New USA drone maker.

[GMack]

Skydio — The self-flying camera has arrived.

Bit pricey at $2,500 though. Cool videos of it flying while chasing people in a dense forest. The artificial intelligence part of it surpasses the current DJI lineup too.

Interesting why they felt six blade props were better than two (Noise?). Needs more memory, or at least removable. Maybe longer run time than 16 minutes too. But looks like it flies really well given MIT designed it.

Don't think it has the NFZ built-into it (yet) as DJI has done either; i.e. "Just stay out of a 5 mile radius of airports" in their FAQs.

 

[alokbhargava]

I like its form factor and number of sensors.

 

[CANEKiTA]

 

[N017RW]

With regards to blades... we’ve discussed many times the pros/cons/etc of blade count but in order to utilize the power available or required within the disc diameter design goals or constraints you need to add blades so I doubt noise is the primary reason.

IMHO

 

[captainmilehigh]

Impressive features. Kinda’ sounds like my little Hubsan H4 that bounces off everything in the house on rainy days.

Is a bit pricy though, but they are on the right track on advancements.

 

[Meta4]

A video only selfie drone with Wi-Fi range 300 ft and fancy technology for $2500.
It won't be eating into the Phantom market much.
If they can make enough money to stay in business, perhaps they will come up with some more useful models.

 

[Just_nick]

A video only selfie drone with Wi-Fi range 300 ft and fancy technology for $2500.
It won't be eating into the Phantom market much.
If they can make enough money to stay in business, perhaps they will come up with some more useful models.

It's an entirely different concept, it's like seeing a Corvette and saying it won't eat into the Dodge Grand Caravan market. Of course it won't touch the Phantom market, it's not designed to. The Mavic is closer to DJI's selfie drone, with its folding form, tracking features, and photo modes, except it has many limitations that make it far from autonomous. DJI has nothing to compete with this, because their currently-implemented technology is too far behind this.

 

[Meta4]

It's an entirely different concept, it's like seeing a Corvette and saying it won't eat into the Dodge Grand Caravan market. Of course it won't touch the Phantom market, it's not designed to. The Mavic is closer to DJI's selfie drone, with its folding form, tracking features, and photo modes, except it has many limitations that make it far from autonomous. DJI has nothing to compete with this, because their currently-implemented technology is too far behind this.

It's appealing to the people that might buy the Spark.
But you'd have to want the autonomy a lot to pay $2500 when the Spark is only $400.
(And not want much in the way of manual control).

 

[Just_nick]

It's appealing to the people that might buy the Spark.
But you'd have to want the autonomy a lot to pay $2500 when the Spark is only $400.
(And not want much in the way of manual control).

The Spark is pretty much a toy. This is more technologically-advanced than everything DJI has, including their professional line.
You don’t buy this for manual control, or for the 4K 60fps from a P4P, you buy this because you want an autonomous device that trumps everything on the market.

 

[AndrewCCM]

Perfect for the narcissist in everybody...

 

[Meta4]

The Spark is pretty much a toy. This is more technologically-advanced than everything DJI has, including their professional line.
You don’t buy this for manual control, or for the 4K 60fps from a P4P, you buy this because you want an autonomous device that trumps everything on the market.

And this is also a toy ... one with some impressive technology, but still a toy.
If you want to shoot selfie video, it looks great but all the high tech packed into it is absolutely useless for anything else.
It has very limited functionality - less than the Spark.

 

[mtnstream]

Needs a 3 axis gimbal, it’s a Bebop/Spark repeat with better tech.

Why not pull a page out of Chinese playbook and copy dji
tech, made by a US Company, sold in USA and undercut
Chinese pricing?

 

[pe9999]

Needs a 3 axis gimbal, it’s a Bebop/Spark repeat with better tech.

Why not pull a page out of Chinese playbook and copy dji
tech, made by a US Company, sold in USA and undercut
Chinese pricing?

Is this your American dream moment?
Where can you find an us investor willing to waste his money in your idea?

