I can't

really recommend buying it for yourself.

So as someone who does IRL streaming

outside, getting the tech side of things

sorted and stable and ready to go for

doing outside streaming is probably one of

the most challenging parts of doing IRL

streaming. And one of the most popular

items that a lot of the popular Twitch

streamers use is the LiveU encoder thing,

and the unique ability it has is the

ability to be able to combine and bind

multiple SIM connections and Wi-Fi

hotspots together to create one really

strong and stable connection. When you're

outside doing a live stream, having a

stable connection is one of the most

important things. There's nothing more

annoying when you're doing a live stream

and it's taken you like an hour to get up

to a couple hundred viewers, and then you

lose connection, and then you get

disconnected, and then when you've

reconnected, you've found that you've lost

nearly half of your viewers and they're

not coming back. Usually when a livestream

disconnects, a lot of people just lose

interest and they think, oh, livestream's

over, I'm gonna go to bed now, and they

get annoyed, they click off, and they

don't come back. So the ability to be able

to bond multiple connections has been

something that I thought was really

necessary when it comes to livestreaming,

and that's one of the main reasons I

bought this LiveU. Now this LiveU was

extremely expensive, and it's just a

massive hassle to get it working and

running, and you need to buy so many other

things to accompany it for it to actually

be useful. It's gotten to a point for me

personally where I actually prefer just

streaming off of my phone because it's a

lot more convenient. And the cost of this

thing is nearly $2,000, not just for this

thing but for everything combined. So for

the LiveU encoder it would cost you about

£800. I'm paying it using credit, so over

4 years I'm paying about £20 a month, and

in total it's going to cost me £1,000

after 4 years. And you also need to get

the LRT bonding service, which costs $440.

So it's about $1,000 plus $440.

Then obviously you need to buy a camera

and you need battery banks and cables. So

all of that is going to cost you probably

over $2,000, when in comparison, if you

you nothing, cuz I mean, you have a phone

already unless you need to buy a second

phone. Then even if you have to buy a

second phone, you can get a brand new

iPhone 14 for half the price of what a

LiveU streaming setup is going to cost

you. And I wouldn't mind paying all this

extra money if it actually worked well and

it made my live streams a lot better.

Unfortunately, I can't really say that it

does make my live streams way better. I

actually found that even with the bonding

service My livestreams seem to be worse,

and here's my top five reasons why this

thing sucks. So number one, the most

annoying thing about it is it does this

weird glitching thing. I'll show you some

examples, but this usually happens when

either there's some kind of vibration or

you're running or jumping or you're riding

a bicycle, and what happens is it kind of

does this weird glitching thing where the

footage. Goes all gray and then starts

stretching, or parts of the footage goes

green and then it starts stretching and

Hopefully when I'm streaming in the

streets of Bangkok, it won't be as bad as

this. It'll be a lot better.

UK internet just sucks.

No, it's actually better on my phone.

My phone didn't do this.

The streets

of Bangkok.

And this is really frustrating and

annoying, especially if you're doing

vigorous activity. For example, I was

riding a bike because I wanted to do some

biking streams. And for some reason,

every time I went over 15 miles per hour,

it started to do this glitching thing

where the image was all stretched and it

just couldn't maintain a smooth video

output. And when I stopped or I slowed

down, it would go back to normal. And same

thing happened on foot. Every time I tried

running, or if I tried jumping off a

little ledge and there's a bit of a shake

in my bag— because you need to have all

this in your bag, you can't really carry

it in your hand. Well, I guess you could,

I mean, you could get a camera and maybe

you could sellotape it to the outside of

the LiveU and then have a little cable

that goes into it, but that would be kind

of silly to carry this thing like that.

It's gonna go in— it's gonna go into your

backpack, and when it's in your backpack,

when you're moving around quickly,

there's gonna be shaking. And it seems

like every time there's shaking or

vibrating, it messes up the livestream.

And this doesn't happen on my phone for

some reason. If I stream from my phone, I

can run, I can jump, I can ride a bicycle,

and this weird glitching thing. I think

they call it data moshing. This weird data

moshing thing never happens on my phone,

but for some reason it happens really

easily and often on this expensive piece

of kit. It's fine if you're just going to

stand still and do stationary IRL streams,

but if you're like me and you want to do a

bit of running or some action or some kind

of physical activity where you're moving

around quickly, then your bag is going to

shake and then you're going to get this

weird stretching thing and it just ruins

the livestream completely. But what's even

more annoying is how much stuff you need

in addition to the LiveU to actually get

this thing working instead of just using a

phone which has everything built into it.

So a phone has a camera built into it, it

has a Wi-Fi connection or SIM card

connection, it has everything you need to

do a livestream straight from the device.

So if you're streaming from your phone,

all you need is the phone and maybe a

battery bank if you're going to do a

really long livestream. But to livestream

using the LiveU, so first of all you would

need the LiveU, then you need a camera,

and then you need some battery banks so

you can actually do a long livestream.

