A representative of HOHEM recently contacted me to see if I was interested in trying out their new smartphone gimbal, the iSteady Mobile+. At this point, I own and have tested quite of few gimbals and to be honest, I’m kind of tired of them. Unless something crazy comes out, I just kind of pass on them. Nevertheless, I wanted to see what this product was all about so I headed to the company’s official website. Then, I saw it. A fully featured smartphone gimbal that only costs $89. This would definitely be the cheapest gimbal that I ever tried so I wondered if it was any good. I told the rep to send it over and here it is, the HOHEM iSteady Mobile+.
First, let’s take a look at the design of this product. It’s pretty straight forward and looks like many other smartphone gimbals. It’s fairly small and only slightly larger than my hand. This is nice because to me, the whole point of using a phone camera is because of the size and convenience. I want to impede this as little as possible so if I were to use a phone gimbal, it has to be as small as possible.
On the handle we get the gimbal’s controls. A controller wheel to adjust the gimbal’s parameters. A toggle switch which allows for focus and zoom adjustments. A button to toggle between the various gimbal modes. A button to start/stop recording and to take photos. A trigger to activate some more of the gimbal’s features (we’ll get to that in a moment).
Using the mode selector button on the front of the gimbal, we can toggle between 4 of the gimbal’s modes. With this, we can toggle between PF (pan follow), PTF (pan/tilt follow), AL (all lock), and AF (all follow).
The trigger on the back allows for a few other uses. Holding it down, we get Sport Mode which increases power to the motors and allows it to react more quickly. This could be useful if you’re trying to follow a fast subject or you can use this feature to create in camera transitions like whip pans. Double tapping the trigger re-centers the motors to its initial position.
As with any modern gimbal that wants to stay in the loop, this gimbal also features inception mode and the ability to shoot in vertical orientation.
What surprises me about this gimbal is its inclusion of face/object tracking. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a new feature, but to see it in a product at this price is really appreciated. I actually like this feature quite a bit. I’ve tried vlogging with a phone in the past but have always found it difficult because I like to record with the rear cameras. I use an iPhone and none of them are currently able to shoot 4K video with the front facing camera. I only produce in 4K so using the front facing camera just doesn’t work for me. I’m used flipping the camera around to get 4k footage but the problem with the iPhone is that framing is a bit difficult when you do this. It’s not just holding the camera out like other cameras, but because of the way that the cameras are laid out, you have to kind of angle the phone a bit and there can be a learning curve to this. But with the iSteady Mobile+’s face detection, all I have to do is flip the gimbal around and it automatically centers me in the frame.
Now, this gimbal is by no means perfect. In my short time with it, I’ve noticed some annoyances. First, this is really a gimbal for smaller smartphones, say an iPhone XS not a XS Max. The gimbal cannot balance a larger phone and falls to the left. The adjustment arm just doesn’t move to the right far enough. Another indication that this gimbal is really not for larger phones is the audio ques that you get when the gimbal is pushed. The motors will get really worked up and become very audible, even when you set them to maximum strength in the settings. Although I can still use my XS Max with this gimbal, it can be a struggle with certain modes as the gimbal tries to keep up with the weight.
Another issue that I have with this gimbal is the way that it pans. This kind of goes in hand with trying to do selfies with the rear camera. Many other gimbals have a way to activate selfie mode and the gimbal will actually spin the phone around. The iSteady Mobile+ does not. You have to manually do this one way or another. You would think that you just turn the gimbal around but the pan axis does something weird where it often gets caught somewhere in between and you’ll have to deal with it. If you need to do this, you’ll just have to play with the gimbal and figure out what works best for you. I sometimes use Sport Mode to make the pan axis move faster and trick itself into spinning around or I just hold the vertical bar and force it around. Either way, this is just a waste of time. HOHEM needs to add a selfie mode into the firmware.
Finally, I think there is some work that needs to be done in the app. Right now, it’s just not very intuitive to me and I often find myself searching for features or trying to figure out how to do things. The menu and icons can be set up better. I also have a problem with just how small and close everything is. Just look at the icons for subject tracking and the focus/zoom selector (bottom left). They’re so small and when I try to activate these features, I find myself touching the bare screen and the app thinks that I’m trying to adjust exposure. This happens so often and just slows everything down. On the bright side, both this and the panning can realistically be fixed in firmware and I really hope that the people at HOHEM takes note and adjust these things.
This flap never stays in place
To be honest, as a gimbal the HOHEM iSteady Mobile+ is nothing special. It doesn’t revolutionize the gimbal industry and really doesn’t give you anything different. The modes that the iSteady Mobile+ offers are pretty standard. They are the ones that pretty much every other gimbal provides. That’s not to say that that is a bad thing because these are the modes that you will most likely use. The inclusion of face/object tracking and vertical shooting is nice, but again, pretty standard nowadays. This makes the iSteady Mobile+ fall into the crowd and it is a big crowd when you have companies like DJI, Zhiyun and FeiyuTech dominating the market in every sector. But, what those other companies don’t have is a gimbal that has all the standard features and only costs $89.
If you were to ask me for a gimbal recommendation, I would typically reply by saying to research and see which one has the features that you want, but to also consider buying the cheapest option because all modern gimbals essentially do the same thing. In use, they all essentially run off the same modes. What you are really paying for are the minor features beyond using the gimbal for stabilized footage. You’re paying for the ability to add accessories, to fold down to a compact size, to be able to lock the various axis to make travel and balancing easier, and etc. But if you don’t need or want those things, you just want a cheap gimbal so you can go out and shoot video without getting shaky footage, then something like the iSteady Mobile+ is the gimbal for you.
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