A Special Wireless-Free Nikon Camera Is Publicly Available for the First Time

https://petapixel.com/2026/06/24/a-special-wireless-free-nikon-camera-is-publicly-available-for-the-first-time/

by HardwareLust • 28 days ago

88 72 28 days ago

petapixel.com

HardwareLust• 28 days ago

It's a Nikon Z6 III with WiFi and Bluetooth removed.

netsharc• 20 days ago

Somehow the article manages to repeat this obvious stuff about 7 or 8 times...

I wonder if that hardware on the normal Z6 III is on a daughterboard, and if removing it makes the OS complain (like having no color ink mean some printer-scanner-combos won't scan).

rationalist2• 20 days ago

It's a shame it costs more. I'm sure there are people who would like the non-wireless option, but would rather "save" $400.

thih92• 20 days ago

Economies of (lack of) scale.

didntcheck• 20 days ago

Unless you need it for a high security environment that's limited to civilian procurement, why? I'm struggling to see a use case beyond that

rationalist2• 19 days ago

Less cognitive and screen clutter for one. Less things to break and cause unintended consequences.

In other products: less weight, smaller size.

walrus01• 20 days ago

I understand it's probably because the GPS functionality is integrated into the same RF chipset that's handling wifi/bluetooth, but it would be possible to make a "no transmit capability" camera that still has GPS metadata functionality, with GPS receiver chip and an antenna tuned for 1400-1600 MHz, since ordinary consumer grade GPS is a receive-only technology.

But that would still possibly present a problem for serious government use where it can't have an antenna of any form in it.

i_am_proteus• 20 days ago

Can't have an antenna of any form in it.

All wires are antennas...

dylan604• 20 days ago

But the short wires in a Nikon camera are not long enough to be a useful antenna. In fact, I doubt there's really anything one would consider a wire in a camera body. Everything is probably just traces on a PCB.

jb1991• 20 days ago

I think you wrote this comment with the compiler’s pedantic warnings turned on.

RobotToaster4• 20 days ago

If we're being pedantic, all conductors are antennas.

aleksejs• 20 days ago

The camera (even the regular model) does not have its own GPS receiver at all. It relies on a smartphone to transmit GPS coordinates over Bluetooth.

This is pretty common in modern cameras, presumably because most photographers expect to be able to turn their cameras on and off very rapidly, and it would be difficult to maintain a GPS fix with that usage pattern.

ryukoposting3• 20 days ago

I don't think it's impossible. We aren't talking RTK here, you should be able to get a usable fix quickly. You also have some other advantages. For starters, the GPS coordinate doesn't need to be taken at the exact instant the photo is taken. If it takes a second to get the coordinate, that can be done in the background while the photographer continues to do their thing. Another advantage is that people never hold their cameras upside down, so the antenna can be pretty directional.

teh645• 20 days ago

Well Nikon has a GPS module (Nikon GP-1, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikon_GP-1) for the hotshoe that does work, so I dont think that is the issue. Also at least on my D850, turning off the camera does not turn off the bluetooth automatically, and it can sync photos to the smartphone while the camera is off, so depending on how much power GPS would use, it could be possible to have it run in the background. And turning it off keeps some things running anyway, like showing the number of photos still available, so coordinates could be saved for a little while after turning off.

giva• 20 days ago

What is the point? As long as your camera has a decent clock, you just need to record a gpx during your shooting session with an external device and you can add geolocation after you download your pictures. IIRC Darktable can do that.

jasonjayr• 20 days ago

Even if it only had RX-only RF capabilities, that means that is a vector for an inbound wireless attack. At the very least, the kind of places that restrict wireless devices probably do not want any pictures or other artifacts to exist tagged with precise location metadata.

doctor_radium• 20 days ago

I assume the average person buying the standard model could then just disable WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS if they so chose? So this really is for high security situations?

jojobas• 20 days ago

Disabling the hardware without bricking the whole thing rather than trusting the software makes all the difference.

slipperybeluga• 20 days ago

Why not switches like the pine phone?

dghlsakjg5• 20 days ago

You can turn off those features in software on any of their cameras, but for secure facilities it needs to not exist.

This is for high security, or high RF sensitive environments. Governments and institutions are the target market.

ChrisMarshallNY2• 20 days ago

no Nikon SnapBridge

Unless they significantly improved that app, in the last eight years or so, it may not be a great loss.

Scene_Cast2• 20 days ago

Huh. When I rented a Z7 ii about 5 years ago, I found their Android app to be pretty great. (My next big camera is likely to be a Nikon, in part due to the nice app)

ChrisMarshallNY2• 20 days ago

Like I said, it's been a while, but the iOS app enjoyed a 1-star rating on the App Store, for quite some time.

eichin• 20 days ago

I don't use it for my primary workflow, but I use the Android app all the time for "grab a couple of interesting shots to send to friends, from the parking lot right after a hike/nature shoot", and it's fine for that (and for firmware updates.)

m463• 20 days ago

same with canon, the app requires full access to your photos to run (not just add permission)

people should know that a USB-C to USB-C cable can easily import to the photos app on an iphone with a decent UI

dghlsakjg5• 20 days ago

people should know that a USB-C to USB-C cable can easily import to the photos app on an iphone with a decent UI

This is amazing intel. Thank you.

teh645• 20 days ago

The Snapbridge app is still not great, but in 2019 Nikon released a firmware update for older cameras, so you can use other apps, such as cascable: https://lrtimelapse.com/news/free-wifi-nikon-firmware-update...