Without the battery bank, the Go— I mean,

the LiveU Solo can last for about 2 hours,

but your camera probably won't last for

nearly 2 hours. So you're going to need a

battery bank or 2. In my case, I got 3

battery banks. And then you're going to

need a load of cables. So you need all

these cables. You need an HDMI cable to

connect the camera to the thing. You need

a USB-C cable to connect the battery banks

to the camera. And you also need this

special camera here— I mean, this special

cable here, which plugs into the LiveU to

the battery bank. It's kind of annoying

charging the, the LiveU because only a few

battery banks work with it. If you have

one of these normal battery banks for

charging tablets or phones, it's not going

to be able to charge the LiveU. You need

one of these beefy battery banks that has

a— what's it called— a 12-volt

DC or AC output. And then you need one of

these special cables. It's like a round,

a round cable that goes into it, and then

that plugs into the, the LiveU. It's kind

of frustrating how they didn't make it so

you could charge the LiveU using a USB-C,

but it seems like the LiveU needs a lot of

power to be able to charge. Here is the

battery charger for the LiveU that you

plug it into the mains with, and it comes

with— it comes with this power brick like

a laptop. So it needs a lot of power to be

able to charge up, and even with it

plugged into this battery bank, it doesn't

actually charge. It just kind of drains

battery very, very slowly. So I could

livestream for about, I think, 4 or 5

hours using this battery bank, but

eventually you'll end up losing power and

it will shut itself off because this

battery bank is not actually fast enough

or powerful enough to be able to charge

it. It just prevents it from draining as

fast as it was draining. So you need to

connect all this up. This has to go all

into your backpack. This needs to go into

your backpack. And it's just kind of

frustrating to use because you're going to

have all these cables coming out of your

backpack and then trying to move the

camera around, trying to change camera

angles. Maybe you want to film yourself

and then switch to filming what's in front

of you. It's kind of annoying to do that

because you've got these cables coming

out, it really reduces mobility in

comparison with streaming straight off

your phone where you don't actually have

to have any cables and you can just have

it on a selfie stick and just be able to

move it around freely without being

hindered or constrained by cables coming

out. It really feels a lot better and a

lot easier to just stream from your phone.

Another annoying thing that I found,

which is more like a unique example

situation, where if you use a GoPro to

stream with you have to turn off

stabilization because when stabilization

is on, for some reason the audio gets all

out of sync when you use it to stream from

a live view. So I have to turn the

stabilization off to get in-sync audio,

but then the footage is really shaky.

This is probably why no live streamers on

Twitch use a GoPro to stream with. They

all use that same exact same white Sony

camera, you know, that Sony action camera.

And the reason why is because that has

inbuilt stabilization that doesn't desync

the audio when it's switched on, and it

has a nice wide field of view, which I

should be able to— I should really think

about getting one of those if I was

serious about streaming with the LiveU

again. The GoPro isn't really a great

solution, but it was the only camera I had

that I could test out the LiveU with. I

have thought about getting the Sony Action

Cam to give the LiveU another chance,

but even with the, the Sony Action Cam,

I'd have to have all these cables coming

out into my bag, and that weird data

moshing thing is still going to happen if

I run or if I jump. As for the multiple

bonded connections, I don't really— as for

the multiple bonded connections, I don't

even feel like it's that important. So if

you're in a city— I'm in Bangkok right now

and I've got excellent 5G coverage on my

phone at almost all times, and I did a

livestream on my phone. I never got

disconnected once because the connection's

so strong here. So having 3 really strong

connections isn't really that much better

than just having one really strong

connection when you're in a city like

Bangkok. And you might be thinking, well,

what if you're not in Bangkok? And if— if—

what if you're in an area where the

connections are not great? Well, I tried

that out as well when I was in England in

the countryside. I tried the LiveU and I

was still getting disconnected. So it

seems like having multiple weak

connections is just as unreliable as

having one weak connection. And having

multiple strong connections isn't really

any different to having one really strong

connection. I don't really notice any

difference. I did 2 live streams in

Bangkok, one with my phone with one SIM

card and one with the LiveU with 3 SIM

cards. And the one with the phone that

only had one SIM card, it didn't

disconnect once. And the one with the

LiveU also didn't disconnect, so it's not

really an issue. It's not really necessary

to have multiple SIM cards when you're in

a city with good connection. So I feel

like I wasted my money paying for LRT

bonding service. It's not really— it

doesn't really make the livestream better,

and the LiveU gear makes livestreaming

experience much worse for me as the

streamer, and it makes it much worse for

the viewer as well because you keep

getting this weird glitch thing where the

footage keeps stretching or going green

and weird. Maybe I don't have it set up

properly. Maybe there's settings that I

need to alter to make this a better

experience. Maybe I need a different

camera that's not the GoPro. But from what

I've experienced using the LiveU Solo so

far, I don't really see any reason to use

it over just streaming from my phone. I

went back to streaming on my Flip Z,

which is really good because when you

stream using Streamlabs, you can actually

close the phone into its flipped form and

just have it as like a really small square

thing which doesn't really look like it's

filming. And then you can put that onto a

selfie stick and it's really small and

convenient. And the connection is really

good because I've got a 5G SIM card

connected into it. And I feel like that

works a lot better than using this whole

LiveU setup with all this gear and battery

banks and stuff like that. It's much more

easier to stream from and it's obviously

a lot cheaper than having to spend nearly

$2,000 on all this stuff. So I kind of

regret buying the LiveU. It hasn't really

made my livestreams any better. In fact,

it's made them worse. So for those

reasons, I can't really recommend buying

one of these if you're interested in doing

IRL livestreaming, and I'm going to have

to find a way to sell it now because it's

kind of useless and I don't see myself

using it ever again.