Hi I’m Gidon from thetechnologyman.com. The Insta360 Flow is a 3-axis smartphone gimbal
for smooth stabilised footage. And it has advanced AI tracking rivalling many high end
cameras that can lock onto both faces and objects. It has a built-in extension arm and
tripod and it’s just about compact enough to fit into your jacket pocket.
Insta360 are best known for their 360 degree cameras, but this gimbal draws more from their
recent smart webcam the Insta360 Link. I’ve been thoroughly testing the Flow for
over a month to see if it lives up to its marketing claims. By the end of the video
I really hope you’ll have enough information to make an informed buying decision.
Please feel free to use the timeline chapters if you want to jump around the video.
So let's take a closer look. Overview
Currently the Insta360 Flow comes in three bundles. The least expensive Standalone option
comes with the gimbal itself, the magnetic phone clamp, a grip cover, a USB-C to USB-A
charging cable and a soft pouch. The gimbal is available in grey or the white version
I have. The Creator Kit comes with a larger carry bag in place of the soft pouch and a
few extras. There’s an LED Spotlight and a Lightning and USB-C charging cable for either
an iPhone or Android phone respectively. There's also a Pro Tripod Kit which is just the Standalone
option with this All-Purpose tripod. I’ll cover a few of these accessories shortly.
Like all Insta360 kit I’ve reviewed it comes very nicely packaged. The first thing you
notice is the naked electronics behind a transparent plastic shell which is a nice touch. First
impressions of the build quality are good. It’s mostly made of a tough matte plastic
that looks like it’ll take a few knocks, but there’s no waterproof rating.
There’s clear instructions for initial setup. Attach the clamp to your phone and then the
clamp magnetically snaps onto the gimbal. Make sure the notch on the clamp is lined
up. I would have preferred Insta360 had this automatically snap into the correct position.
I’m using an iPhone 13 Pro with an Apple leather case and it fits fine. The mount supports
phones with a width from 64-84 mm with a thickness of 6.9mm to 10mm. It can support a phone from
130g to 300g. It only supports phones, not action cameras but should be compatible with
most phones on the market, unless you’re using a very thick case or add-on lenses.
You need to make sure the phone is mounted as close to the middle of the phone as possible
with the camera in the position indicated by the graphic on the side of the mount. In
this position it sits over the volume down button on my phone, but there’s just enough
clearance not to activate the button. This is one of the easiest and quickest gimbals
I’ve tested to start using. Simply rotate the gimbal handle in the direction of the
arrow until it snaps against the stop. This turns on the gimbal and you’re ready to
film. Rotating the handle the other way, in the direction of the exposed arrow, powers
down the gimbal and the top of the gimbal arm locks into its storage position under
the handle’s tripod mount. You don’t need to detach the phone or phone mount to close
the gimbal which is very convenient. Just remember to fold the gimbal handle in the
direction of the arrows - not the rotating gimbal arm.
The gimbal handle is rather small in my hands but it extends just under 5cm for a more comfortable
grip. Unfortunately this extension doesn’t lock very positively in place so tends to
slide back and forth a little. The extension also splays to form a tripod with sliding
extensions for a little more stability. This is a convenient feature but it’s pretty
flimsy and not particularly stable in some situations. Luckily there’s a standard ¼”
tripod mount which works with any tripod. I do like using it with Insta360’s All-purpose
tripod which is intended for long selfie sticks but makes the Flow very stable with its long
extended feet. You need to fold the tripod feet first before
sliding the extension feet in, otherwise they don’t properly close, which I didn’t find
entirely intuitive. Even if the built-in tripod is a little flimsy and adds a bit to the overall
weight, it’s still very handy for general use if you’re careful. You can also extend
the arm of the gimbal by up to 22cm and the head is then hinged for selfie use. The hinge
is very stiff and feels like it’s going to break. To the point I loosened the screw
an ⅛ of a turn. You can get great selfie shots with the arm extended - but your phone
starts feeling heavy pretty quickly at the full extension.
In general use it’s often more comfortable extending the gimbal arm slightly and tilting
it back, rather than having to hold it upright which can feel unnatural.
The grip cover slides over the gimbal handle and I left it on for the whole review. I can’t
really see a reason not to use it. The Flow is a compact gimbal and the grip makes it
more comfortable to hold. I did find it can rotate slightly which interferes with the
trigger button so you will need to watch for that. I might add a little double sided tape
to keep it centred. For the most functionality you’ll use the
Flow with Insta360’s app but you can also use it with any other camera app including
the native camera app or even a video conferencing app albeit with a few limitations. I’ll
come back to this shortly. If you have the app installed your phone should
prompt you to open it after you’ve turned the gimbal on. Follow the prompts to connect
the app via Bluetooth to the gimbal. On first use the app provides an interactive getting
started tutorial which covers most of the basics. If you’ve dismissed this and need
to see it again, tap the three dots and scroll down to Tutorial. You’ll also find a brief
operation guide here too. Like most of these smartphone gimbals the
Flow has three axes of rotation to stabilise your footage. The most basic movement is pan
for side to side movements. Then there’s tilt for up and down movements. And finally
there’s roll for rotational movements. The various gimbal modes determine which of these
axes are locked depending on what you’re trying to achieve.