The newer Nikon cameras dont require snapbridge for using wifi.

forsalebypwner2• 19 days ago

WHAT? This is news to me. Does this apply to newer cameras as well? I have a CoolPix P950, and I'd love to ditch the Snapbridge app

linzhangrun• 20 days ago

Unitl 2016 cameras with GPS could not be sold in mainland China (old secrecy regulations), so this is not anything new.

I guess modern integration has put Bluetooth and other devices together with GPS in one module.

thih92• 20 days ago

No, most cameras, including a regular version of this model, don’t have a gps module. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48770393

tujux2• 20 days ago

Nikon tells PetaPixel that this is to evaluate potential market demand for similar products moving forward.

Yes, evaluate market demand by making it more expensive and doing 0 marketing. /s

Am I crazy in thinking that doing it this way is close to meaningless?

dghlsakjg5• 20 days ago

The article also explains that retailers have had customers ask for this, which is why Nikon is trialing selling this through those channels instead of direct, as usual.

You don't really have to market something like this. There is a VERY small subset of users that NEED this feature, and they will seek it out. The kind of user that wants this is not as price sensitive as a consumer. A few hundred extra dollars doesn't matter to an organization that needs this for an RF sensitive scientific environment, or a secure facility.

See also: iPhones with cameras removed. You've likely never heard of them and they are not marketed at all, but if you are one of the few that need one, you know they exist, and the price premium doesn't matter. $1400 for a used 2020 iPhone SE, if you're curious. That's a 10x premium on what you would pay for that phone anywhere else.

throwaway81523• 20 days ago

I won't claim to NEED the feature (I'm not a 3 letter agency or anything) but I'd like to have it on general principle, and I'd pay extra for it, though probably not $400 extra.

This never gets old: https://biggaybunny.tumblr.com/post/166787080920/tech-enthus...

Will someone really pay me $1000 to remove the camera module from an 2020 iPhone SE? Are there some huge obstacles to that? I've disassembled the 2016 model (for battery replacement) and it was a pain, but not a $1000 pain.

For that matter, what about just attacking the camera from the front, with a drill?

m01• 20 days ago

At least the earlier Fairphones continued to work even if you removed some modules (like the camera & microphone), and all you needed for that was a regular-priced Fairphone, a screwdriver and a few minutes of time. I not sure if it's still the case for the current Fairphone, but I don't see why it should've changed either.

tujux2• 19 days ago

What I took away from their explanation was that they built this for those contract customers (the kind you are talking about) and have had regular consumers asking for this (who want this for other reasons) - why else would they put it on B&H and not just a contact us page on the company website?

I don't know how you can say with confidence that a few hundred dollars and not marketing this wouldn't have an effect on sales.

ButlerianJihad2• 20 days ago

Seven years ago, I landed a fairly trivial job with a temp agency, and we were tasked with plowing through document archives and collating them all for the scanning team. Our client was a huge company, and though none of us were sworn to secrecy or anything formal, I figured I would do them a solid, and refrain from bringing in any device with a camera, microphone, or transmitter. At the time, this was possible because I didn't rely 100% on my smartphone for transportation and everything else...

So I delved into the fascinating and still-extant world of standalone MP3 players. I selected a SanDisk Clip Jam, and it had like 8GiB onboard, an sdcard slot of course, an FM radio receiver, and really cool firmware. It was very simple, robust, extremely light, compact and portable. It was the size of a matchbox and it could clip onto your sleeve or belt, or whatever.

And it met all the requirements. It had no BT, no WiFi, no sensors of any kind, and it did that job very well of music playback, however I found it. And it could indeed store arbitrary files, so being the kind of hacker I am, I stashed a copy of my password manager encrypted database, plus a full install MSI of the application. And I included some README.txt that would indicate who owned this thing and how to return it, if lost.

I really miss that thing for its elegant simplicity. With the Swiss Army Knife nature of smartphones, I still long for the specialization and compartmented functionality of separate devices.

jcft2• 20 days ago

The original iPod shuffle was essentially a USB stick with an audio port and some buttons, and I used it in just the same way as this. I think it was only £20 or £30 in price, a great product.

dofm• 20 days ago

The original Shuffle really was excellent. Amazing audio quality for the time, about as much UI as you needed for a day or two's music, good battery life, and a configurable amount of file storage space if you needed it. And it even managed to look a sort of abstract cool.

Really pure product design.

piltdownman2• 20 days ago

There are some fantastic hi-fidelity audio players coming out of China the last few years that are basically modern homages to the SanDisk Clip concept

https://hiendportable.com/xduoo-x2s-english-review/

https://www.reddit.com/r/DigitalAudioPlayer/comments/1rm7fj8...

ErroneousBosh• 20 days ago

"For the first time"?

All of my Nikons are wireless-free. Some of them are even battery-free.

teh645• 20 days ago

“special version for the first time”. Your nikons that are wireless free don’t have a version you can buy with builtin wireless.

pixelpoet• 20 days ago

"Wireless-free" is such a ridiculous designation; you have a double negation and it still doesn't mean what you might expect (that it's wired).

mrob• 20 days ago

I correctly expected "wireless-free" to mean no support for wireless connections, which to me seems the simple and obvious interpretation. It doesn't necessarily mean it's wired (data transfer could be limited to removable memory cards), but B&H says:

"The camera does still have a series of ports for physical, wired connections for data transfer and power supply"

technothrasher• 20 days ago

It means exactly what I expected. The wireless connectivity has been removed (for regulatory compliance in situations where wireless isn't allowed), but wired connectivity is still there.

A Special Wireless-Free Nikon Camera Is Publicly Available for the First Time

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