HoloMonitor® M4 Live Cell Analysis System by Phase Holographic Imaging (PHI)

Manufacturer Phase Holographic Imaging (PHI)  |  Available Worldwide
4.9
/
5.0
  |  16 reviews
The HoloMonitor ® live cell imaging system enables long-term non-invasive analysis of cell cultures within your standard incubator. Cell biologists worldwide use PHI’s label-free cell imager to automatically obtain accurate live-cell morphology, migration, and proliferation data as well as multi-well time-lapse videos, down to a single-cell level in real-time.


HoloMonitor<sup>®</sup> M4 Live Cell Analysis System by Phase Holographic Imaging (PHI) product image
HoloMonitor fits your standard incubator
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Average Rating: 4.9
16 Scientists have reviewed this product

5 out of 5
Ease of use
5 out of 5
After sales service
5 out of 5
Value for money


  • Status:

    Reviewer
  • Member since: 2022

  • Organization: Bayer AG



  • Ease of use
    4 out of 5
    After sales service
    5 out of 5
    Value for money
    5 out of 5
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Big bang for buck, but can be quite labor-intensive.
Rating: 4.7

  • Application Area: Analyse cells morphologically in adherent cultures at single cell level

"A high value for money product. Easy to use and gives nice insights into adherent cell cultures and how they develop. The technological approach is very advanced and offers a high potential for the future. However, the device is very sensible to vibrations and generates often artifacts, so many images must be excluded manually. An advanced algorithm which can detect such artifacts and could automatically exclude them from analysis, as opposed to manually selecting the ones which should be analyzed, would be preferred to reduce user workload. Also a better algorithm for image segmentation (perhaps based on machine learning) would be highly preferred (also for later analysis based on image parameters)."

Review date: 20 Sep 2022 | HoloMonitor® M4 Live Cell Analysis System

Manufacturer's Response

Hey, Martin! Thanks for providing us with detailed feedback about your experience with HoloMonitor. We take every opportunity to improve our product to fit customers' needs. HoloMonitor analyzes over 30 different parameters for every single cell and therefore generates tons of data which sometimes can be labor-intensive. Our team will continue to improve the algorithms to provide our users with a better experience. Let us know if we can assist you in any way.
  • Status:

    Reviewer

  • Member since: 2022

  • Organization: Max Planck Institute for Medical Research



  • Ease of use
    5 out of 5
    After sales service
    5 out of 5
    Value for money
    5 out of 5
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The results add great value to all our toxicity studies!
Rating: 5.0

  • Application Area:Proliferation analysis for toxicity testing

"The system is very easy to use and generates high-quality, reproducible results. Dedicated data analysis offers detailed information on cell proliferation frequency, cell division duration, cell morphology and cell motility to precisely assess additive toxicity."

Review date: 01 Aug 2022 | HoloMonitor® M4 Live Cell Analysis System

Manufacturer's Response

Hallo, Jessica! We are happy to hear that you get the high-quality and reproducible results you want with your HoloMonitor system. Thank you for sharing your feedback with other scientists.
  • Status:

    Reviewer

  • Member since: 2022

  • Organization: Umeå University



  • Ease of use
    5 out of 5
    After sales service
    5 out of 5
    Value for money
    5 out of 5
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HoloMonitor is an excellent microscope
Rating: 5.0

  • Application Area:Analyze the morphology and behavior of cancer cells under anti-cancer treatment.

"The HoloMonitor machine is efficient for operating up to 96 samples simultaneously. Holomonitor can provide high-quality images and time-lapse movies. We always get professional operation instructions and data analysis suggestions from the service team."

