https://preview.redd.it/fnvma40xszih1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=c444a12c3d48f7757133aebec4ad806975189eb5

Do we have any gen1 owners in here? I've been working on reverse engineering and rewriting a completely new backend and UI for the CALF.

If anyone is interested I can upload it somewhere for you to test.

Photography

• Dedicated Night mode with manual 1/15–4 s exposure and ISO 100–800.
• Brightness-compensated 30 fps Night preview without contaminating capture settings.
• Synchronized stacked exposures:
  • 1 s = 2 × 0.5 s
  • 2 s = 4 × 0.5 s
  • 4 s = 8 × 0.5 s
• Linear-light luminance stacking with color-preserving chroma processing.
• Coordinated exposure and ISO control across both sensors.
• Optional JPEG + RAW capture producing:
  • One stitched VR180 JPEG
  • Synchronized -L.dng and -R.dng sensor files
• Stacked RAW/DNG capture in Night mode.
• JPEG EXIF containing camera identity, dimensions, date/time, ISO and exposure time.
• Self-timers: 2, 5 and 10 seconds.
• JPEG bursts: 3, 5 or 10 photographs.
• Intervalometer: 1, 2, 5, 10, 30 or 60 seconds.
• Cancellable timer, burst and interval sequences.
• Sensor deep-idle between sufficiently long interval shots.
• Optional Stealth mode that suppresses the blue capture/recording LED.
• Safer atomic capture publication and cleanup of incomplete files.

Video, audio and motion metadata

• Independently implemented H.264 and H.265 MP4 recorder.
• High-rate CAMM gyro metadata at approximately 208 Hz for Gyroflow.
• Time- and size-based recording splitting.
• Storage monitoring while recording, with safe finalization before the card becomes full.

Live-view tools

• 64-bin luminance histogram in both live view and the gallery.
• Histogram samples an inset circular region from one lens, excluding the other lens, fisheye rim, black surround and UI graphics.
• Two-axis electronic level driven by the accelerometer.
• Damped steadiness ring driven by all gyro axes.
• Compact live WB, EV, exposure and ISO readouts.
• Improved battery indicator with charging and fully charged states.
• Connected-Wi-Fi indicator.
• Correct operator-facing Left/Right lens naming.
• Separate Photo, Night and Video modes with persistent settings.

Replacement touchscreen UI

• Entirely new C touchscreen interface rather than a modification of stock ngui.
• Larger touch-friendly grids instead of small sliders.
• Transactional settings: a value is highlighted only after hardware accepts it.
• Improved physical-button and touchscreen debouncing.
• Persistent drive mode, Night settings, audio input, volume, Wi-Fi, LCD and LED settings.
• On-screen Wi-Fi network picker and password keyboard.
• Explicit Stock UI switch for the current boot session.
• Embedded Unicode fonts and a localization framework; English is currently the available language.
• Guarded firmware-update checker with checksum, camera identity, USB-power, battery and activity checks.

Gallery and playback

• Backend-owned hardware decoding for JPEG, H.264 and H.265.
• First-frame previews for videos.
• AAC-LC audio playback using bundled libxaac.
• Speaker-volume adjustment with physical Up/Down buttons during playback.
• Accurate duration, position, resolution, codec and file metadata.
• Two-step deletion confirmation.
• Corrupt or incomplete media is excluded from the gallery without being deleted.
• Reliable return to the exact previous camera mode, including compensated Night preview.

Power, diagnostics and reliability

• Power Stats screen showing:
  • USB voltage, current and power
  • Battery voltage, signed current, power, percentage and state
  • Estimated camera load
  • Thirty-minute history with recording periods marked
• Guarded sensor deep-idle and approximately one-second graph wake.
• Safe shutdown that tears down media hardware and syncs storage.
• Automatic restoration of image, encoder and audio settings after graph changes.
• Capture trace IDs spanning sensor setup, exposure readback, stacking, JPEG creation and preview restoration.
• Persistent UI/supervisor and capture diagnostic logs.
• Automatic recovery from transient AIQ failures and poisoned Night capture state.
• Crash-tested service restarts and cleaner hardware-resource teardown.
• Authoritative battery, temperature, storage, encoder, audio, image and playback status.

Power statistics

Photo modes

Settings screen

I played around with upgrading and modifying the firmware and accidentally soft-bricked my CalfVR gen1 also known as ViewPT Realia. It boots and shows the logo, then the screen just blinks on and off like the software is crashing.

My main question is if anyone has taken one apart? I can see 3 extremely small hex socket screws maybe 1.3mm but have no tools to remove them and no idea if those are what holds it together..

I'll first try reflashing it with a USB->Ethernet adapter but if that fails I think I'll have to try to find UART pads on the board to gain access to a root shell and fix it from there. If that doesn't work AI suggested MaskROM via a factory test pad as the board is a Rockchip RK3588.

I don't really use the camera and the quality is quite bad, so what I was trying to do was increasing the shutter time for images as much as possible. Originally it's capped at 1/30 which is like a joke for low light images, it immediately goes to 16x sensor gain which makes the images unusable. It seems 1/2 should be possible in the inital testings, and that's what I'm trying to get working correctly. It could maybe also be possible to get RAW image files out from each sensor which could be exciting to try.