If this is your first gimbal these modes can be confusing and it’s hard to know which
mode to use. The default Auto mode is meant for beginners. Both the tilt and pan axes
follow your movements, but the gimbal automatically adjusts the sensitivity depending on what
you’re doing. For example if you’re running it’ll be less sensitive to movement and
more stable. If you’re walking or stationary it’ll be more sensitive.
If you slide your finger around the black touch sensitive SmartWheel you can switch
to Follow mode - the F LED will be lit. Follow mode is very similar to Auto mode but it's
a little more sensitive. Again the tilt and pan axes follow the handle movements and the
roll axis is locked. The next mode is Pan Follow mode represented
by PF on the gimbal. This mode locks the tilt and roll axes and is great for panning movements,
keeping the horizon level. Finally there’s the FPV or First Person
View mode which unlocks all three axes. The gimbal will follow all your movements, including
rotational moves. I very rarely use this mode but it’s useful for more creative shots.
There are two additional hidden modes. If you hold the trigger button depressed you
enter Lock mode with all three axes locked. This is useful to keep a subject in the centre
of the frame even if you move the gimbal. If you press and release once then immediately
press and hold the trigger button you enter Active Plus mode for a much faster response
of the gimbal to your movements. You can slide your finger in both directions
to switch between these modes. The central joystick lets you manually adjust pan and
tilt and in FPV mode the Zoom Wheel surrounding the touch panel controls the roll.
In the other modes the Zoom Wheel zooms in and out. If you hold the Zoom Wheel to the
right or left the gimbal will slowly zoom in or out respectively, using the digital
zoom between the discrete optical lenses of the smartphone. But a quick flick of the Zoom
Wheel clockwise or anti clockwise will jump directly to the optical lenses of your smartphone.
So if I flick the wheel to the left I move from the standard 1x zoom of my iPhone 13
Pro to the 0.5x ultra wide lens. If I then flick the wheel to the right I switch back
to the 1x lens and then if I flick again I switch to the 3x telephoto lens. I prefer
not to use digital zoom since there’s an associated degradation in quality so I use
the quick swipe the majority of the time. A single press of the switch button toggles
between the front and rear cameras. A double press changes between portrait and landscape
mode but you can also do this manually. A triple press of this button switches between
the photo and video modes. This is all in the Insta360 app. A long press takes you to
preview mode to review your footage - press the power button to return to filming.
The red record button starts a video capture or takes a photo.
Double tapping the Switch and Record buttons moves forward and backwards between the various
shooting modes. There’s the default Video mode, Photo mode, Pano Photo, Timelapse, Timeshift,
Slow Motion, Dolly Zoom, Widescreen, Live Mode and Hoop Mode. I’ll cover a few of
these modes shortly. I prefer using these double taps to switch
gimbal mode which is Option B under Flow settings. The SmartWheel then changes shooting modes.
I change gimbal modes more often and prefer the double tap to quickly change mode. I do
find sliding my finger around the SmartWheel a little fiddly.
In this Flow Settings menu you can also change the Flow Mode, adjust the Follow, Joystick
and Zoom speed as well as other options I’ll come back to as they become relevant.
The trigger button also has various options. Most often I use a double press to recenter
the gimbal. A triple press flips the camera around so for example if you’re shooting
with the generally higher quality rear lenses and then want to film yourself just triple
press the trigger button and your phone will flip around. I like this feature - it’s
something not really possible without a gimbal like this.
A single press will turn on tracking which I’ll discuss in its own section shortly.
In the app you can choose resolution and frame rate, all the way up to 4K 60 fps on my phone.
And I’m pleased to see PAL 25 fps frame rates available, which aren’t always an
option in these gimbal apps. You also have manual controls for shutter
speed, ISO, exposure compensation and white balance. You can set custom white balance
but I wish there was an option to set custom white balance calibration with a grey card.
You can enable a live histogram and gridlines if you tap on the three dots.
