Retrieve & view data

EGO1 recordings are .mcap files stored on the MicroSD card. MCAP is an open, self-describing format, so you can open the recordings in any MCAP-compatible viewer — no command line required.

This page covers the manual paths: card out or cable in, files off, open. If you'd rather never handle a card at all, the device can deliver recordings to your own bucket by itself — see Cloud upload.

Pull the card

1. Power off the device and remove the MicroSD card.
2. Connect the card to your computer with a card reader.
3. Copy the .mcap files off the card to your computer (organize them into folders per session).

This is the fastest way to move a full day of capture, because it runs at your card reader's speed rather than over a cable or a network.

Pull files over USB

You don't have to open the housing to get files off. Connect the device to a computer with the USB cable and the SD card appears as a storage device — no drivers, no app, and no need to stop what the device is doing.

Three things to know about it:

• It's read-only. You can copy files off; you cannot delete or modify anything. That is deliberate: it makes it impossible for a host to corrupt a live recording or disturb the cloud-upload queue.
• It works while the device is recording. The device keeps capturing throughout, so you can pull earlier sessions off a unit mid-shift.
• It appears as a media device, not a removable disk. The device uses MTP, the same protocol a camera or an Android phone uses. Windows shows it under This PC as a portable device; on macOS and Linux you may need an MTP-capable file manager rather than expecting a drive letter to mount.

Expect roughly 13 MB/s. That is fine for pulling a few sessions and slow for clearing a full 128 GB card — pull the card for that.

Free up the card

After you've copied the recordings and confirmed they're intact, delete the exported files from the MicroSD card to make room for the next session. Because USB access is read-only, deleting means either pulling the card, or using Format SD Card in the app — which erases everything on it.

Live preview is not one of these paths

Preview over Wi-Fi confirms the shot while you work; it is never the file you keep. Collect data via the card, USB, or cloud upload.

Open the recordings

Open a .mcap file in any MCAP viewer to see the stereo camera views and IMU data. A few options:

• Foxglove Studio — a free desktop app that opens .mcap directly; add image and plot panels for the stereo cameras and IMU.
• Any other MCAP-compatible tool, or the visio-schema Python package for scripting — see Engineering integration.

Make sure your viewer supports H.265

EGO1 video is H.265-encoded. Use a viewer that decodes H.265 (recent Foxglove Studio does, with no extra plugins).

Where do I see the live view?

You want…	Use…
Live preview while capturing	The Visio Companion app (see Visio Companion app).
To review an already-recorded file	Any MCAP viewer on your computer (this page).
A live stream on the computer	Engineering workflow — see visio-display CLI.