Frequently asked questions

Three things:

• A DJI RS gimbal — the RS 3 Mini is verified.
• A camera with HDMI out plus a capture device to get its video into your computer. The Elgato Cam Link 4K is verified; most UVC capture devices work.
• A computer with Bluetooth running Chrome or Edge — Windows, macOS or Linux. GimbalPilot runs in the browser at gimbalpilot.com/webapp; there is nothing to install.

Optional extras: a Sony camera with Bluetooth remote support (verified: ZV-E10 II) or a Blackmagic Pocket 4K/6K (from Blackmagic's documented protocol, not yet verified on hardware) adds automatic zoom, and an Xbox or PlayStation controller adds manual override (there's an on-screen joystick too).

Yes, all of it. Open gimbalpilot.com/webapp in Chrome or Edge and log in. The page takes your capture device in through the browser's own media API, runs the detection on your own GPU through WebGPU (YOLOv8-pose via ONNX Runtime Web, with a WebAssembly fallback), and steers the gimbal out through Web Bluetooth.

Nothing is uploaded. Video, detection and gimbal control all stay on your machine; the only thing our server sees is your login. There is no installer and nothing to keep updated.

Chrome or Edge on Windows, macOS or Linux. The web app needs Web Bluetooth to talk to the gimbal (and to the zoom camera: a Sony body, or a Blackmagic Pocket 4K/6K from Blackmagic's documented protocol, not yet verified on hardware); Safari and Firefox don't implement it, so they can't run GimbalPilot. If you open the page in one of them, it tells you so.

We develop and test on Windows 11 and macOS on Apple Silicon. Linux should work the same way but is unverified — tell us how it goes.

No. GimbalPilot runs at gimbalpilot.com/webapp — no installer, no admin rights, and therefore no SmartScreen notice.

The “Windows protected your PC” dialog described in the Windows install guide belonged to the earlier desktop beta. The Windows and macOS desktop apps are coming back in compiled form; until then the web app is the way to run GimbalPilot.

Create a free account at gimbalpilot.com/account and click Start free trial — no card, no checkout. Then open gimbalpilot.com/webapp in Chrome or Edge and log in with the same account. Every feature is included for 7 days, so you can verify your exact hardware combination before paying anything. One limit: during the trial, tracking runs in 5-minute sessions — a countdown shows in the top strip, tracking then stops, and reloading the page starts a new session. Plenty to judge the tracking; not enough to stream a whole event for free. One trial per account.

To open the web app and log in, yes. Once the page is running, tracking itself happens entirely in your browser: video, detection and gimbal control never touch the network, so the venue Wi-Fi isn't in the loop while you track.

Keep the connection while the page loads and when you switch target presets — each preset fetches its model the first time you use it.

Not with your own camera, as far as we can tell. DJI's app can track with a phone on some setups, but then the phone's camera does the seeing, not your real camera — and per DJI's support pages the RS 3 Mini is not supported by the RavenEye image transmitter. So as far as we can tell, on the RS 3 Mini there is no built-in way to make the gimbal follow what your own camera sees; check DJI's own pages for your firmware.

That is the gap GimbalPilot fills: it watches your camera's HDMI feed with on-device AI and steers the gimbal from your computer over Bluetooth. The RS 3 Mini auto-tracking guide goes through it in full.

Yes. GimbalPilot is built for exactly this: it runs in Chrome or Edge on Windows or macOS, takes your camera's HDMI feed through a capture stick, finds the person with on-device AI (YOLOv8-pose) and steers the RS 3 Mini over your computer's own Bluetooth — no phone on the rig, no RavenEye, no dongle. The RS 3 Mini is the gimbal we develop and verify on.

It is a public beta built on DJI's unofficial Bluetooth protocol, which DJI could change; $12 a month after a free 7-day trial with no card. Setup and honest limits are in the RS 3 Mini auto-tracking guide.

With GimbalPilot, yes — from a browser tab, over the same Bluetooth LE link DJI's Ronin app uses, with nothing added to the rig. As far as we know it is the first software that can.

Verified on the DJI RS 3 Mini. The app also discovers the RS 2, RS 3, RS 3 Pro and RS 4 family, which advertise the same service on the Bluetooth link, but those are unverified — try yours in the free trial and email hello@gimbalpilot.com with the result. As we understand it, DJI's own developer protocol targets the accessory port, which the RS 3 Mini does not have, so this relies on an unofficial protocol. How the link works and what it can and cannot do is in the PC-over-Bluetooth guide.

No — and that's GimbalPilot's core trick. Your computer pairs with the DJI RS gimbal directly over its own Bluetooth, from a browser tab, something that, as far as we know, only DJI's phone app could do before. No phone mounted on the rig, no RavenEye transmitter, no controller dongle in the accessory port. As far as we know, GimbalPilot is the first software in the world to control a DJI RS gimbal straight from a PC or Mac over Bluetooth.

