Transcription
This is my new favorite iPhone accessory, and it does a lot more than you think. I love shooting videos from my iPhone when I'm on vacation, when I'm at a wedding or a sporting event, or of course, when I'm creating content. But these days, everybody's videos look the same. And that's not to say that they look bad, but you can just tell when somebody is holding their iPhone and recording. The jerkiness always gives it away.
But if you want to take your videos to the next level and have them look amazing and not super jerky when you're moving around, then you need the secret weapon that is a gimbal. But this right here is not just any gimbal. This is the Insta 360 Flow Pro. And when Insta 360 reached out to sponsor a video on this product, I wanted to test it first. So I had to use it for a few days, and then I agreed because it fixed the two major issues I had with the original Flow. And also, the fact that this is now not just entirely catered to content creators, and we'll get to those details in a bit.
But let's start with the unboxing process. Process, it's pretty much what you'd expect. I mean, it's simple, and the packaging materials are solid. But I honestly thought that I would have to assemble the gimbal when I first opened the box because of how tiny and lightweight it is. I mean, I can fit this thing in my pocket without issue, and that's key for shooting on the go. And we have to take a moment to admire the design of this thing. It has this dark transparent section where you can see the inner workings, and I'm just a sucker for this type of design.
Now, once you unfold the gimbal for the first time, your iPhone's going to get an AirTag or AirPods-like popup that gives you a simple, one-tap setup. And that's going to set up your phone digitally via NFC and Bluetooth. But the way that your phone physically connects to the gimbal is with the included magnetic phone clamp, which holds your device on both sides. And the clamp magnetically attaches to the base. Or you can also grab the new magnetic phone mount, which uses MagSafe to attach your phone to the base without anything touching the sides of your phone whatsoever.
So once you pull the gimbal out of your bag or your pocket and you attach your phone to the base, just unfold it, and you'll see the magic of the rapid deploy system happen right in front of you. So it's going to automatically turn on the gimbal and stabilize your phone, and that happens every time you unfold it. So you won't have to restabilize or reconnect to Bluetooth or anything like that. It's always going to reconnect to your phone once it's attached and once the Flow Pro is turned on.
Now, before we talk about the basics of how to use this gimbal in general, we need to talk about the two major features that are included with the Insta 360 Flow Pro that blew me away and are the two big things that the Insta 360 Flow from last year did not have. So thanks to Apple's recent .kit tracking technology, you no longer need to use the Insta 360 app to use one of my favorite features, which is AI subject tracking. That was one of the biggest downsides, the biggest cons to the original Insta 360 Flow, and really one of the main reasons I never bothered buying it because I didn't want to have to go and shoot all my videos in the Insta 360 app. It just seemed like a hassle to me.
But with this new Pro model, I just open up the camera app and press the trigger once, and sometimes it just auto-detects me, and the green LED lights will light up when tracking is enabled, whether that be tracking yourself or another person. And it actually works really well. Now, you still need the Insta 360 app in order to track an object or an animal, so you cannot do that from the default camera app. It's only for people, but that is still a great advantage over the original Flow.
Now, I'm a one-man show, so I know the struggle. I know what it's like to record yourself with the rear-facing camera and no monitor to see if you're in frame at all. I've had to re-shoot myself so many times over the years when I'm doing that, especially when the new iPhones come out and I'm trying to get some crazy B-roll or some, you know, really good A-roll, and I have to re-shoot the shot 20 times because I can't see myself. This gimbal solves that problem. And again, it's great because even if you're away from the gimbal, as long as you see that little green light shining, you know that you're in frame because the AI tracking is working. And you can move anywhere, and this gimbal will follow you around, even if you walk in a complete circle, because it now has a full 360-degree rotation axis.
And let me tell you, having infinite pan tracking is a big deal. It's kind of a game-changer, honestly, because I've never seen or used, at least, a gimbal that has no limits. Like, usually they're locked once you go to a certain side, like, you know, it won't rotate all the way around. But this one does. And it has the AI tracking, so it's going to not only rotate around, you know, manually, but it will automatically do it because it's following you, the subject. So this made switching the scenery of some of my shots simple since I didn't even have to pick up and move the gimbal myself. It just rotated around with me.
Now, it could also be really useful for live streaming or tracking a subject in a baseball game, for example. Oh, and I briefly mentioned it, but I do want to say that this AI tracking also works in third-party apps. It's not just for the default camera app and the Insta 360 app. It also works in pretty much all third-party applications as well. So this means, you know, things like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Zoom, and of course, pro video apps like Final Cut Camera, Blackmagic, and Filmic Pro. So even if you're not a content creator, this AI tracking is going to be really useful for, you know, business meetings in Zoom or Google Meets because it will follow you around. Or if you're doing something in the kitchen and you're on FaceTime, you know, it's going to follow you around even if you go outside of the frame. So again, it's not just catered to content creators anymore.
