ZY Play Hack 2.9.1 + Redeem Codes

It’s disappointing that this app is needed to get the full experience from my gimbal (Smooth 4), because it lacks certain key features. The Smooth 4 is targeted towards content creators, yet they don’t allow people to have full customization for basic things like shutter speed, ISO, and frame rate.

Frame rates like 24 FPS are only available in 4K (sometimes I want to shoot in 1080 to save space). You can’t shoot slow mow. But perhaps the most infuriating thing: you can’t achieve a shutter speed/ISO setting that’s ideal for the “film look.” When shooting 24 FPS you ideally want a shutter speed of 1/48. The closest you can get is 1/50 (competing apps allow you to select exactly 1/48). But the bigger issue is: in manual exposure mode you can only go down to 100 ISO, when apps like FiLMIC Pro and Moment allow you to go down to about ISO 20.

On a final note: the object/face tracking feature stinks and hardly ever works. I’ve had my Smooth 4 for a few years, and I love the gimbal, but I was hoping the software would be fixed by now, but sadly it isn’t.

Do not install this app!
It seems to be made primarily to gather information about you and your device. I played around with it for about 30 minutes looking for the utility, but at no point did I ever see the utility for operating the gimbal itself. The App wants information and access to all your photos, your location, and your microphone, plus it wants you to sign up for an account. I finally relented to the account signup using a Facebook Account with not much information on it, but even Facebook rejected the signup. I gradually also allowed it access to the photos, mic, and location and that opened up a little more info but still no controls for the gimbal. There are video tutorials, a way to connect with other users by joining some social media thing of theirs, and an operating manual download within the app, as well as information about their other products, but no actual controls to adjust or operate the gimbal. I even tried to download the Mac utility to see if that would work. This package comes directly from their website and not the app store. It was unsigned and not recognized by apple. Very suspicious, and disappointing. I would just stick with the onboard controls built into Gimbal and forget about being able to do more with this thing. I also uninstalled the app.

Just installed it... used for 30 minutes.. had to swipe up to kill the app when it lost communication with the gimbal and locked up...

Editing a custom setting is crazy bad User experience... rather than tap/hold/anything to edit it, with it selected you go into custom again (who would guess?), and when you save, give it the same name (OMG I had to type the name in again!)

Then you find it didn't save the changes..

I finally got it to save after about 3 tries..

Moving the camera doesn't seem to work smoothly (from UI), it can lock if not in the right mode (I guess you set the mode on the device... as the app doesn't talk to the device??? Oh, wait it does! Oh, maybe it needs to be set there because the app was written by someone else and they have no control over the app and device? no, that isn't it... just stupid I guess...

Gave up on using this thing for the night...

Will try out the device on a shoot...

Didn't seem to come with the cable to control the camera, wanted access to EVERYTHING, GPS even... why? Photos? Why? Need to use to control gimbal...

And the gimbal doesn't seem to stabilize the camera enough to turn the zoom by hand without spinning the roll... so, yeah, I want to just lock the roll hard, using the thumb screw... they didn't provide... no way to lock it for a pan/tilt (say if using at s theater to film?)

May not be useful at all to me..

-Traderhut Games / Traderhut Photography

There are some features that work well. But there are several serious issues that need to be addressed. When I first got the app, it defaulted to the lowest definition setting, and I spent 10 hours filming only to realize that the video quality was subpar when I got the video into post-production. That was an easy fix, and I always double check it now, but tonight I had one take to get an important shot and the steady lighting feature caused the zoom function to glitch resulting in a jarring visual effect that can’t be fixed in post. I wouldn’t have used this feature at all, but the On button to turn on the light wasn’t working either. I had to film without the app after this, but a once in a lifetime shot for a academic presentation was ruined.

