Hohem iSteady M7 review: an AI-powered camera operator

Another day, another gimbal to review! A gimbal (or stabilizer) is designed to enable you to perform professionally smooth tilts, pans and crane shots with your smartphone. Most smartphones are capable of shooting tripod-steady clips and making smooth moves but a gimbal gives you a better grip, plus it can be used hands-free when on a tripod to follow your every move (like having your own camera operator with you on location!).

The Hohem iSteady M7 is the fourth Hohem-branded gimbal that I’ve tested and reviewed for Digital Camera World. Established in 2014, Hohem is a Chinese company that primarily produces gimbals aimed at the consumer video-making market - content creators who primarily use a smartphone (though the Hohem MT2 can carry certain full frame mirrorless cameras). Hohem’s brand statement is ‘Make the Moment’, and to help you capture day-to-day events all their gimbals are supported by ‘intelligent technology’ in the shape of detachable AI trackers.

Until 2023 I’d not encountered a Hohem product (though I was very familiar with other gimbal makers such as Zhiyun and DJI), so I was keen to put the Hohem iSteady MT2 gimbal through its paces and it earned a 4-star review - again a 4 star product and followed that in July 2024 with a lower-specced budget gimbal in the Hohem range - the iSteady V3.

2025’s Hohem iSteady M7 marks a leap in the evolution of the iSteady range thanks to one key feature. The detachable AI tracking module featured in the other gimbals has been updated to contain a camera - and the feed from this lens appears on the display screen on the shaft of the gimbal. This new feature is a game changer for the content-creating self-operator as I’ll explain during my review.

Hohem iSteady M7: Specifications

Hohem iSteady M7: Price

At $269 / £269 / AU$459, the M7 is the most expensive stabilizer in the Hohem range but you get what you pay for. When using your smartphone’s higher-quality rear-facing cameras on a stabilizer you can’t see your phone’s display, but the M7’s interactive touchscreen video display enables you to choose a subject to track and monitor composition - something you can’t do with any of the other gimbals in the iSteady range.

Hohem iSteady M7: Design & Handling

When it comes to the basic design of smartphone stabilizers Hohem hasn’t re-invented the wheel with the iSteady M7. However, it does have something unique up its sleeve (which I’ll get to shortly.) Like all gimbals, it uses three motors to tilt, roll and pan your smartphone which is mounted in a universal spring clip that expands to attach your device to the gimbal.

A physical Mode button (or icons on the touchscreen display) enables you toggle between classic gimbal moves such as PF (Pan Follow - where the gimbal pans the smartphone to match your wrist movement but keeps it level with the horizon), PTF (Pan, Tilt, Follow - where the camera pans left or right and up and down while maintaining a level horizon) and POV (Point of View - where the camera combines tilts, pans and rolls for a more organic floaty move).

What makes the Hohem iSteady M7 stand out from the stabilizer crowd is the addition of a mini camera lens to the magnetic AI tracker that clamps to the top of the gimbal. The live feed from this lens can be viewed on the touchscreen display at the rear of the gimbal. In the past, I’ve been forced to use my iPhone’s inferior front-facing selfie camera so that I could check the framing of my footage while the phone was mounted on a gimbal.

I can now use the camera feed from the AI tracker on the M7’s rear to monitor the composition when shooting selfies from the iPhone’s superior rear cameras. You can also double-tap on a subject on the M7’s touchscreen display to start AI-tracking them. This built-in live video feed is not something I’ve encountered on other stabilizers and I found it genuinely useful as a self-shooting content creator.

Oh - as well as being a live camera feed, the AI tracker also features a built-in mini LED fill light. Its RGB and CCT credentials mean that you can adjust color temperature to match available light sources or dial in something more creative (like adding a Red or Blue gel for example).

As a smartphone self-shooter, I like to travel light, so I tend to pack a mini tripod in my kit bag. The Hohem iSteady M7 ships with an attachable tripod and its height can be extended by 193mm thanks to a collapsible built-in selfie stick. This means I can leave my mini tripod at home and use the tripod-mounted M7 to pan and tilt to track my every move like a camera operator (who doesn’t need to be paid!). The iSteady M7 ships with a padded and water-resistant case to keep the gimbal and accessories secure during transport and this case fits comfortably into the Gomatic 25L Camera Backpack alongside other accessories (I don’t think we’ve reviewed this).

Hohem iSteady M7: Performance

To test the Hohem iSteady M7 I took it to London’s Barbican Centre so I could enjoy making some camera moves in the location’s long Brutalist design corridors. Before meeting up with Maddy the model (Insta @runway.voguish) to help me capture some gimbal footage, I tested out the stabilizer’s classic handheld tilt, pan and roll modes with my iPhone 16 Pro attached to the M7 via its universal spring clamp.