So now you don't really need the Insta 360 app for AI tracking. However, it is better when done in the app because it does allow you to take advantage of their Deep Track 3.0 system, which uses AI to re-identify a subject if they get temporarily blocked or if there's another subject in the frame, it's going to stick to that one subject. It can also identify a subject even if it changes shape while moving. And of course, you can also track dogs and other things in the Insta 360 app as well, which you cannot do in the default camera app.
There's also an awesome feature where you can use hand gestures to record and stop recording. You just hold your hand up as if you were telling somebody to stop, and voila, it just works. This can be super handy in situations where you maybe don't want to reframe yourself in the shots, you don't want to walk up and lose, you know, the shots. You can do it with your hands. Now you can stop recording or start recording. The app also gives you access to hyperlapse videos, 360 panorama photos, the built-in editing suite, speed and sensitivity settings, and a lot more. There's really a lot in the Insta 360 app. It's just that the AI tracking is no longer, you know, you don't need the app just for that specific feature anymore.
And before we go any further, I have to just explain that this is not just a gimbal. This is not just your run-of-the-mill average gimbal like we've seen on the market for years. This is much more than that. If you pull down on the extender handle, it'll expose the tripod legs. And if you pull up on the arm, you have yourself a selfie stick. So you can get more people in frame or just get those higher and lower angle shots. It even has an adjustable hinge that rotates 90 degrees for added flexibility.
And you'll notice that there are two USB-C ports on the gimbal. That's because one is for charging the gimbal itself, and the other is for a built-in power bank. So if your phone battery is running low while on a shoot, you can just plug it in for some quick juice. There's even a built-in cold shoe mount for mounting a mic receiver, a quarter-inch thread at the bottom for attaching to a tripod or an extender. There's a grip cover that's included in the box to help with keeping your grip, and even a spotlight attachment with three color temperatures and three brightness levels. Now, this is usually sold separately. It's like $25, but if you use my special link in the description below, you'll get it for free. And this is a must if you ever shoot videos in low light. So if you don't want to have to buy this at some point later down the road in the future, just go ahead and use my link down in the description below when you purchase.
Now, if you've never used a gimbal before, there are a few basics that you need to understand before you go out and shoot with one. So let's talk about those. So on the front, you have a little control wheel that is more sophisticated than it seems at first. So you have a record button, a power button, a switch button that you can press once to switch between the front and rear camera. If you press the switch button twice, it will change the physical camera orientation. And a triple press is going to switch between photo and video mode. There's a joystick to control the pan and tilt axis, a zoom wheel that's kind of hidden in plain sight here to zoom in or zoom out and switch lenses. The front panel itself is touch-capacitive, so you can swipe your finger clockwise or counterclockwise to change gimbal modes, which we'll cover here in a sec.
And then on the back, you have a trigger button, which is where your index finger lies. And this is, it's going to allow you to start and stop tracking with a single press. So if you press it one time, it's going to start and stop the tracking either on the built-in camera or on the Insta 360 app. We'll talk about that in a moment. If you double-press the trigger button, it will re-center the gimbal to get it back to being perfect. And then if you triple-press the trigger, it's going to flip the camera physically all the way around. And then one of my favorites is if you press and hold on the trigger button, that is going to enter lock mode, which is going to lock all the axes and it's going to keep your shot super stable as you move around, and no, none of the axes will move.
And if you don't understand what I mean by the axes and locking the axes and everything like that, just bear with me. I'm going to explain it right here. So first off, you need to know a few specific terms. So first off, when I mention tilt, that means up and down. Tilting is up and down motions. Pan is side-to-side motion. So when you take the camera and rotate it side to side, that is called a pan. And then a roll is lateral motions like so. So this is only available in FPV mode.
Okay, so let's explain these modes. Auto is going to be probably the best option for most, and this is going to be locking the roll axis only. So if you do a tilt, so up and down, if you put the phone up or if you put the phone down, the gimbal is going to follow and, you know, record those motions. If you go right to left, it's going to follow right and left as well. So the pans and the tilts are going to work, but it's not going to be able to do those lateral rotations like we saw in FPV mode.
And then we have F, which is follow mode, and this is pretty much the same as Auto. So Auto is really there just because it's going to kind of compensate for the speed of which you're moving, but F is pretty much the same. So it's going to allow for tilt and pan movements, but not for roll or lateral rotations. So Auto and F modes are great for following a subject. So if you're behind a subject and you're following them, and they move side to side and up and down, you're going to want to be in Auto or F mode.