Review date: 02 Jul 2022 | HoloMonitor® M4 Live Cell Analysis System

Manufacturer's Response

Thanks for sharing your experience with us, Tianyan! HoloMonitor is developed by and for biologists, and our team is always happy to provide fast and professional support to our customers.
  • Status:

    Reviewer

  • Member since: 2021

  • Organization: Lund University



  • Ease of use
    5 out of 5
    After sales service
    5 out of 5
    Value for money
    5 out of 5
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Great live cell imaging system with a wide range of data and parameters!
Rating: 5.0

  • Application Area:Analyze migration, morphology and cell growth

"I am using HoloMonitor system for analyzing migration, morphology, and cell growth of cells from cell lines and primary cells, and I am very happy with the imaging system and using it a lot in my research. It is easy to use and you can get amazing data: videos/images of the cells (2D, 3D, magnifications, etc) and a range of different parameters from one single experiment. I believe it is a big advantage that it is label-free and inside the incubator, making it a more stable, "natural" milieu and less interference with the cells, and also it enables long experiments. Great microscope!"

Review date: 23 Nov 2021 | HoloMonitor® M4 Live Cell Analysis System

Manufacturer's Response

Thanks a million for sharing your experience, Frida. When you and your cells are happy with HoloMonitor, we are as well! Let us know whenever we can support you further in your research.
  • Status:

    Reviewer

  • Member since: 2021

  • Organization: Novo Nordisk



  • Ease of use
    5 out of 5
    After sales service
    5 out of 5
    Value for money
    5 out of 5
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Best microscope I've tried so far - worth every penny
Rating: 5.0

  • Application Area:Vascular cell biology

"This microscope is perfectly suited for our cell culture under flow application as well as many other types of experiments where tracking cell behaviour and motility in real-time is a must. Because it even provides morphology data in 3D we now have insights into what the cells are doing at a level which we simply could not achieve before. Highly recommended."

Review date: 18 Nov 2021 | HoloMonitor® M4 Live Cell Analysis System

Manufacturer's Response

Thank you for sharing your feedback, Markus. Our team is happy to see that HoloMonitor is what you have been looking for in your cell culture under flow application.
  • Status:

    Reviewer

  • Member since: 2021

  • Organization: Stanford University School of Medicine



  • Ease of use
    5 out of 5
    After sales service
    5 out of 5
    Value for money
    5 out of 5
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I like and recommend this device.
Rating: 5.0

  • Application Area:Differential cytotoxicity screening

"The HoloMonitor M4 is a beneficial device for live-cell imaging, providing a lot of data. The device does not require large space and the software application is user-friendly, while recorded pictures look great. The good thing is that you can analyze your experiment using one software assay, and later, you can rerun the recorded data in another assay, which allows you to get the maximum from your experiment. I like it and would recommend it to all people doing a cytotoxicity assessment based on cell proliferation and optical thickness of the adherent unstained cells. Cell migration tracing is another application I like and recommend."

Review date: 03 Nov 2021 | HoloMonitor® M4 Live Cell Analysis System

Manufacturer's Response

Hello Sasa! We are glad to hear that you easily get the data you are after. And that you can maximize the results from every experiment setup by combining the different HoloMonitor live cell assays! Thank you for sharing your experience.
  • Status:

    Reviewer

  • Member since: 2021

  • Organization: San Jose State University



  • Ease of use
    5 out of 5
    After sales service
    5 out of 5
    Value for money
    5 out of 5
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An affordable, powerful, indispensable part of our research program.
Rating: 5.0

  • Application Area:Imaging heart muscle cell responses

"I'm the principal investigator of a small research group at a public primarily undergraduate institution. Even considering our limited resources, I believe that the Holomonitor M4 is a fairly priced system and is definitely worth the investment. It has truly been and will remain a critical component of our research program. Our microscope lives directly in our cell culture incubator and allows us to see how various treatments affect our cells in real-time with three-dimensional single-cell resolution - it's amazing! The Holomonitor App Suite software is particularly powerful allowing us to quantify changes in cell morphology and movement. Importantly, I also think this instrument is great for education and my students are absolutely fascinated by the quality and beauty of the videos produced. This system is intuitive to operate and it is very effective in generating label-free long duration time-lapse videos. We dissociate complex tissues containing a mixed population of cells for culture, and with the Holomonitor M4 we are able to easily distinguish different cell types by their unique size, shape, and movement patterns. We can't wait to see what new biology we will discover with this innovative approach! I highly recommend it!"

