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Edited by Shu Qi Wen
Allen, the product lead behind Insta360’s handheld gimbal camera Luna, has recently spent quite a bit of time breaking down one key question for everyone: why Luna absolutely isn’t just another Pocket clone.
Inside Insta360, Luna is currently getting top-tier priority. Why? Because it’s diving straight into a track already dominated by heavy hitters. DJI’s Pocket 3 has already moved over 10 million units worldwide, the Pocket 4 is consistently selling out, and the upcoming Pocket 4P is set to go toe-to-toe directly with the Luna Ultra. On top of that, major phone brands like vivo and OPPO are quietly brewing their own gimbal cameras, planning drops before the year ends.
The Pocket series really opened eyes here. It proved that even with smartphones crushing it in camera quality, there’s still massive room for a dedicated pocket cam built purely for documenting everyday life. That’s exactly why every major hardware player is scrambling to grab a slice of this pie.
Luna was originally scheduled to hit stores back at the end ofMay, but our founder, Liu Jingkang, threw a curveball by requesting a head-tracking module right before launch, pushing the release to June. Finally, on June 10th, Luna went live, dropping at an early-bird price starting at¥3,999.
Beyond the added features, Luna’s delayed launch also came down to keeping pace with the competition. A channel partner shared with NUPIAO that both DJI and Insta360 were closely monitoring each other’s release windows and pricing strategies. After making waves with drones, Insta360 is now marching straight into DJI’s home turf—making this year’s showdown between the two the most heavily watched battle in the industry.
Before Luna officially launched, Allen sat down for an exclusive chat with NUPIAO. He walked us through the entire development journey, starting from that very first demo back in 2020, and tackled all the burning questions surrounding Insta360’s move into the gimbal camera space.
“The Human Camera Operator”
“Luna is definitely not just another Pocket,” Liu Jingkang made that clear from day one. His reasoning? It was never meant to be just a piece of gear. Instead, it’s positioned as a “CameraMan”—a fullyautonomous follow-shooting photographer. Think about it like hiring a private videographer for a group trip. They handle everything while you just enjoy the moment, then hand you over polished photos and edited clips when vacation ends. That hands-free experience is exactly what we’re aiming for.
That philosophy is baked right into Luna’s DNA. According to Allen, the Luna Ultra ships with a detachable video transmission remote screen, packed with a built-in wireless mic, plus a hidden tripod tucked inside the body. All these features run on the same core idea: keep your essential tools within arm’s reach so you spend zero mental energy prepping for a shot.
The head-tracking accessory deserves special mention too. Once you strap it on, the lens naturally follows your gaze, letting you point-and-shoot without lifting a finger. Honestly, that’s partly why we delayed launch. During a National Day trip, Liu realized that constantly staring at the monitor just to keep subjects in frame actually makes you miss the moment itself. So we scrapped the schedule and added it in.
Allen told NUPIAO that gimbal cameras have been on Insta360’s radar since 2020. He actually built that first dual-lens demo during his earliest team-building days. But after hitting some serious engineering roadblocks, the project hit pause. Over time, those hard-earned technical breakthroughs trickled down into the Link conference camera and the third-gen Flow smartphone gimbal, before finally converging into what you see with Luna today.
Most mainstream gimbal cams on the market right now are screaming high resolution and portrait perfection. Insta360 took a different route. For image quality, we’re doubling down on two fronts. First, a collaboration with Leica, defining lens optics around the legendary Summicron standard and packing three dedicated AI chips just to crush low-light performance. Second, we’re carving out a unique identity in portrait color science.
Where Allen thinks Insta360 truly pulls ahead from the competition is AI. He sees it as the ultimate wildcard for long-term category dominance. “Our takeaway? Competitors aren’t exactly rolling out ambitious AI roadmaps yet. Meanwhile, we’ve got a full stack ready to roll—from object tracking and low-light boosters to intelligent framing,relyingon vertical scene recognition. Want it to auto-capture a winning basketball goal? Done. Need automated travel vlog editing on the fly? Already sorted.”
Gimbal camera sales are honestly critical for Insta360’s next growth chapter. Looking at the 2025 financial report, revenue jumped 74.76% year-over-year to hit ¥9.74 billion, yet total profit dipped 20.70% to ¥840 million. Fast forward to Q1 2026, and while revenue surged another 83.11%, profits took a sharp 79.35% nosedive.
If you’re wondering why revenue is climbing but profits aren’t following suit, the answer is simple: we’re pouring money into R&D.
