Insta360 has picked an awkward moment for DJI to enter pocket gimbal cameras. Luna Ultra is now on U.S. shelves, while DJI is fighting both regulators and rivals over the technology that makes creator hardware defensible.
Insta360 did not need to beat DJI everywhere to make this launch matter. It needed to show up in the United States with a credible pocket camera while DJI's newest Osmo Pocket is still tangled in distribution problems. That is exactly what happened this week.
According to The Verge, Insta360's Luna Ultra went on sale globally on June 10 at $769.99 through Insta360's own store, Amazon, B&H and Best Buy. The camera has a 1-inch 8K main sensor with a Leica Summicron lens, a second 1/1.3-inch telephoto camera with up to 12x digital zoom, a 3-axis gimbal, a detachable 2-inch OLED controller and Deep Track 5.0 subject tracking. This is not a cheap accessory for casual clips. It is a direct move into DJI's most useful creator niche.
DJI still has the stronger history in this format. The Osmo Pocket line turned the tiny stabilized camera into a real category, not just a novelty for vloggers. But the Pocket 4, announced in April, did not arrive cleanly in the U.S. The Verge reported at launch that DJI spokesperson Daisy Kong said the Osmo Pocket 4 would not be available in the U.S. market while its application for authorization was still pending. Digital Camera World later noted that U.S. buyers could still find units through Amazon sellers and AliExpress, but that is not the same as a normal first-party launch.
The easy version of this story is that Insta360 has an 8K camera and DJI has a 4K one. That misses the better point. The real fight is over the small stack of technologies that make these devices useful when one person is filming alone: subject tracking, stabilization, image processing, detachable controls, wireless audio and the software that decides where the camera should look.
Those features are now close enough across products that patent law is becoming part of the product roadmap. Digital Camera World reported in March that DJI had filed six patent cases against Insta360 in China, focused on areas including flight control, structural design and image processing. The cases were tied more directly to drones and 360-degree cameras than Luna Ultra, but the same companies are now colliding in pocket gimbals, action cameras and creator tools. The borders between those categories are getting thin.
Insta360 knows this already. GoPro took it to the U.S. International Trade Commission over action-camera patents, and Tom's Guide reported in February that the ITC rejected GoPro's five utility patent claims related to stabilization, horizon leveling, distortion correction and aspect ratio conversion, while upholding a narrower design-patent violation affecting older Ace models. That outcome let Insta360 keep selling its core current products in the U.S., including its newer 360 cameras. For a hardware company trying to expand across categories, that was not a footnote. It was permission to keep moving.
DJI's position is more complicated. It remains the company everyone else is measured against, but its U.S. problem has become a commercial opening for rivals. TechRadar, citing DJI court filings, reported that DJI says U.S. restrictions could cost it about $1.5 billion in 2026, including lost revenue from 25 planned product launches. The filing covers drones and other devices, and the Osmo Pocket 4's U.S. absence shows how a regulatory fight can spill into consumer cameras even when the buyer just wants a stabilized lens for travel videos.
Luna Ultra is a market test
Luna Ultra is not obviously the simpler product. Early coverage from The Verge praised the zoom range and tracking, but also pointed to focus and usability questions compared with DJI's camera. T3's review called the detachable controller useful in some cases and unnecessary in others. That is a fair warning. Creators tend to forgive fewer controls when the camera never misses a face. They are less forgiving when a clever module adds one more thing to charge, lose or misunderstand.
Still, Insta360 has chosen the right pressure point. The Luna Ultra offers 47GB of built-in storage, expandable storage up to 1TB, 8K recording at 30 frames per second, 4K slow motion at 120 frames per second and a removable controller that can work from about 65 feet away. Those details are not cosmetic. They tell solo creators that the camera was built for shots where the operator is also the subject.
This is where AI matters in the camera business, though not in the vague way companies usually use the word. AI tracking is becoming a moat because the hardware is small, the subject is moving and the camera cannot rely on a crew. DJI calls its system ActiveTrack. Insta360 calls its version Deep Track. The winner is not the one with the better name. It is the one whose software keeps a face framed while the user walks, turns, reaches for a product or steps into bad light.
Patent litigation will not decide every sale. Price, trust, battery life and image quality still matter. But when camera makers converge on the same creator workflow, the legal file becomes part of the competitive file. DJI can argue it built the category. Insta360 can argue it is adding new lenses, new controls and better U.S. availability. Buyers will judge the footage first, but investors should watch the courtrooms too.
The cleanest opening for Insta360 is not that DJI has suddenly become weak. It has not. The opening is narrower and more useful: while DJI is slowed by U.S. authorization issues and defending its territory with patents, Insta360 has a $769.99 product sitting in American retail channels right now. In hardware, being available is not a small feature.
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