 

[nhoover]

Yes Skydio R1 only does one thing but WOW does it work. I have flown all the DJI drones since P2V and they have nothing like this at all. I literally could not make it fail. Skydio has Lead Mode working via predicting movement 4 seconds ahead. They are putting those 256 GPU cores to good use for sure. It's expensive (just the Nvidia Jetson costs $300) but feels very high quality. Here's a quick clip from one of my tests yesterday.

I've tried less ambitious shots with the Mavic - since it doesn't have side and rear obstacle avoidance and I spent an hour and burned through 3 full batteries just getting this footage (I included everything usable - the rest of the time was wasted when it continually lost me). I tried again a year later (Dec 2017) and it was the same.

 

[GMack]

Yes Skydio R1 only does one thing but WOW does it work. I have flown all the DJI drones since P2V and they have nothing like this at all. I literally could not make it fail. Skydio has Lead Mode working via predicting movement 4 seconds ahead. They are putting those 256 GPU cores to good use for sure. It's expensive (just the Nvidia Jetson costs $300) but feels very high quality. Here's a quick clip from one of my tests yesterday.

I've tried less ambitious shots with the Mavic - since it doesn't have side and rear obstacle avoidance and I spent an hour and burned through 3 full batteries just getting this footage (I included everything usable - the rest of the time was wasted when it continually lost me). I tried again a year later (Dec 2017) and it was the same.

It does seem to frame much better as well as getting ahead when needed instead of behind as with the DJI. Wonder if they will continue to update the flying characteristics and if it will be by the user or them?

Wonder how long it will take DJI to reverse engineer it into one of their products? Given the Skydio doesn't need GPS (It has one but doesn't need it so they claim.) and uses its 13 cameras for mapping the flight, it might be a while. Hopefully their service and support will be better too. I wish them luck!

 

[Just Mark]

Yes Skydio R1 only does one thing but WOW does it work. I have flown all the DJI drones since P2V and they have nothing like this at all. I literally could not make it fail. Skydio has Lead Mode working via predicting movement 4 seconds ahead. They are putting those 256 GPU cores to good use for sure. It's expensive (just the Nvidia Jetson costs $300) but feels very high quality. Here's a quick clip from one of my tests yesterday.

I've tried less ambitious shots with the Mavic - since it doesn't have side and rear obstacle avoidance and I spent an hour and burned through 3 full batteries just getting this footage (I included everything usable - the rest of the time was wasted when it continually lost me). I tried again a year later (Dec 2017) and it was the same.

Cool vids.

 

[kyrvas]

Yes Skydio R1 only does one thing but WOW does it work. I have flown all the DJI drones since P2V and they have nothing like this at all. I literally could not make it fail. Skydio has Lead Mode working via predicting movement 4 seconds ahead. They are putting those 256 GPU cores to good use for sure. It's expensive (just the Nvidia Jetson costs $300) but feels very high quality. Here's a quick clip from one of my tests yesterday.

I've tried less ambitious shots with the Mavic - since it doesn't have side and rear obstacle avoidance and I spent an hour and burned through 3 full batteries just getting this footage (I included everything usable - the rest of the time was wasted when it continually lost me). I tried again a year later (Dec 2017) and it was the same.

Thanks for the videos nHoover. The Skydio R1 flying between those trees impressed me; it appeared to drop lower to avoid the branches; I also noticed the smaller branches it avoided which some P4Ps were reported to not avoid in time.

Since I fly around trees, this would be useful. However, the $2500 price and not yet having apparent user control of the camera for creative video will keep me watching its development progress.

 

[elsapo2001]

A video only selfie drone with Wi-Fi range 300 ft and fancy technology for $2500.
It won't be eating into the Phantom market much.
If they can make enough money to stay in business, perhaps they will come up with some more useful models.

I doubt this company and product will be viable for long. The market for 2500 dollar selfie drones is not big.

 

[GMack]

I'm curious as to what the warranty is since this thing seems not to be able to crash. Fly away coverage should it happen, etc.

 

[AndrewCCM]

The ‘look at me... look at me’ drone. While $2500 seems expensive, there are many other expensive products that the youth these days seem to fawn over when it comes to self-absorption...But I digress...