Healthy drones replacement

  • Thread starter Deleted member 61170
  • Start date
D

Deleted member 61170

Guest
Hey!

I'm looking to build a healthy drones replacement over the next three months. A few people have seemed quite interested over in the P3 area!
Just wanted to see if you P4 owners using Litchi or Autopilot would also appreciate another service to choose from?

Other things that would be great to know are: must have features, nice to have features, pricing structure


Hope the weather is better than it is in the UK right now - I've been wanting to get out and fly for days!
 
All the best. Keep it free. :)
 
So unlimited flights regardless of version with a 'Buy me a coffee button' and perhaps an advanced version for those wanting to look at some advanced stats?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Phantomix
This.

It's the reason I won't use Happy Drones. If you can generate your revenue with ad content. Or make a Standard and Pro version. Only certain data is accessible unless you go pro.
I'd consider the ad revenue option, but the income is not guaranteed to cover the maintenance and hosting costs. I need to either find some initial funding before I go down that route, or alternatively keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best!

I do like the sound of a standard and pro version, but like many others here hate the pricing structure of healthy drones. It's excessively expensive for what it is. Realistically, they should be charging $5 per month for their top, top package.
 
I have to ask - Why?

I get that competition is good and ultimately benefits us all, but do you have design ideas that differ significantly from Healthy Drones and you feel you can add value to the community. Or, as your initial comment might suggest, do you think that Healthy Drones has hit upon a great idea and you want to develop something very similar to take advantage of the work they have already done.

*IF* you are breaking new ground, adding to the tools available to this burgeoning industry and doing the hard work of requirements gathering, use case analysis, application architecture and design yourself, then GO FOR IT WITH ALL YOU'VE GOT!! We need more imaginative people building the tools we will need to prosper in this business! And expect to be rewarded for your work.

If, however, you are just going to copy someone else's work, then find something else to do with your talents.

Full Monty:
I am a Pro subscriber to Healthy Drones.
I am a partner/co-founder in a software development company (custom solutions for Public Safety industry).
I value my own intellectual property (it has paid my way for over 11 years) and the IP of others.
Our company has had very popular products that we developed from scratch copied by others and given away for free.
We are still successful and we are humbled by the loyalty and encouragement of our clients.
 
I have to ask - Why?

I get that competition is good and ultimately benefits us all, but do you have design ideas that differ significantly from Healthy Drones and you feel you can add value to the community. Or, as your initial comment might suggest, do you think that Healthy Drones has hit upon a great idea and you want to develop something very similar to take advantage of the work they have already done.

*IF* you are breaking new ground, adding to the tools available to this burgeoning industry and doing the hard work of requirements gathering, use case analysis, application architecture and design yourself, then GO FOR IT WITH ALL YOU'VE GOT!! We need more imaginative people building the tools we will need to prosper in this business! And expect to be rewarded for your work.

If, however, you are just going to copy someone else's work, then find something else to do with your talents.

Full Monty:
I am a Pro subscriber to Healthy Drones.
I am a partner/co-founder in a software development company (custom solutions for Public Safety industry).
I value my own intellectual property (it has paid my way for over 11 years) and the IP of others.
Our company has had very popular products that we developed from scratch copied by others and given away for free.
We are still successful and we are humbled by the loyalty and encouragement of our clients.
Thank you, these are all very valid points!

My reasoning behind it is quite simply because I want flight data to be more accessible... $15 per month is a lot for anyone to part with, and I think a lot would agree that it's excessive. To be fair though, if you have the money to buy a phantom, the cost of a $15pm subscription may appear negligible, however we're all in different financial boats.

There are a few features that I'd like to implement that are unique, but equally many that will be effectively copied as far as functionality goes.

To conclude, I want to do this to increase accessibility to some awesome tools, improve my programming skills, add some cool features, have some fun, use up my 3 month Uni vacation and maybe even get me a little beer money for when the new term starts* ;-)

*i do not endorse drunk flying. That is a bad bad thing to do.
 
Thank you, these are all very valid points!

My reasoning behind it is quite simply because I want flight data to be more accessible... $15 per month is a lot for anyone to part with, and I think a lot would agree that it's excessive. To be fair though, if you have the money to buy a phantom, the cost of a $15pm subscription may appear negligible, however we're all in different financial boats.

There are a few features that I'd like to implement that are unique, but equally many that will be effectively copied as far as functionality goes.

To conclude, I want to do this to increase accessibility to some awesome tools, improve my programming skills, add some cool features, have some fun, use up my 3 month Uni vacation and maybe even get me a little beer money for when the new term starts* ;-)

*i do not endorse drunk flying. That is a bad bad thing to do.

Good! Really encouraged to hear that you're planning to introduce new features and using your summer productively.

This brings up another question ...

