Sony now charges a subscription to use expensive Xperia phones as camera monitors

from the article:

For several years Sony had offered a free “External Monitor” app that let you use select Xperia-branded phones as an external display for some of the company’s high-end cameras. The Xperia 1 VII originally shipped without that feature, but now you can use the phone as camera display… if you pay at least $5 per month or $50 per year for a subscription.

Not only that, but for older phones that had these features for free, with the new version of the app, some features are locked behind subscription:

But on August 28, 2025, Sony announced an update that “expanded paid plan lineup for greater flexibility.” That flexibility locks a few key features behind a paywall, including: …

  • 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬@lemmy.ml
    21·
    16 days ago

    That flexibility locks a few key features behind a paywall, including: …

    …

    • High-resolution monitoring: Connect a Sony Xperia phone to your camera with a USB Type-C cable to use the phone as an external display.
    • Snapshot: Save monitored footage as a snapshot along with shooting data.
    • Cropping and framing: Subscribers get up to 10 presets instead of just 2.
    • Multi-camera monitoring: Free and Basic (subscription) users can monitor up to 4 cameras, but you’ll need a Basic or Premium subscription (with support for up to 20 cameras) if you want to change settings on all cameras simultaneously.

    Some users have reported that they can still sideload Sony’s older (and now discontinued) External Monitor app on the Xperia 1 VII and other phones in order to use their mobile phones as camera displays without paying for a subscription. But it’s unclear how long this will continue to work. And since Sony is no longer updating that application, users will miss out on any new features or bug fixes.

  • MudMan@fedia.io
    14·
    16 days ago

    Well, that’s a bummer.

    As one of the three remaining Xperia users I have to admit I have never used one for that. I’ve simply been piggybacking on the concept of a creator phone to get a headphone jack, hot swappable expandable storage, decent screen and pictures that don’t come pre-Instagram filtered.

    But… you know… I could have.

    I’d also argue that the more standard phone screen they slapped into the last couple iterations, which noticeably lowers the resolution and moves to a wider phone-like aspect ratio, is a less suitable camera monitor replacement. You may want to stick to your IV and V models for that. So the pricing going along with newer phones seems more counterintuitive. They’ve also consolidated their video and camera apps and made them more consistent with other Android phones, so they seem to be moving away from that concept phone for creators thing and becoming its own thing in terms of Xperia phones being for people who like Xperia phones and will pay anything for literally the only competitor in that niche with that feature set.

    I guess the tech industry in general has swapped to endtimes cash extraction these days, so I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s still a weird move. I really wonder how well these things do to justify going for monetization instead of reaching a wider audience.

    EDIT: For the record, the paywalled features are… relatively nonessential:

    High-resolution monitoring: Connect a Sony Xperia phone to your camera with a USB Type-C cable to use the phone as an external display.
Snapshot: Save monitored footage as a snapshot along with shooting data.
Cropping and framing: Subscribers get up to 10 presets instead of just 2.
Multi-camera monitoring: Free and Basic (subscription) users can monitor up to 4 cameras, but you’ll need a Basic or Premium subscription (with support for up to 20 cameras) if you want to change settings on all cameras simultaneously.

    Still not great, though.

    • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe
      3·
      16 days ago

      Seems like this would be pretty straightforward (for anyone interested enough) to implement with any phone.

      Doubly weird that Sony would take an approach that could motivate the swaths of technical folks to write their own.

      • MudMan@fedia.io
        2·
        16 days ago

        I don’t know if that’s true. I think their monitor software has more than video out, they had the camera software running on the phone, so I think you could effectively operate it from the phone. Plus it was meant to be a cheapo replacement for their professional monitors specifically made for those cameras, which are very expensive.

        They had a value proposition there, just… for a tiny narrow band of people who somehow owned one of a handful of very expensive cameras but were more willing to replace their phone instead of writing off the cost of additional hardware.

        I think their original idea was for Youtubers and streamers using their cameras to set up with those and then complement their setup with their phone. The earlier phones came with streaming software built right in for some form of multicam streaming. It was nuts how specific the whole deal was. Fortunately setting things up like that required a lot of common sense features other phones have given up on, so now all three of us just can’t go back to Samsung spyware platforms or whatever normies are using these days.