Review date: 20 Oct 2021 | HoloMonitor® M4 Live Cell Analysis System

Manufacturer's Response

Our team is excited to hear that your students cannot get enough of watching their beautiful cells! We thrive that HoloMonitor is an incubator microscope for any cell lab by making it high-quality but affordable and easy-to-use everyday lab equipment. Thank you, Alexander!
  • Status:

    Reviewer

  • Member since: 2021

  • Organization: BioSpherix



  • Ease of use
    5 out of 5
    After sales service
    5 out of 5
    Value for money
    5 out of 5
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I miss the HoloMonitor every day.
Rating: 5.0

  • Application Area:Analyze the migration, health, and multiplication of numerous cell types

"The HoloMonitor system is easier to use than I would have expected from a product with such a range, and the software makes it a breeze to produce and reproduce, high-quality analyses of cell growth. We discovered new avenues of investigation when we could gather such detailed reports on how cells behaved in real time. For too long, in vitro cell culture has had to gather evidence in the dark. Using the HoloMonitor lets us monitor our cells as closely as we wanted to, and showing others actual footage of our results was priceless!"

Review date: 12 Oct 2021 | HoloMonitor® M4 Live Cell Analysis System

Manufacturer's Response

Thank you for your review, Stassa! You are right — continuous live cell imaging brings light to the unknown behind closed incubator doors. Also, our software team is happy to hear about the ease of use for you. We develop HoloMonitor together with cell biologists to make it a live cell analysis tool for and by researchers.
  • Status:

    Reviewer

  • Member since: 2017

  • Organization: BioSpherix



  • Ease of use
    5 out of 5
    After sales service
    5 out of 5
    Value for money
    5 out of 5
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A wealth of hidden information revealed.
Rating: 5.0

  • Application Area:Cell biology

"The HoloMonitor gave us an amazing view into what was going on with our cells during incubation. We used it to watch cells settle to the bottom of 96-well plates after seeding. We found a temperature-dependence of the cell settling patterns in edge wells. We got beautiful movies of the cell motion, and the analysis software showed us the combined vectors of cell rolling in each well. The tools were not difficult to learn. It was amazing to think that we had been missing all of these things that happen every day in the lab to our cells. A wealth of information was revealed."

Review date: 11 Oct 2021 | HoloMonitor® M4 Live Cell Analysis System

Manufacturer's Response

Alicia, we are thrilled to hear that HoloMonitor live cell imaging and all the provided data have helped you to understand your cell cultures better in their everyday cell lives.
  • Status:

    Reviewer

  • Member since: 2021

  • Organization: GENETHON



  • Ease of use
    5 out of 5
    After sales service
    5 out of 5
    Value for money
    5 out of 5
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This instrument eases cell segmentation and enables morphology follow-up. Great !
Rating: 5.0

  • Application Area:Morphology analysis of non-adherent hematopoietic stem cells

"We have studied cell morphology on non-adherent cells. It is a challenge to track cells in suspension, however, with the HoloMonitor system, we were able to take time-lapse images of cells trapped inside silicon (PDMS) microwells. Image segmentation is very efficient and allowed us to analyze the morphology of hundreds of cells in a label-free way. The analyse of untouched cells really benefits the label-free aspect, avoiding any interferences with any staining of any cell manipulation. This instrument is versatile and user-friendly."

Review date: 11 Oct 2021 | HoloMonitor® M4 Live Cell Analysis System

Manufacturer's Response

Thank you for your feedback, Jérémie! We truly believe in running non-invasive assays in cell-based research to achieve relevant results. And our QPI technology makes it possible to extract high-content cell morphology data automatically while leaving, as you said, precious cells untouched.


