Zhiyun Smooth 5S AI reviewed: a worthwhile upgrade or another AI gimmick?

The smartphone gimbal market is an increasingly crowded one. Can the Zhiyun Smooth 5S AI cut through?

With the rise of TikTok and the mutation of Instagram, now flooded with “IG Reels” and “short form vertical content”, it’s no surprise that the smartphone gimbal market is heavily saturated. With everyone now seemingly a “content creator”, the race has been on to provide new generations of filmmakers with the latest and greatest gear to help level up their video production.

Gimbals are big business and have been for a number of years, so there’s always a new kid on the block and this week, it’s Zhiyun’s Smooth 5S AI. 2022 saw the release of the Zhiyun Smooth 5S so, as the name might suggest, what we’re getting here is effectively that same gimbal, but with the integration of some AI, apparently. 

I’ll confess — I don’t consider myself a content creator, and I don’t usually use smartphone gimbals, so I may well be sitting outside Zhiyun’s target market on this one. Regardless, they sent me the gimbal and I was intrigued by this new AI element. Here are my findings.

What’s new?

As I’ve already mentioned, in comparison with the Smooth 5S, there’s not much to separate the two. Before we get to the main AI aspect, I’ll touch on a few things straight out of the box.

Build quality

As we’ve come to expect from all Zhiyun products, this gimbal is beautifully put together. Despite its plastic nature, the materials used all feel high-quality, with a nice silicone grip on the handle. There’s a reassuring, comfortable weight to the kit and all of the buttons and joysticks feel comfortable and intuitive to operate. I feel like I can go out into the field and really use this thing in anger. Big tick.

Gimbal capability

The gimbal itself is top notch. Zhiyun has been around for a while now and the Smooth 5S AI really benefits from that, with years of innovation and fine tuning poured into it. You’re getting an advanced camera gimbal stabilisation and algorithm, coupled with high-performance magnetic steel motors that amounts to professional film-grade equipment. It’s buttery smooth, and then some.

Just like the Smooth 5S, the AI upgrade can take a payload of up to 300g, meaning it’s more than capable of handling flagship smartphones such as the iPhone 15 Pro. It can also pan a full 360°, with 349° capable for both roll and tilt.

Battery life

The battery life has been slightly increased, according to Zhiyun. At 26 hours, it’ll easily outlast a smartphone charge when you’re shooting. It’s mightily impressive when compared with competitors such as the DJI Osmo 6 (6hrs 24mins), Insta360 Flow (12hrs) and Hohem M6 (18hrs).

Features and apps

While I’m not a content creator, I can appreciate the need for lighting when shooting on a smartphone, especially in darker scenarios. While it’s not a new feature for the AI upgrade of this gimbal, I really like the built-in fill light. It’s a piece of design that shows they’re really thinking about the end user. If you simultaneously attach two extra magnetic fill lights on either side of the clamp, you can achieve a combined fill light effect of up to 2040 Lux with all three lights working together. Not too shabby.

Meanwhile, there are two apps you can use with the gimbal. First up, there’s the beginner friendly ‘Zy Cami’ that comes packed with plenty of AI shooting templates, a video editor, a LiveStreaming function and other fun features enabling panorama shots and dolly zooms. It looks and feels as you’d expect – perfectly built for the TikTok-savvy generations who will use it.

If you require something a little more high-end, there’s also ‘StaCam’. Integrated with features catering to the needs of film and television studios, the app includes customisable framing, 46-colour LUT presets, false colour, zebra stripes and peak focus viewing. Users can also activate various lens focal lengths and modify the smartphone video bitrate and encoding, enabling the rapid creation of professional-grade advanced videos.

AI upgrades

When you buy the combo or pro version of the Smooth 5S AI, you’ll be getting a little “AI module” included. Like the extra magnetic fill lights, this easily attaches to the clamp and away you go. My initial thought was that the design and build quality of this felt quite cheap in comparison to the rest of the gimbal, but I figured that’s necessitated by the need to keep things as light as possible and not overload those motors. As they say, what really matters is what’s on the inside.

So what exactly does this AI module do? According to Zhiyun, it’s been integrated with multitasking commands, meaning users can control various functions with different gestures, including toggling object tracking, triggering both the app or native camera app for photo and video capture, and initiating custom framing tracking. 

I gave all these a try and…well, it delivers. The module reads my gestures really quickly and responds accordingly. I’m certainly impressed by the tracking capabilities here – it’s really sharp and responsive, even when moving my head quickly around the room like a deranged, bloated pigeon. But that’s it. This is the differentiator between the Smooth 5S and the Smooth 5S AI. I begin to ponder that if the module looks like a webcam and acts like a webcam…it might just be a webcam.

It’s nothing really groundbreaking and I struggle to call it AI. It’s just that’s the buzz word these days, and all these various tech brands feel a very pressing need to incorporate it into their lexicon as quickly as possible.

Rather, this little module probably represents the start. It’s a waystation on the way to something bigger. This gimbal, even without the AI module, is a great gimbal. It’s been designed to make it as easy as possible to film yourself as a one-man band which is what so many content creators are doing on the day to day. So, I certainly see a future where actual AI (not just this clip-on module) becomes more prevalent and built straight into our gear, making the overall process of production easier and slicker than ever before. 

Will it one day be easier and more natural to just hold up two fingers in front of the camera to start recording, rather than hitting the actual record button? Maybe. There are a plethora of finicky little processes that AI will undoubtedly help with but I’m still waiting for that “oh my god” moment in a product. The truth is, I really like this gimbal, but I’m probably going to keep on using it without the AI module. That may well be more a reflection on me than anything else.

Is it worth the upgrade?

I’m not convinced that the AI alone makes this worthy of an upgrade from the original Smooth 5S. However, if you’re fresh into the market and don’t yet have any smartphone gimbal, then you may as well opt for the Smooth 5S AI with its extra capabilities.

This is a very capable, reliable smartphone gimbal packed full of exciting features (even without the AI), keeping up with the furious pace of innovation that is the smartphone gimbal industry. If a friend asks me which gimbal they should buy for their smartphone, then as of writing, I’m most likely pointing them in this direction.

While the rival Hohem M6 offers many of the same features, the Smooth 5S AI is more cost-effective, with the standard version priced at $169, the combo version at $219 and the Pro package coming in at $249.