FeiyuTech’s Vimble 3 has a ton of features—maybe even too many—but you can safely ignore most of them and it'll work just fine. The stabilization and joystick control, even using the FeiyuTech app, are enough to noticeably improve anyone’s production value while also being easy to use. Taking the time to learn how to master the Vimble 3’s other features and FeiyuTech’s app only further improves results. All of this for just a hundred and twenty dollars makes the Vimble 3 an excellent addition to any smartphone filmmaker’s toolkit, regardless of experience level.

Specifications
  • Brand: FeiyuTech
  • Selfie Stick: 180mm
  • Maximum Payload: 260g
  • Bluetooth: Yes
  • Battery: 1300mAh
  • Camera Control: Joystick
  • Weight: 387g
Pros
  • Compact, foldable design is convenient for transportation and storage
  • A/B marker buttons are incredibly useful
  • Joystick feels great to use
  • Swapping between front/back cameras and landscape/portrait mode is easy
Cons
  • The slider and some buttons feel redundant and get in the way
  • Photos are watermarked by default
  • No safety strap
Buy This Product

Love shooting vidio on your smartphone, but finding the results a little shakey? The Vimble 3 is a three-axis, handheld gimbal to smooth your movements, with a 180mm extension rod. It might just be the perfect competitor for the dominant DJI.

What's in the Box?

In addition to the actual gimbal, the Vimble 3 comes with a tripod attachment, carrying case, instruction manual, and USB-C cable for charging. Apart from that, it's just the instruction manual and assortment of QR codes leading to FeiyuTech’s various social media channels. The only QR code you actually need though is for the FeiyuTech app, and that code is on the inside of the manual.

Vimble 3 Features

From just a glance at the gimbal, you can see multiple buttons on the front including a joystick and a dial, two trigger buttons on the back, and even more buttons on either side. Holding this in your hand can feel pretty overwhelming when you’re trying to remember what each of these buttons are for, especially knowing that most of these buttons have unique functions accessible by double or triple pressing.

vimble 3 tripod

Before we talk about the Vimble 3’s many buttons and their functions though, let's talk about the physical design. The Vimble 3 can be folded for transportation and storage, and has an extendable rod with a range of 180mm or about 7 inches. With the rod extended, you have access to another joint that can be tilted to access more angles.

The tripod attachment can be easily installed by screwing it into the bottom.

There are two USB-C ports on the Vimble 3: one on the handle that's used to charge the gimbal, and one on the clamp used to hold your smartphone. This second port can be used to charge your phone while using the gimbal.

Finally, at the top of the clamp used to secure your smartphone in place, there is a small magnetic strip for FeiyuTech’s optional attachments, such as a fill light.

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Like most smart products, FeiyuTech does have a companion app for Android and iOS, but you aren't required to download the app in order to use the gimbal. Once you connect your smartphone to the Vimble 3 via Bluetooth, the gimbal mechanism will be fully functional. You will have to download the app if you want to use any of the buttons or access anything beyond the joystick and basic stabilization though.

Once you start digging into all of the functions that the Vimble 3 can offer, the Feiyu ON app becomes a necessity. You can navigate the app by using your smartphone’s touchscreen as normal, or single tap the power button to open a quick navigation menu that can be operated with the joystick.

Vimble 3 Gimbal Modes and Buttons

Directly below the joystick is a scrolling wheel with a button in the center. The scroll wheel can be used to rack focus or zoom in and out. The button at its center is used to swap between these two functions. The other three buttons on the front of the gimbal are labeled to be easily identifiable: Playback, Record, and Mode. The Vimble 3 has operating modes:

  • All Follow
  • Pan Follow
  • Pan-Tilt Follow

Double-tapping the mode button will rotate the gimbal between landscape and portrait mode.

On the opposite side of the gimbal handle are two trigger buttons. The bottom trigger can be pressed and held to lock the gimbal so that it stays in place, while double-tapping it will recenter the gimbal. A quick triple-tap of this trigger will switch between your phone’s back and front-facing camera. The top trigger can be customized for a single tap and long-press function. Single tap functions include smart face tracking, object tracking, and switching between front and back-facing cameras. The long-press option can be customized to function as one of the previously mentioned, “mode” options.