Normally you don’t need to balance a relatively light smartphone on a stabilizer, but the Hohem M7 does have an adjustable roll arm that you can slide to fine-tune smartphone balance for optimum gimbal performance. My iPhone 16 Pro worked fine without needing to be balanced, but I noticed that - when tilting the phone down steeply - the top of the gimbal’s roll motor sometimes came into the frame. I had to adjust the roll arm’s slider to move my iPhone to the left to minimize the amount of roll arm that appeared when performing a low-angle tilt. A small section of the roll arm still appears during my test video - check it out to see the M7 in action. The roll arm is only in danger of making an appearance when shooting via the iPhone’s rear cameras. I couldn’t see it when shooting selfies via the front-facing camera.

When shooting a selfie with the iPhone’s rear-facing cameras I couldn’t see the iPhone's display, but I was able to make sure that I was always in the center of the frame courtesy of the live video feed on the gimbal’s rear touchscreen display. The footage on this display is from the AI sensor, not the smartphone and it has a 4 x 3 aspect ratio rather than the iPhone’s 16 x 9 footage. The highlights in the M7’s display looked a but clipped too, but that didn’t apply to the footage being recorded by the iPhone. I found the M7’s built-in live video display was very useful as it helped me know that I was in the frame when shooting my selfie ‘talking head’ intro.

After testing the gimbal handheld I screwed it onto its supplied mini tripod legs and popped the magnetic AI tracker on the top. I was then able to walk and talk freely while the M7 tilted and panned to follow my every move. I also enjoyed using gestures to make the gimbal start and stop AI-tracking, as well as changing the framing of the shot so that I was standing to the right of the frame instead of the default center position. The AI tracking was as fast and smooth as a pro camera operator would have been.

Finally, I met up with my model Maddy and shot a series of clips that demonstrated a variety of camera moves such as pans, tilts, tracks, and even a point-of-view shot that rolled, panned, and tilted. I finished with a low to high-angle crane shot - check out my supporting video to see the M7 and Maddy make beautiful moves together. Despite shooting in a public location the Hohem M7 enabled me to quickly capture lots of clips of Maddy on the move without cluttering up the corridors with lots of camera gear. To light Maddy in the gloomy corridors I held a lightweight Harlowe Blade 10 in one hand while filming her with the handheld Hohem iSteady M7 in the other. I was delighted with the cinematic look of the footage. Check it out.

Hohem iSteady M7: Verdict

Having reviewed over 20 gimbals to date I was impressed by the Hohem iSteady M7. I especially enjoyed the ability to view the AI sensor’s live video feed on the touchscreen at the rear of the stabilizer. It reassured me that I was still in the frame when shooting a selfie with the iPhone’s rear camera.

The supporting Hohem Joy app gives you access to a range of creative shooting modes including Timelapse. You can use this in conjunction with the gimbal’s physical A/B buttons which enable you to set a start and end point for a gimbal move such as a pan and tilt. You can also adjust the duration of this move via the touchscreen’s menu and record a smooth panning/tilting timelapse sequence with ease. This feature should appeal in particular to creators of stock video as the additional gimbal-powered camera moves will make their timelapse footage be more attractive to buyers.

The AI sensor was able to follow my every move, so this will prove very useful to self-operating content creators who want to add pro camera moves to spice up their travel vlogs. I was also pleased (and surprised) that while recording footage in the Hohem Joy app I was able to capture the audio from the Apple AirPod Pro that I was wearing. Normally when shooting via a gimbal I need to plug a receiver into a separate iPhone just to record my audio (though there’s enough space between the iPhone and M7’s tilt motor to plug in mini receiver into the iPhone’s USB-C socket - such as the receiver in the Hollyland Lark M2S kit.

I particularly enjoyed using the Hohem iSteady M7 to film a model walking through the corridors of the Barbican. It was an effortless task to pan, tilt, crane, and track Maddy as she walked and the versatility of the M7 prompted her to point in various directions to make me pan left, tilt up, and pan right, which added a fun creative touch to our test video.

In an earlier review, I gave the older Hohem M6 4 stars, and given the extra specifications on the M7 - namely the live video feed from the AI camera to the rear touchscreen display - then I would like to give the M7 5 stars, but given that the roll motor occasionally appeared when I did a steep tilt the Hohem iSteady M7 isn’t perfect, so 4.5 stars it’ll have to be.

Alternatives

Hohem iSteady M6
If you’re on a budget but want a gimbal that will track your every move then 2023’s Hohem iSteady M6 will do a great job - and it costs around £100 less than the newer M7. The main difference is the lack of a built-in video feed from the front of the gimbal to the back, but that could be considered a luxury, not an essential feature.

Insta 360 Flow 2 Pro
The Insta 360 Flow 2 Pro lacks the Hohem iSteady M7’s live video feed that enables you to compose a selfie when using your smartphone’s rear-facing cameras. But it does the same job courtesy of a little mirror which helps make it a much cheaper alternative than the M7.