  • Status:

    Reviewer

  • Member since: 2019

  • Organization: Lund University



  • Ease of use
    4 out of 5
    After sales service
    5 out of 5
    Value for money
    5 out of 5
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Every lab should have one!
Rating: 4.7

  • Application Area:Single cell analysis for cell proliferation, migration and bulk analysis

"The beauty is in the single-cell analysis The microscope creates amazing time-lapse movies, and it is very easy to set up for time-lapse imaging. High incubator humidity to reduce media evaporation does, however, require regular service to clean the internal optics of the incubator tolerant microscope. Population-level cell analysis is faster and more convenient, but the absolute beauty of the microscope is the single-cell tracking and analysis. Though it is a bit frustrating sometimes, to know that there is a huge amount of data and time-lapse movies of single-cell tracking on my computer, and not enough time to analyze it. Also, the price is amazingly low. Every lab should have one!"

Review date: 19 Sep 2019 | HoloMonitor® M4 Live Cell Analysis System
  • Status:

    Reviewer

  • Member since: 2019

  • Organization: University of Utah



  • Ease of use
    3 out of 5
    After sales service
    5 out of 5
    Value for money
    5 out of 5
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Excellent instrument with great customer support and varied applications.
Rating: 4.3

  • Application Area:Analysis of cell movement and growth.

"There is a bit of a steep learning curve for figuring out how to use the instrument and analyze the data, but once mastered, the HoloMonitor M4 is extremely convenient and useful for cell counting, proliferation assays, cell motility and migration assays, analysis of cell morphology and monitoring of cell heterogeneity and plasticity. The manufacturer also provides incredible support and instruction for learning how to use the instrument. It has become a staple for my lab both for daily tissue culture use (cell counting, looking at cells) and more complex live-imaging experiments."

Review date: 15 Aug 2019 | HoloMonitor® M4 Live Cell Analysis System
  • Status:

    Reviewer

  • Member since: 2019

  • Organization: The University of Edinburgh



  • Ease of use
    5 out of 5
    After sales service
    5 out of 5
    Value for money
    5 out of 5
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The HoloMonitor is a fantastic tool when studying biophysical properties of cells.
Rating: 5.0

  • Application Area:Regenerative medicine

"We are very happy with the HoloMonitor M4. It is very easy to use, produces consistent results (for nearly 4 years) and is a great way to gather a lot of quantitative biophysical metrics on adherent cells in a label-free and real-time way. The after sales service is great, and we had fast answers to our questions and access to online assistance."

Review date: 15 Aug 2019 | HoloMonitor® M4 Live Cell Analysis System
  • Status:

    Reviewer

  • Member since: 2019

  • Organization: Malmö University



  • Ease of use
    5 out of 5
    After sales service
    5 out of 5
    Value for money
    5 out of 5
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Great results in no time!
Rating: 5.0

  • Application Area:Analyze cell viability and cell characterization with different treatments

"With DHC we can easily do time-lapse analyses with different cell types and with different treatments. Not only cell analysis but also migration studies and motility assays. Easy to set up, run and analyze."

Review date: 09 Aug 2019 | HoloMonitor® M4 Live Cell Analysis System
  • Status:

    Reviewer

  • Member since: 2018

  • Organization: Malmö University



  • Ease of use
    5 out of 5
    After sales service
    5 out of 5
    Value for money
    5 out of 5
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Every laboratory working with cell cultures should have a HoloMonitor.
Rating: 5.0

  • Application Area:Cancer cell cultures and the measurement of viability, death and motility

"The HoloMonitor provides the expert methodology for label-free imaging of living cells. The measurements are non-invasive, meaning that no fluorescent probes or dyes are used, which otherwise could affect the behaviour of the cells. The generated data can easily be analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively with the provided software. We use the HoloMonitor for studying the effect of drugs on cell morphology, viability, death and motility of cancer cells. With this innovative technique, we can monitor cells over time and get reproducible results that are presented as images, time-lapse movies or diagrams. We have gained a lot by using the incubator-safe Holomonitor in our lab. The sales representatives are always helpful and easy to reach when we have questions or challenges with the techniqe. The HoloMonitor is very useful for everyone working in the cell biology and biomedicine area."