On the left side of the gimbal handle is a slider used to zoom in and out as well as A and B shortcut buttons. The A and B buttons are used to set zoom or focus points.

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If that all sounds quite confusing, it's because it is. There are a lot of options for customization, but it can be quite overwhelming if you're new to gimbal shooting.

Within the app, there are several other features worth pointing out, too. You can adjust camera settings for things like peak exposure or HDR and change between camera modes like slow-mo and panorama. There is a setting for “Beautify” as well as several filters to choose from that are perfectly suited for smartphone video content creation. There are even limited gesture settings you can use to activate your camera with simple hand motions. Showing an open palm will start recording, while holding up a peace sign will take a photo.

The Vimble 3 Shooting Experience

Like any smartphone gimbal, the Vimble 3 has a bit of a learning curve. There is no shortage of settings, buttons, and modes to keep track of, much less utilize as intended. But in the couple weeks I’ve been using the Vimble 3, I’ve found the shortcuts that most benefit my shooting style and improve my quality of life while using the product. Now that I’ve found my footing, I can definitely see myself using the Vimble 3 for future video projects and feel excited to explore its full potential.

The key to understanding how to use the Vimble 3 lies in the spinning dial and the A/B buttons. Use the dial to adjust the focus or zoom of the camera, and press and hold either the A or B button to set a marker at the current axis. Tapping the A/B buttons after an axis is set will then quickly snap your camera back to that setting. Spinning the dial manually to rack focus or zoom during a shot will most likely leave you frustrated because of how slow-moving it is, but the A/B buttons solve this completely by allowing you to adjust the speed your camera switches from point A to B. This allows you to pull off some pretty impressive-looking crash zooms and focus racking.

This does bring me to what is probably my biggest gripe with the Vimbal 3 though, which comes down to its ergonomics. The joystick feels great to use and most of the other buttons are easy enough to access, but many of the buttons have multiple and overlapping functions, and some of them begin to feel redundant. And if a button is redundant, it just ends up being in the way.

For example, the slider on the left side of the handle is only used to zoom in and out. The dial is also capable of zooming in and out, and it’s right below the joystick, making it a much more comfortable option. So what's the point of keeping the slider on the gimbal at all? Especially considering how much easier it would be to press the A/B buttons if the slider wasn't there.

The same is true for the top trigger button; is a shortcut button for a shooting mode really necessary if there are only three or four options to cycle through with the Mode button?

The lack of a safety strap also bothers me. Most smartphone gimbals, the Vimble 3 included, struggle to hold a phone while it’s in a case, so not having a strap can feel like a pretty big liability. This safety issue isn’t just out of concern for my phone either, as I’m sure a fall from a handheld height would also be enough to damage the gimbal too.

The only other negative thing I can really say about the Vimble 3 is the fact that it will add a FeiyuTech watermark to your photos by default. Thankfully, there is an option to turn this off if you look for it in settings, but the fact that I have to do that at all is honestly pretty crazy to me.

Will the Vimble 3 Level Up Your Smartphone Videos?

The Vimble 3’s compact design is great for transportation and storage. When it’s folded up, it’s small enough to fit in a sweatshirt pocket. The extension rod is also a nice addition that essentially turns the Vimbal 3 into a selfie stick, but seems a bit too short to add any real utility beyond that.

vimble 3 compact

The face tracking capabilities of the Vimbal 3 are impressive, and perhaps more useful than the object tracking. Faces don't tend to move around as much or as quickly, so the gimbal’s movement to track them will always be smooth. Tracking an object on the other hand, while a functional feature, just doesn’t always come out looking quite as smooth.

The gestures are also a nice touch for a hands-free option to take a picture or start recording, and the beautify and filter options make this feel like a product perfectly suited for modern content creators; whether you shoot in landscape or portrait.

FeiyuTech’s Vimble 3 has a ton of features—maybe even too many—but you can safely ignore most of them and it'll work just fine. The stabilization and joystick control, even using the FeiyuTech app, are enough to noticeably improve anyone’s production value while also being easy to use. Taking the time to learn how to master the Vimble 3’s other features and FeiyuTech’s app only further improves results. All of this for just a hundred and twenty dollars makes the Vimble 3 an excellent addition to any smartphone filmmaker’s toolkit, regardless of experience level.