Just upgraded my old beholder gimbal to the crane V2. It is a great piece of equipment and this app is a great addition to the functionality. It was a bit tricky to figure out how to update firmware on the computer and get the camera to talk to the gimbal with the camera connection cable. It would be nice if there were some better instructional how to tutorials within the app.
What really sold me on the crane was the ability to program motion time-lapses and key-framed movements. The app needs some improvements in this area: please add the ability to save the key frames so that you can repeat the same camera movement/ timelapse more than once. Also, the user interface for entering shutter time and timelapse duration is confusing and I can’t figure out if there is a way to tell how many exposures the camera will ultimately take throughout the course of the timelapse.
A couple of other simple features I would love to see added to the App:
1. the 3x3 grid capture is great, but what about adding a larger grid to capture “gigapixel” images? (Maybe with a calculation based on focal length?)
2. A “360 grid”to create 360 spherical images for stitching into a 360 degree sphere (also with a focal length calculation)
3. In joystick mode- a slider to adjust the speed of the joystick for slower or faster movement precision

need camera keyframe animation without having to control camera shutter! (E.g. for Video) it’s nice to be able to set keyframes but then it didn’t work when click start to play back the animation since we are not using a shutter cable...
We want this for video capture so we can program moves and our camera doesn’t have a camera control cable! We can just trigger record manually in that case. Doing a preview move doesn’t work either. In video mode it shouldn’t require a camera cable! All this works on DJI.

Timelapse should also allow setting zoom and focus keyframe!

Joystick move does not provide an ease out option so movements are quite harsh.

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Minor annoyances:
- during firmware update, the app wouldn’t connect automatically anymore t WiFi. Had to manually connect WiFi to the crane 3 then it worked. Overall a little fickle with the connection.

- At first thought we can just click the device on the list of found gimbals but only later realized that one has to click “Camera”. If the gimbal is listed but no checkbox yet and one clicks camera, one gets into a camera app for the iPhone camera. Irritating ...

- got irritated by all those pictures of gimbals at first and thought that have to scroll to the right one to connect. We don’t want photo sharing / social networking.
We need a professional gimbal control app with working motion control/keyframing and ways to smoothen joystick movements.

Need to be able to program a motion path for shooting video, not just for motion time lapse. Also, the remote control feature is designed as such that you finger blocks part of the navigation view, it is also way too sensitive. Also seeing intermittent issue with motion time lapse where the pan motion completes before the tilt motion, pan ends and the tilt continues on. The duration and frame rate on time lapse could use a more friendly interface. As it is now users have to do some math to figure out what duration of video they will end up with, users should have the option to pick the frame rate and duration of the finished video and the app should do the math to make it happen.

This is an awesome app! The only problem I had was sorting through how to use it and transfer files to Photos. The instructions are extensive and a bit hard to follow, but everything you need is there. When I discovered how simple it was I laughed out loud. I have read reviews attacking the software by people who do not want to invest the time to figure it out. I did, and I could not be more please. This device is incredible, the pictures it takes are amazing because it is so easy to use your iPhone to shot. Video is also amazing, smooth, tracking, and better than anything I have ever used before.

The UI is awful. Whoever designed and approved it really need to reassess what they’re trying to do.
Even when you manage to figure out how to do what you want to do, it’s a total crapshoot if it will work.
Tracking? Flip a coin. I have a jet black subject against well lit, light backgrounds and it will break free and freak out constantly. No real way to say, track yourself either. Since you need to touch the screen to create a box around the subject.
Motion time lapse? The duration and “interval” settings are not only non-sensual, they do not properly calculate the clip at all. Either record the clip at its actual length, and or the nearest “time lapse” speeds things up exponentially. Can’t create a 1 minute recording time lapse that’s anything but 1 minute finished clip, or a suuuuper fast 4 seconds. Illogical, broken and a shame.

It’s nearing half a year and no iPhone 11 updates either.

It’s a shame. There’s so much potential with the Smooth 4 and a lot of ZY hardware in general, but it’s quite seriously crippled by awful, nearly non-supported software.

Open up the hardware and let third parties handle every aspect of your gimbals, please. The stabilization word would be better for it.

The current version of the app for the Zhiyun Smooth 4 gimble is not all bad, but I film with Filmic Pro. However, Filmic Pro does not have the core functionally for one of the most important needs; calibrating the gimble. You could use ZY Play and still get decent footage, just not nearly as well as Filmic Pro. The track and follow function while it has improved is still so-so. Since you can shoot for footage with ZY Play and it's a must for calibration and a few other core settings for the gimble I give it 4 stars. Remember this app is developed by the manufacturer of the Zhiyun Smooth 4, the best iPhone gimble to rate of this review.