The Creator kit version also comes with the LED spotlight. This clips onto the smartphone
mount and has a USB-C cable then plugs into the gimbal head to draw power. You can also
use the gimbal to charge your phone instead with this same port, with the supplied charging
cable that comes with the Creator kit. The LED spotlight comes on automatically when
you plug it in and has two buttons to control the colour temperature and brightness of the
light. As it faces you the right button controls the brightness with three levels and also
turns it off and on with a long press. The left button cycles between the 3 colour temperatures:
from a warm 2800K, to a more natural 3500K to a cooler 5000K. Like most Insta360 accessories
it’s very fairly priced and impressively Insta360 quotes an average CRI or colour rendering
index of 95. The higher the CRI the more accurately you’ll see colour. Anything over 90 is excellent.
I did test this with a colour spectrometer and the 2800K mode not only had a high average
CRI as spec'd but also had a very high R9 score. R9 is an additional score that represents
how accurately a light source reproduces strong red colours often found in skin colours, clothing
and food. The 3500K and 5000K modes still had an average CRI over 90 - but a much lower
R9 score. The 5000K mode was a fair bit cooler than spec’d at closer to 6000K. I used my
calibrated lumen testing enclosure to measure its brightness at around 30 lumens in its
brightest mode at 5000K. It was a little dimmer at the warmer colour temperatures.
It’s not much brighter than the torch on my iPhone 13 Pro but it’s useful with the
front facing camera and you can use it together with your phone’s flash for additional lighting
with the rear lenses if you swivel it around. Use the cooler 5000K mode to match an iPhone’s
flash. Tracking
Having tested Insta360’s 360 degree cameras and their Link webcam, I was expecting good
results from the Flow’s tracking features and I wasn’t disappointed. Press the trigger
to have the Flow automatically identify the subject and begin tracking. This works with
both faces and objects, with both the rear and front facing cameras. The gimbal will
move around its horizontal and vertical axis to try and keep the subject centred.
By default the front camera will automatically start tracking any face it finds in the frame.
You can turn this off in Flow Settings | Front Cam Auto Tracking. You can manually track
an object by dragging around it with your finger. It’s impressive how well this works,
even tracking around an object that changes shape as you move around.
To turn off tracking you just press the trigger again. I would like the option for a confirmation
beep when tracking is enabled. If you’re using the better quality rear cameras for
capturing footage of yourself you can’t see the screen and don’t easily know if
tracking is on or off. Probably the most impressive feature of the
Flow’s tracking is that it can resume tracking a person even if they move behind an object
or out of frame. Here you can see even though it loses tracking as I move behind this gorse
bush, as soon as I’m back in view it quickly locks back onto me again. This only works
with people, not objects though. You can also adjust the position of the tracked subject
in the frame using the joystick which is great - you don’t always want the subject in the
middle of the frame. Tracking is helpful when you’re holding
the gimbal to ensure you keep the subject in frame. But it’s also useful if you’re
using the Flow to film yourself as you move around a room for example, which is very easy
to do with the built in tripod. You can even use hand gestures to control
the gimbal remotely which is good since there’s no remote included or available with the gimbal.
Turn on gesturing in the app. Now when you hold your hand up, the gimbal will countdown
and start tracking and recording you until you hold your hand up again. You can enable
this feature without tracking too. This works with both the rear and front facing cameras
at up to 4K 30 fps but is disabled in 60 fps mode.
If you enable the Live Mode in the Insta360 app you can use tracking in 3rd party apps
so you could use it for video conferencing with Zoom or any other conferencing app. Just
swipe across to Live mode, tap on Start and then Start Broadcast before opening your app
of choice. You then press the trigger button in any app to start tracking. The Flow goes
through a short initialisation routine before it beeps and all four gimbal mode LEDs flash.
This is also how you can use the native camera app for example with Flow’s tracking. Just
remember to leave the Insta360 app running in the background. It does only work with
people, not objects. I do like being able to use other apps with
the Flow’s tracking, but I didn’t find this 100% reliable and it does feel a little
clumsy having to use your phone's Screen Broadcast feature to get it to work. Gimbals that have
their own built in camera for tracking, like this cheaper Hohem iSteady V2 work better
in this regard. Performance
With 3 axes of stabilisation you can get very smooth footage with the Insta360 Flow. My
iPhone 13 Pro already does a decent job, but results with the Flow look far more professional.
One thing lacking with most of these smartphone gimbals including this one is any compensation
for up and down movement. So if you’re walking or running with the Flow you will notice this.
I find them best for panning around a scene or tracking someone - and the Flow’s tracking
is excellent as I’ve already discussed, comparable to some high end digital cameras.
But with the added bonus of being able to rotate horizontally and vertically independently
to keep the object in frame. Its mechanical range is pretty good for pan
and roll - around 330°, but its vertical tilt is much more limited. Insta360 quotes
-100° to 82° but I measured it with a digital angle finder in landscape mode and it can
only tilt up 30° and down 20° - so a total movement of around 50°. It has very marginally
more tilt down in portrait mode but only by a few degrees.