The third mode is PF or Pan Follow. So this only follows the side-to-side movements from the pan axis. The tilt axis, so the up and down axis are locked. But of course, you can always use the joystick to move the camera up and down. So this joystick right here, you can always move it, you know, left to right, up and down, however you want. However, when you're in the PF or Pan Follow mode, it is only going to follow the pan, so left to right. If you move your phone up, it's not going to go up. If you move your phone down, it's not going to go down. It's just going to stay right there and only follow your left-to-right movements.
And then next to PF, we have FPV. So this is going to be FPV mode where every axis is unlocked, and you can do whatever you want, including the lateral rotation. So this is good for pros or if you just want to get a really creative shot. This is the mode to be in. But it, it's probably pretty rare that you're going to be in this mode. But I will say this is a great mode to use the lock function in with the trigger here. So if you're in, you know, like a crazy motion like this, and you hold the lock trigger button, if you just hold on the trigger and go into lock mode, no matter where you move it, it's going to stay in that position, which can be really nice for getting a really cool shot.
And then if you short press and then hold on the trigger, that's going to enter into Active Plus mode, which is great for, you know, getting faster movement. So you can see here that everything is moving quicker. So this is great for sports. If you're following a really fast subject and you really need the gimbal to respond as quickly as possible, you want to be in this mode. Oh, and also one other thing I wanted to mention about this front control panel is that you can always press the power button at any time when the gimbal is on to see the current charge level. So you're going to see the lights light up to show the current charge. And if you double-press this, it's going to go into sleep mode. And then if you long-press on that for a couple of seconds, it will turn the gimbal off.
Now, as for battery life, Insta 360 rates the Flow Pro for 10 hours, which is actually 2 hours less than the original Flow from last year. Now, this is likely due to the new features and also the lighter weight of the Flow Pro compared to the original. But I was still hoping for the same, if not better, battery life than the original. So that was kind of a letdown. But then again, I looked at the competitors, and this still has, you know, better battery life than most of the competitors out there at 10 hours. So I can't really complain. But I would say that the price of the Flow Pro makes up for the two less hours of battery life because it cost, cost $10 less than the original Flow did at launch. So you can pick up the new Insta 360 Flow Pro for just $149.
Now, this gimbal is pretty close to perfect, but there are still a couple of cons. So the first thing I want to mention is that the extension area right here, the, the base of the gimbal where you hold it and you have the trigger right here, is relatively small. So if you have big hands, you might have an issue with this small area to grip. Now, again, you can plug in an extension down here to the quarter-inch thread, so you can extend that if you would like to. You could also pull this down and use this, it's kind of a grip as well, but it's not super stable and it's just not the best, in my opinion.
Also, the tripod legs are not super strong. When you extend those out, you can see that there is quite a bit of give. So that's not perfect as well. It works fine for me. Like I shoot a lot of short-form content with this, and it works perfectly fine for me. But if you're somebody who really needs it to be as still as possible, and it's, you know, it's vital that you don't have it move at all, this may not be the best because it does move quite a bit if you put some pressure on it. But those are really the only negative things I can say about the Insta 360 Flow Pro. I've actually been relatively surprised by how good it is. I was looking for things to nitpick and looking for things to really, you know, find as a con, but I really struggle to find anything more than what I just mentioned.
So as you can see, the Insta 360 Flow Pro is not your average gimbal. And the reason this is my new favorite iPhone accessory is because it not only saves me time and money, but it's just something that I really cannot see myself leaving the house without when I'm going on vacation or going to anywhere where there's something I'm going to want to document with my camera. Like, this is going to make every video that I shoot look so much better. And that's just a gimbal in general. Like, it's not just this gimbal, any gimbal, I think, is a must if you're recording video, especially if you want it to be really high quality and stand out from all the other videos out there, you know, that are posted on social media these days. But I think that this one offers so many additional features and longer battery life. There's just so many other advantages it has over some of the other gimbals that I've tested and that I've used for years in the past. So I think the Insta 360 Flow Pro is a win.
So if you want to pick up the Insta 360 Flow Pro for yourself, be sure to click my link down in the description below because with that link, you will be able to get the spotlight attachment for free. And just as a closing disclaimer, Insta 360 did send over this product for review, and they did also sponsor this review. However, all the thoughts and opinions were entirely my own after using this product for about two weeks. They had no access to the script before shooting the video, and they had no creative control over the video. Anyways, thanks for watching, and I'll see you soon.