The Leica LUX Grip is a MagSafe-based camera grip that’s designed to make it easier to hold your smartphone while taking photos. It’s equipped with physical, camera-style controls: a two-stage shutter button, a rotating control dial, and two function buttons. And it’s from Leica, the leading luxury-level camera maker in the world, and arguably with more history and provenance to its name than any other camera maker in history.

Available in Black and Silver, the Leica LUX Grip is $395 / 310 €. A leather carrying case is an additional $70 / 65 €. At the time of publishing, and through 31 December 2026, Leica is offering a bundle: for the price of the LUX Grip, you also receive the carrying case and a one-year subscription to the Leica LUX PRO App.

Does the LUX Grip make the iPhone better at photography? Does it make iPhone photography steadier and reduce screen interactions? Yes and no.

Ergonomically speaking, any add-on grip is an improvement over holding the thin slabs that our smartphones have become. However, in striving for a simple, elegant design, Leica’s hardware designers seem to have disregarded how human hands actually hold things. Look at the two products below.

Which of those two grips do you think would be more comfortable to hold? If you said the SnapGrip Pro, I’d strongly agree with you, and that’s based on personal experience. The SnapGrip Pro is shaped naturally to be held in the hand and is textured to make it easier to keep hold of. Meanwhile, the LUX Grip is a cylinder, which is simple and elegant, but not ergonomic. And it’s completely smooth. In his review for Digital Camera World, Gareth Bevan called the LUX Grip “not the most comfortable to hold” and said it “doesn’t quite sit right in the hand as you reach up to use the buttons and dials”. He also noted that it “could have really benefited from a leatherette or patterned finish on the underside at least”. Absolutely.

As for reducing screen interactions, it’s a highly qualified yes. Yes, the Leica LUX Grip does have a two-stage shutter button, two other configurable function buttons, and a wheel, and all of these can be operated without looking at them. It’s quite convenient. However, the LUX Grip is only compatible with the Leica LUX App. This is despite the fact that both the LUX Grip and the accompanying LUX App were developed in part by Fjorden—a firm that Leica acquired, that made (and continues to offer) its own smartphone grip which is compatible with multiple camera apps.

This is why I subtitled this article “a shot of physical controls with an app lock-in chaser”. Yes, you get a grip (ergonomically flawed though it may be) and that grip has apps that make photography more convenient. But the grip permanently locks you into the LUX App. And while it’s interesting with its Leica Looks, there are some wonderful camera apps out there—Lux’s Halide and Adobe’s Project Indigo come immediately to mind—that won’t be usable with the LUX Grip unless Leica.

One other point: the SnapGrip Pro and at least some other competitive grips take advantage of their MagSafe connection to the iPhone to charge it. With a 5,000 mAh battery, the SnapGrip Pro can go quite far towards topping up an iPhone’s charge if so desired. Leica doesn’t offer this functionality in the LUX Grip.

The Leica LUX Grip is an attractive piece of kit, and its integration of multiple controls is welcome. It works with the Leica LUX App, which has some interesting features, especially for both current and prospective Leica ecosystem photographers. But its ergonomics are lacking, it’s compatible only with the LUX App, and it doesn’t charge your iPhone. Multiple companies offer more capable iPhone grips. ShiftCam’s SnapGrip Pro has better ergonomics, works with virtually any camera app, and charges your iPhone, all for $89—a 77% discount from the $395 LUX Grip.

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