3 Axis Gimbal Stabilizer for Gopro Hero 13/12/11/10/9, Handheld Stabilizer for Gopro for Video Recording, IPX4 Waterproof, Bluetooth Control, Compatible with Osmo Camera, Insta360, hohem iSteady Pro4

I will first start off by saying, this is my first powered gimbal experience. I am a professional still photographer getting more into the world of motion photography (Cinema). I have the pro SLR's that shoot video, but for intuitiveness I purchased a GoPro Hero 7 Black. Really easy to use, great quality camera for $350. I know the GPH Blk 7 has HyperSmooth - which is great! But to keep my shots level with the horizon, I was looking for something that would help with that aspect.Enter the Hohem iSteady Pro 2 action camera stabilizer. Out of the box it is rather intuitive. There were actual instructions (quick start guide) in the package. An aside, the packaging was rather impressive for a $100 Amazon purchase. Very nice case and all of the equipment needed to go. The instructions walk you through step by step how to get going. First step is charging the battery - which you should give it a few hours to complete. Mine came with 4 bars of power on it, but it still took a couple hours to peak it out.Once I had it charged, I was off to the races! Learning the 4 modes for a gimbal beginner is interesting - but it is nice that this gimbal is organized by these 4 separate modes of operation. I found use for the first 3, but the fourth is more for artistic movements... Maybe?The panning of the gimbal with the thumb operated joystick is rather fluid. With the app, you can adjust how fluid it pans, and really customize the heck out of this item. I really like the timelapse movement feature in the app. This allows you to have the gimbal automatically pan a shot over a specified timeframe. Cannot wait to play with that feature more.Calibrating it is pretty easy with the app. It runs you through gymnastics of calibrating it on a table. Quick tip - you can fine tune this in the app - i.e. roll, pitch, or yaw. The app is recommended highly because it allows you to do so much.This is a great gimbal for someone wanting to create video with an action camera on a low budget. I imagine you can use this with one of the $50 action cameras as well as a $400 GoPro model. As a matter of fact, it might even be the way to go with a lower cost action camera that does not have HyperSmooth. Basically you are building a DJI OSMO equal for around $150. Another positive to mention is the ability to charge your camera through the gimbal. It does add weight to the rig, so you may have to make some small in-app tweaks to roll and tilt, but otherwise it is great!The negatives... Every product has them... The first negative is how this gimbal is positioned realtive to my on-button of my GoPro 7. The way the camera sits on the Gimbal puts the power button against one of the pivot points. That makes powering my GoPro more difficult. I have to use my GoPro app or I have to power down the Gimbal, then remove it from the mount to power down. That is a great segway into the next negative... The mount... It is somewhat awkward to push your camera in and out of a friction mounting system. It does hold onto the camera really well - but it is just so awkward mounting and dismounting my camera. I wish there was a 'quick release' or something available for attaching various camera models - even as an accessory.The only other thing I have to mention is that the gimbal has the ability to control the stop and start of certain cameras. it is a bluetooth item and I was hoping it would connect to my GoPro to act as a stop/start remote - but I cannot figure out how this would work. I will do some googling to see if someone has figured this out yet through the bluetooth of the camera and the gimbal. Not a deal killer, but it would be a nice add-on is WiFi to setup as a WiFi remote for the GoPro.All in all, this is a pretty nice accessory for my GoPro for a very approachable price point. I hope to get some use out of this item moving forward and maybe upgrade to a Gimbal for my pro DSLR cameras once I get the hang of this action gimbal! I would definitely recommend this - especially to those just starting out!

After getting more experience with this unit, I am much more impressed than at first, based upon the advantages of it compared to others, and as promised I have upgraded this from a 1 star to a 5 since their tech support provided a link to the Gimbal App, prior to it being available on Google Play, for Android 14 in the next few weeks. The trick is to access the provided link to the Gimbal App from your phone rather than the PC, which is entirely my bad, I usually try to be much better, but then I didn't say I was perfect, did I?This is an extremely good unit, especially for the price, with responsive controls, at a cost much less than some others that are comparable. One of my favorite things about it is that it is much easier to mount and unmount the camera, as compared to my other Gimbal, which was very awkward to mount the camera, and it had a faulty battery after just one year.Connecting the Gimbal to the camera via Bluetooth works quite well and is very responsive.The primary reason this got only a one star rating from me rather than a better rating is because the HoHem Gimbal phone App is required to do a firmware upgrade, and the app was not available for my version 14 of Android, but the link provided from the HoHem tech support fixed that. I was not totally in need of the gimbal phone app for accessing the gimbal, since I am able to access the camera with the GoPro Quick editor, which makes it much easier to change the camera settings, rather than change them when my GoPro 11 is mounted on the gimbal. The battery in the gimbal is great at a rating of 14 hours, lasts forever, and the Homen Gimbal app is really good as well.But as good as this item is, it's still highly recommended to get the insurance for replacement. The two major things that can go wrong with these gimbals are the motor and battery wearing out. I paid $14 for 3 year coverage, which seems well worth it.

Totally frustrated trying to set up the Gimbal and getting it to work. Finally figured out that no, the app for the iSteady pro2 is Not what we should be using, even though googling it states to use that app. My husband found an app for pro4 on Hohem s website. Things started working then (after a few hours of frustration). Hohem, please update instructions and get the pro4 app onto the play store! It would be extremely helpful to NOTE someplace obvious how to get the pro4 app! Anyways after all that, we got things working, and love the Gimbal. It is easy to use and works well (once you figure it out!)! I'm glad we got it!