Gimbal/Stabilizer versus Tripod Stick

There are a lot of wide ranging thoughts/opinions regarding whether or not gimbals/stabilizers (I will use these terms interchangeably) for ones smartphone are a high priority piece of equipment for IRL streaming compared to a tripod-style selfie stick.

Gimbals utilize motors (gyroscopes) to stabilize the motion and allow for smooth tracking and panning. Thus it seems like it would be a natural fit for IRL live streamers. The reality is it depends highly on the equipment and actual situational use cases.

Older stabilizers were large/bulky because they were designed with large motors. They were great for capturing really smooth footage but for continuous use, but could become heavy (arm fatigue) and thus added friction for use with IRL streaming type of situations.

Newer gimbals (like the DJI Osmo Mobile series and Insta360 Flow) have been offered in much more compact and lighter designs which at face value, would seem like a perfect offset to the larger form factors. The following is a side-by-side comparison of my older EVO Pro and Insta360 Flow.

Note that EVO Gimbals were originally mostly re-branded Zhiyun gimbals (EVO Pro = Zhiyun Smooth 4); the company now mostly resells Insta360 products as an authorized distributor.

The size and weight differences are very noticeable between the two. The Insta360 Flow actually has its own built-in tripod (I attached the tripod above from the EVO just to show that it has a standard tripod socket). The following is with the built-in tripod.

A few IRL streamers purchased the Insta360 Flow or DJI Osmo Mobile and eventually stopped using them because as they found, the motors would overheat and/or the battery would drain much faster. Why? Because in IRL streaming situations (walking/moving around often for several hours), the gimbal motors need to constantly work. With smaller motors being put under constant usage, they just get hot and end up shutting down as a safety measure. This also results in the battery being used faster (than the marketed rating).

Stabilizers with larger motors do offset this BUT the tradeoff is this added bulk and weight. Both sizes are much better suited for shorter term use (like when recording shorter footage as is the case with travel videos where you may not be constantly shooting).

For many IRL streamers, the built-in image stabilizer for their phone cameras tended to be good enough while also using a tripod style selfie stick to hold it more steadily (and such tripod sticks end up being much more cost effective, functional, and lighter).

The following is what I have because I’m able to mount a peltier cooler onto the phone while still securing the phone to the holder. The tripod legs collapse into what is the handle while the aluminum telescoping stick extends the entire height to 62″ (157cm). The collapsed length is only 12″ (30cm). This stick also has a Bluetooth remote that can be paired to the phone (for triggering the camera shutter versus having to use the self-timer).

Gimbals require the phone to be balanced properly (else it places more stress on the motors when it has to compensate for any imbalanced weight distribution). Their connector normally requires the phone to be centered (making it difficult/impossible to have a cooler on). With these kind of tripod sticks, it’s easy to offset the phone (or jury rig a holder extension) to allow a cooler to remain connected in order to provide constant cooling.

Heat is naturally detrimental since most phones will shutoff in its redzone for safety. Additionally, heat causes battery life to degrade much faster. And if a battery is too hot, charging it efficiently is a slower process until it cools (charging also adds heat); all of this is a constant cycle of battling against each other. Thus keeping the phone cool (in IRL streaming situations) is one of those challenges requiring a setup that can incorporate ongoing charging (like the following).

I use a USB hub with a USB-C PD (power delivery) port (rated at 100-watts) which can supply that power from a quality power bank (like the Anker 537 or 737). This hub can also handle 5Gbps of data (there are slightly more expensive ones that can handle 10Gbps). Opinion: I’d advise against really cheap USB hubs because those have a tendency to overheat. That overheating can cause interference (I’ve seen streams experience jitter when a USB hub became too hot or where the charging stopped).

Also, quality USB cables that can handle both the rated power and data throughput is important when it comes to the reliability of setups like this (for the most important connection points, I use braided USB cables). Basically, cheap junk = garbage in, garbage out. IRL is already challenging and it is better to have a reliable setup versus one that has certain parts failing.

The white cable is feeding power into the PD port (I have Anker 537 and 737 packs). The hub connects into the phone and constantly supplies it power (the phone not relying solely on the internal battery). Being able to constantly trickle charge the phone can help prevent constant rapid rundown of the battery (resulting in more charge cycles and reducing the lifespan of that battery). Peltier coolers also need a small amount of power; the black cable connects to one of the USB-A ports.

Unless there is really poor signal (causing the antennas to have to signal search often), getting the temperature of the phone into the yellow zone is a rare occurrence (like everything else with IRL types of use cases, YMMV). The way I look at it IMHO, is any cooling is better than none at all.

Finally, the following image is a bit of inception… but it’s a local SRT relay (Moblin to OBS) where it is possible to test various IRL scenarios without actually going live to a streaming platform. Moblin (iOS) is simply streaming live to OBS (running on either a Mac or PC) via a simple SRT relay (making it easy to test things like automatic scene switch via NOALBS), testing out overlays/alerts, or OBS remote control.

UPDATE: Part of this setup will tie into this IRL/Travel backpack setup that I am working on (for myself, it’s a travel pack setup); mainly the cable management part of incorporating something like the above and how to distribute power with a USB hub.

The USB hub itself would be in the outer pouch where the external USB connector of the backpack is located with an extension USB cable connected to the end that is pictured going directly into the phone’s USB-C port.