Review date: 09 Aug 2019 | HoloMonitor® M4 Live Cell Analysis System
  • Status:

    Reviewer

  • Member since: 2019

  • Organization: Lund University



  • Ease of use
    5 out of 5
    After sales service
    5 out of 5
    Value for money
    5 out of 5
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A new world opens up when you can follow your cells life in real-time.
Rating: 5.0

  • Application Area:Migration, proliferation

"It is very easy to set up an experiment. It could be time consuming to analyze the images taken in H-studio, but it is much more efficient in AppSuite once you know what you want to look for. With the HoloMonitor M4 your experiments are really performed in real-time."

Review date: 08 Aug 2019 | HoloMonitor® M4 Live Cell Analysis System

A Live Cell Analysis Tool for everyone in your lab.

  • Non-invasive: Detailed kinetic cell morphology data without fluorescence.
  • Compact: Small footprint to fit your standard incubator.
  • Affordable: Not all live cell imaging systems have to be expensive.
  • Automated: Automatic single-cell tracking of all individual cells in real-time.
  • Easy-to-use: Intuitive software to guide you from imaging to analysis.
  • Time-efficient: Multiple results from one sample with this 8-in-1 live cell analysis tool.

The compact HoloMonitor cell culture microscope facilitates label-free single-cell analysis on a population level. With this quantitative live-cell imaging system, any cell research lab is equipped for long-term non-invasive analysis of their cell cultures within a standard incubator. 

Without the need for any cellular labels or stains, HoloMonitor uses digital holographic microscopy (DHM) with quantitative phase imaging (QPI) to record cells in real-time. The result is real 3D images & videos and accurate quantitative data on your cultures, all the way down to single-cell level – collected in a completely non-invasive way.
HoloMonitor is ideal for long-term kinetic studies. Images can be recorded with high temporal resolution (maximum image rate: 1 image/s), ensuring that important cellular events are not overlooked.

All HoloMonitor live cell assays are non-destructive. Label-free assays not only reduce the risk of unwanted toxicity. They also allow cell samples to be reused, as no reagents are added to the sample. Hence, they save time and money.

Furthermore, recorded time-lapse images can at any time be reanalyzed using other HoloMonitor live cell assays. In that way, multiple results are obtained from the same cell sample and experiment. HoloMonitor is designed for and by biologists to meet the demand of researchers to increase assay reproducibility, analysis efficiency, and productivity in the cell lab.

The HoloMonitor software offers a variety of live cell assays – all having the same straight-forward assay setup and following you through automated image analysis, result presentation, and data export.

HoloMonitor Key Applications – as seen in 200+ peer-reviewed publications worldwide:

  • Kinetic Cell Morphology (with data on 30+ parameters)
  • In-depth Single Cell Tracking & Analysis
  • Kinetic Cell Motility & Migration
  • Wound Healing (Scratch assay) | Chemotaxis
  • Kinetic Cell Proliferation
  • Cell Growth | Cell Division | Cell Cycle
  • Cell Differentiation
  • Kinetic Drug Dose-Response
  • Cytotoxicity | Cell Death
  • Cell Counter
  • Cell Quality Control (QC) 

Why use HoloMonitor?

  • Run automated live-cell assays 24/7 directly inside your standard incubator
  • Image your cells non-invasively – no labels or toxic stains needed
  • Get real-time quantitative data on both single cells & cell populations
  • Generate multiple results from one experiment setup using the re-analysis functionality
  • Study cell proliferation, morphology, and movement behavior at the same time
  • Save time with intuitive software & guided workflow developed by biologists

Product Overview

HoloMonitor<sup>®</sup> M4 Live Cell Analysis System by Phase Holographic Imaging (PHI) product image

HoloMonitor® M4 Live Cell Analysis System

Manufacturer Phase Holographic Imaging (PHI)  |  Available Worldwide

4.9 / 5.0 | 16 reviews