In 2025 alone, Insta360 burned through ¥1.53 billion on R&D—that’s nearly a 97% jump year-over-year. And for Q1 this year? R&D spending literally doubled compared to last year. When you factor in strategic pushes for new categories like gimbal cameras, that single quarter’s investment roughly equaled 300% of our net profit from the same period.
Liu Jingkang addressed this head-on in the earnings call. He acknowledged that heavy upfront investments naturally weigh on short-term profit margins, but stressed that building genuinely original products is exactly what will fuel our next big growth wave.
A Real Stress Test on Pricing and Supply Chains
On the pricing front, Luna isn’t walking into an open field. This is a market that was practically owned by DJI for a long time.
When DJI dropped the Pocket 4 earlier this May, the standard kit went for ¥2,999 and the premium bundle landed at ¥3,799. That’s a ¥500 and ¥700 cut respectively from the previous gen. Boosting specs while cutting prices? Rare in the hardware world. To make matters tougher, even while flash storage costs were spiking, DJI boosted internal memory straight from 32GB up to a massive 107GB.
This kind of aggressive pricing only works because of DJI’s hardened supply chain advantages. An insider previously told NUPIAO that DJI leverages massive purchasing volume across motors, gimbal controls, video transmitters, and imaging modules. Plus, custom parts like lenses and gimbals are either developed in-house or deeply tailored, meaning competitors can’t just tear apart a Pocket and reverse-engineer a matching cost breakdown.
Industry watchers believe DJI’s timing is deliberate. By driving prices down right now, they’re using their scale economy to raise the entry barrier for any newcomers hoping to break in.
When asked how we plan to handle the pricing squeeze, Allen kept it real. Insta360 won’t start a race to the bottom, but we’re definitely not scared either. He shared that right from the project kickoff, our team stress-tested dozens of competitive scenarios, price wars included. We’ve mapped out our moves and aren’t going in blind.
Looking at the cost structure, Insta360 is fighting fire with design. Allen pointed out that we’re pushing base electronic components through bulk procurement to drive volumes down. Motors are fully customized from copper wire gauges to silicon steel sheet specs, with strict manufacturing and testing standards passed directly to suppliers for mass production. Long-term? Allen borrowed a line from Elon Musk: keep the “idiot index” as low as possible. Basically, master every single layer of the process from the ground up.
Allen stresses that owning the entire chain is exactly what separates pros from amateurs. Hardware barriers are way steeper than people give credit for. Sure, with China’s blazing-fast supply chain, you could whip up a gimbal camera prototype in three months flat. But pushing it to perfection? Assembling off-the-shelf parts only gets you so far.
Here’s why: cameras and gimbals need deep, almost surgical integration. Take telephoto mode—the gimbal’s control algorithms have to shift gears instantly to compensate for inevitable micro-tremors in your hand; macro stabilizationis notoriously trickyto achieve mechanically, relying heavily on internal AI compensation instead. Trying to coordinate these nuances through third-party outsourcing burns through communication budgets fast, and everyone interprets “quality” differently. At Insta360, we’d rather lock in long-term supplier partnerships where efficiency and alignment run smooth.
As for phone manufacturers jumping into the ring? We actually welcome it. Allen points out that gimbal cameras are still relatively niche for the average consumer. Phone giants entering the space brings massive value in user education. More players = bigger market for everyone. IDC data backs this up, showing global gimbal camera shipments skyrocketed past 100% YoY in 2025
That said, Allen believes phone companies’ real rivals aren’t Insta360 or DJI—they’re themselves, and their own internal resource allocation. “Building something entirely new on an established mobile OS/platform is a massive uphill battle for funding and attention. Technical capabilities across brands are pretty similar now. What really decides the winner is sheer determination. If the debut product flops, you’ll immediately face a reality check on whether the market—or your own board—will hand you a second chance.”
The industry source we spoke to earlier also flagged a major hurdle for phone makers: business models don’t translate directly. The smartphone playbook relies on razor-thin or negative hardware margins, making up the difference via pre-installed software and app store fees. Cameras operate on completely different math—you actually need to profit on the box itself. Add rising upstream storage component costs to the mix, and newcomers will find their pricing room severely squeezed.
“Every problem in this industry is pretty obvious. It really comes down to how much sweat equity you’re willing to put in. Think of it like running a marathon—the finish line’s fixed, there are no cheat codes. It just boils down to who trains harder, runs smarter, and shows up better prepared.” Allen wraps it up perfectly.