The DJI RS 3 Mini is verified — it's what we develop and test on. Other DJI RS-series gimbals (RS 2, RS 3, RS 3 Pro and the RS 4 family) are discovered by the app because they expose the same service on the Bluetooth link, but we have not tested them, so they are unverified. The web app lets you pick any RS-family gimbal that shows up in the browser's Bluetooth picker, so try yours during the free trial; if it turns out to be incompatible after you subscribe, cancel and the current month is refunded.

Verified: the Sony ZV-E10 II. Other Sony bodies with Bluetooth remote support are listed by the app after you link (the ones on Sony's own remote-compatibility list) but unverified by us. The Blackmagic Pocket 4K/6K family is supported from Blackmagic's documented protocol and not yet verified on hardware. Zoom needs a power-zoom lens on either. Canon, Nikon and Fujifilm zoom is not supported yet. The camera is paired straight from the browser over Bluetooth LE, like the gimbal.

Zoom is optional: tracking (pan and tilt) works with any camera that can feed video into your computer. The camera link only adds automatic zoom control.

No. Detection runs on whatever GPU your machine has through WebGPU — any graphics card the browser can use, not just NVIDIA — and falls back to WebAssembly on the CPU when there is none. The web app shows which backend it's using and a live fps readout in its top strip. The free trial is the honest benchmark: run it in Chrome or Edge on the machine you plan to use.

Typically the opposite. Our desktop builds ran the detection on the CPU; the web app runs it on your GPU through WebGPU, so on a machine with a reasonable graphics card the browser version detects faster than the desktop app did.

Without a GPU the browser can use, it falls back to WebAssembly on the CPU, which is slower — the trial will show you what your own machine does.

Be careful. GimbalPilot uses an unofficial, reverse-engineered Bluetooth protocol, and a DJI firmware update could change that protocol and break the app — possibly permanently, since as far as we know DJI firmware usually can't be rolled back.

Our advice: if your setup works, hold off on gimbal firmware updates until we've confirmed the new version is fine. If an update does permanently break the app, the refund promise applies.

Yes. The web app has seven target presets: Person, Ball, Dog/Cat, Horse, Bird, Car/Truck and Boat. You pick the target type in the Simple tab and click the subject once; the same in-browser AI handles the rest.

Yes, two ways. Plug in an Xbox or PlayStation controller and touch a stick — you're flying the camera immediately, no mode switch — or drag the on-screen joystick in the corner of the monitor. When you let go, tracking resumes on its own. With a camera linked for zoom, a zoom rocker on the monitor and the controller's triggers give you manual zoom too.

That's the recommended setup for live events: the AI does the routine work, and a human can override at any moment.

Never. The AI runs in your browser, on your own machine; no video frames are uploaded, streamed to us or stored by us. The only data our servers ever see is licensing information: your email, license key, device identifiers and subscription status. Details in the privacy policy.

Go to your account page and open the Stripe billing portal — you can cancel there in a couple of clicks, no email required and nobody tries to talk you out of it.

If you're cancelling because your hardware turned out to be incompatible, or because a firmware update permanently broke the app, the current month is refunded. For anything else, write to hello@gimbalpilot.com. Full details in the refund policy.

We'll say so plainly and work on a fix — but we can't guarantee one. The protocol is unofficial and DJI owes us nothing.

That risk is priced into the deal: GimbalPilot is a monthly subscription, not a big one-time purchase, and if a DJI firmware update permanently breaks the app you cancel and the current month is refunded. You're never stuck paying for software that no longer works.

Yes. Log in to the web app on your laptop and your desktop, or a venue machine and a home machine — one subscription covers your machines, as long as you run one camera rig at a time. Driving several gimbals simultaneously needs a subscription per rig.

You normally never need it — the web app signs in with your account email and password, not a key. A license key does exist in your dashboard; keep it for support conversations.

Almost always the DJI Ronin app is still holding the gimbal: in our experience it accepts one Bluetooth connection at a time, and a Ronin app sitting in the background on any phone or tablet counts. Close it fully everywhere.

Then check that Bluetooth is on in your operating system, keep the browser's chooser open for a few seconds (the gimbal advertises in bursts), and if it still doesn't appear, power-cycle the gimbal and click Connect gimbal again.

Zoom needs a supported camera linked over Bluetooth — a Sony body with Bluetooth remote support (verified: ZV-E10 II; others listed by Sony, unverified by us) or a Blackmagic Pocket 4K/6K (from Blackmagic's documented protocol, not yet verified on hardware) — and a power-zoom lens on it. If no camera is linked, or your camera is a Canon, Nikon or Fujifilm body, the app tracks with pan and tilt only and the zoom controls stay inactive.

Open the Connection tab and use the Camera link card to link the camera. If a verified setup still won't pair, email hello@gimbalpilot.com.