Since you're framing this as a summer project (great idea, by the way!!), have you considered what you will do to provide longer term support? For people to really get on board with it, there will be an expectation that it will be supported at some level and that you will continue to develop the site beyond the fall.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Gpanek
Good that there is competition fur healthy drones.. Healthy drones is great and I am a paying subscriber, but it is too expensive.. When your the only game in town that sells a good product, you can basically charge whatever you want. Healthy drones was free when it started, just a few months later it was a tiered, pay service.. It wouldn't surprise me if in the next couple months we see another price increase from them as well.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jogforfitness
Good! Really encouraged to hear that you're planning to introduce new features and using your summer productively.

This brings up another question ...

Since you're framing this as a summer project (great idea, by the way!!), have you considered what you will do to provide longer term support? For people to really get on board with it, there will be an expectation that it will be supported at some level and that you will continue to develop the site beyond the fall.
I have two other people that will be helping me develop this, and hopefully if their interest persists they will continue to provide support throughout the 7 months of the year that I'm at University.
I've been running a small web dev company now for as long as I can remember, and haven't had any issues with providing support to my clients thus far. If it does begin to generate revenue, I will look at perhaps finding more people to further develop the site in addition to providing 24/7 support. I also work part time for the Innovation Centre at the University of Birmingham, and they're very interested in drone-related developments at the moment, so it's possible I'll be able to get funding from them to cover any freelance work or support staff required once the service has been launched.

Thank you so much for lightly grilling me - it definitely helps me reflect on things that need to be considered!
 
I have two other people that will be helping me develop this, and hopefully if their interest persists they will continue to provide support throughout the 7 months of the year that I'm at University.
I've been running a small web dev company now for as long as I can remember, and haven't had any issues with providing support to my clients thus far. If it does begin to generate revenue, I will look at perhaps finding more people to further develop the site in addition to providing 24/7 support. I also work part time for the Innovation Centre at the University of Birmingham, and they're very interested in drone-related developments at the moment, so it's possible I'll be able to get funding from them to cover any freelance work or support staff required once the service has been launched.

Thank you so much for lightly grilling me - it definitely helps me reflect on things that need to be considered!

Good answer! Keep us posted on your progress.
 
Monthly sub is a bad idea
Care to expand? Do you prefer yearly sub?
Aye,

I'm not a fan of the idea of selling on a per-flight basis as HD currently do, and the only alternative I can think of is a monthly sub. Unfortunately it's near enough impossible to charge one off fees for this kinda thing as the overheads are not one off investments (i.e. hosting, support etc...). If you have an alternative pricing structure though, I'd be glad to hear it!

We don't want to limit anyone at all- the idea thus far is to have a free and advanced plan, both of which will allow you to have unlimited flights, just one with more features. But even then, I imagine the pro version should come at a cost of no more than $5 per month. The idea, after all, is to keep it accessible and affordable for all!
 
  • Like
Reactions: jogforfitness
Good that there is competition fur healthy drones.. Healthy drones is great and I am a paying subscriber, but it is too expensive.. When your the only game in town that sells a good product, you can basically charge whatever you want. Healthy drones was free when it started, just a few months later it was a tiered, pay service.. It wouldn't surprise me if in the next couple months we see another price increase from them as well.
As a student I completely understand the frustration of overpriced services, and I believe that's one of the things that will drive me to keep the price as low as possible whilst keeping the lights on, whilst providing an equally great (if not better) service!
 
  • Like
Reactions: jogforfitness
I'm not a fan of the idea of selling on a per-flight basis as HD currently do
You might soon be if you consider the cost of storing that kind of data. My log viewer stores about 1 MB of data per uploaded log file. Currently, 637,772 logs have been uploaded to Healthy Drones. Assuming Healthy Drones is storing about the same amount of data as me, that means they are currently housing about 637 GB of log data.
 
So I would like to know total flight time, total distance flow per flight and for all flights. Analysis of the flight, error messages, battery life, usage. Maintenance tracking and checklist would be a good idea. Ability to report maintenance and other reports. Reports is my concern with my HD gold account. No reports and so I could go for Pro but the pricing model is based on the number of flights. The more optional data you can figure out from the data would be great. Also, I would want to be able to up load the data from both DJI and Litchi software (and I guess the other 3rd parties). Apps to automate that would be a great benefit.

I would like you to figure a model that makes sense of keeping the records. I'm concerned with more than my current hobby use but moving on to commercial. There are commercial systems but I'm not in a position to justify the cost yet.

I have one P3A but I had to pay HD for 8 aircraft to get 600 flights and maintenance. I would have to pay for 16 aircraft and get 1500 flights to also get reports. But the flights don't stick. I would like to be able to offload the detailed information before it is deleted. So by year. Generate data. Then second year generated data. Third year the first year's data will be deleted in XX days, download your reports/data if you need the data.

I would be up for a reasonable annual fee. I would suggest monthly too so guys that balk at the annual fee could get their feet wet unless you offer like a trial basis.

I know I was blown away by HD when I loaded all my logs from DJI and Litchi...but the inability to keep the data and generate reports is lacking. Thanks!
 

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
143,066
Messages
1,467,358
Members
104,936
Latest member
hirehackers