High-flying drones appear to be on an even faster innovation track than traditional technology.
In
the space of a few years, prices have fallen like rocks as the
capabilities have skyrocketed. They're quickly packing in sensors and
features once thought the sole purview of pro-level flyers.
Extreme
Flyers Micro Drone 2.0 already made a mark by being one of the tiniest
drones — it basically fits in one hand — to carry a camera. Admittedly,
the camera was pretty low-rent, only capable of 640p video.
Micro Drone 3.0, introduced on Tuesday via a new Indiegogo campaign,
upgrades the hardware and capabilities on multiple fronts. It has an
early bird price of $125, but may cost $150 or more when it finally goes
on sale.
Still
tiny, Extreme Flyer's new drone is the first of its size to feature a
user-controlled gimbal equipped with tiny servo motors that will let
pilots control the angle of the camera attached to Drone 3.0's belly.
Additionally,
Drone 3.0 will, according to company representatives, work with
live-streaming apps Periscope and Meerkat and Google Cardboard VR
headsets. These capabilities could add a whole new dimension to
consumer-grade drone activities.
In
addition to these cutting edge updates, the tiny drone can store HD
video in an on-board micro-SD card, stream video directly to your
smartphone via ad-hoc Wi-Fi and offers a simple, two-finger smartphone
control interface. It can fly up to 300 ft. away from your smartphone,
which is fairly typical, but Extreme Flyer also claims that it can fly
in 45 mph winds. That would be a considerable feat for such a tiny
flyer.
If
you don't like the way Micro Drone 3.0 looks, you can spiff it up with
3D printed accouterments, though I'd worry that they’d mess with the
drone's flight capabilities.
Micro Drone 3.0 sound impressive, especially compared to some drones that cost $400 or morefor similar capabilities, but we won't really know how good it is until we get our hand on one.
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