Depending on how you use the Flow this may not matter, but in my testing I often had
to adapt how I filmed something to compensate for this limitation. If the gimbal is on a
tripod it’s possibly more of a limitation, since you’re not able to adjust its position
with your hand movement. Also you do need to be careful if your phone
has an ultra-wide lens. The 0.5x lens on my phone does sometimes capture part of the gimbal
with faster movements. I got better results mounting the phone just off centre.
You will sometimes get a warning that your phone isn’t mounted correctly, but generally
the Flow does a good job calibrating itself. If you do have any issues with it not sitting
quite level, there’s an Auto-calibration option in Flow Settings, and also a manual
Horizontal Adjust. My phone weighs just over 230g with its case.
But the Flow worked just fine even with the 30g DJI Mic directly attached. You can also
mount a microphone receiver like this DJI Mic or a Rode Go one onto the slightly hidden
hot shoe mount on the gimbal arm. And then connect it to your phone with an appropriate
cable. With the hot shoe door open, you can slide in an optional custom insert into the
transparent battery shell. I tested all the gimbal modes and they all
work well. I used the Pan Follow and Lock mode the most for my filming, but you’ll
get the most natural results with the Auto or Follow modes which are very similar as
discussed earlier. With both the pan and tilt axes free to move, the footage will more closely
resemble how we’re used to seeing things. The gimbal has a built in2900mAh battery with
up to 12 hours of run time with the gimbal placed on a flat surface. It’s hard to give
an exact number, but in my testing with a lot of handheld use I got a lot less than
that. Although your phone will most likely run out of battery well before, especially
if you’re filming in 4K. You can use the Flow as a power bank as I
briefly mentioned earlier - even if you’re not using the gimbal. If the gimbal is off
you just need to press the power button to start charging. It takes around 2 hours to
fully charge the built-in battery with the USB-A to USB-C cable at up to around 2A.
I did test the Flow with a basic and quite old Android phone and it worked ok both mechanically
and with the app. It did highlight that the quality of your resulting footage will very
much depend on the smartphone you’re using. I won’t go through all the shooting modes
in this review, but I do like the Pano Photo mode. This can shoot and stitch various panoramas
including full 360 degree interactive panoramas that the app lets you easily animate and add
music. It’s not going to replace a dedicated 360 degree camera like Insta360’s X3 I looked
at recently, but it's a nice feature to have. You can also create dynamic timelapses in
Timelapse mode with the gimbal panning on its horizontal axis. And there’s an option
to manually define up to 4 custom points for the gimbal to move between for greater control.
The most bizarre mode is Hoop Mode for capturing highlights of a basketball game!
One feature missing in the Insta360 app is any HDR mode. Hopefully something can be added
in a future update. I’ve covered the Insta360 app in my other
reviews, but it is an excellent and easy to use editing app. A lot of the Shot Lab features
in the app are for 360 degree footage, but the Electric Surge works with Flow footage
and is fun to play with. Conclusions
The Insta360 Flow has a lot of features I really like. It’s quick and easy to use
and the Auto mode is great for anyone new to smartphone gimbals. The various gimbal
modes take a while to understand so it makes sense to default to an Auto mode.
The tracking is by far its best feature - it just works and it’s again easy to use. Most
of the time you can just press the trigger button. And I do like how it will re-lock
onto a subject after it’s moved out of frame. You can capture very smooth footage but be
prepared to have to work around the limited movement of the tilt axis occasionally. To
be fair to the Flow it’s not much different to other smartphone gimbals I’ve tested.
The built in tripod and extension arm both feel a little flimsy and they do add a bit
of extra weight, but are super convenient. In fact the Flow excels when it’s placed
stationary either on its built in tripod or ideally something a little more stable. Even
though its tilt is limited it can pan almost 360 degrees. Together with its capable tracking
it’s great for solo creators and if you don’t mind the rather clumsy implementation
it can work with third party apps for video conferencing etc. Although if that's what
you're after, the Insta360 Link may be a better option.
Gesture control works pretty well, but I’d like a remote even if it’s an optional add
on. I’m also not a big fan of the touch interface - both scrolling and double tapping
often takes me a couple of attempts. I’d like to see an option to configure the underutilised
jog dial to change gimbal or shooting modes. It’s not the smallest gimbal, but it’s
still pretty compact and I’ve managed to fit it in my jersey pocket on a bike ride.
Overall this is a very capable smartphone gimbal and it’s fun to use, especially with
the well developed app which also makes editing very easy.
If you want me to compare it to another gimbal let me know down in the comments. And If you
have this gimbal what do you think of it? As always, if you have any questions, please
ask - I read every comment and will do my best to respond.
I do hope you found this video useful. Please like the video if you did. I’m releasing
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