I grabbed one today from BestBuy, but I'm not exactly sure why. They're not supposed to be out for a week or two, so there was some impulse involved. It's raining here, so that will give me a chance to leave it packaged up in case I decide to return. 11 minute battery. Pffft.
The first true rival to DJI...... Parrot Bebop?
- Thread starter freefall101
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God **** you man, I would be tempted as well, I would probably take it with the controller and hook up my ipad. Test it at home and give us your feedback 
Modding AR.Drone 2 to fly 1km+ was a lot of fun/risk. Bebop Drone is a must buy to me. I treat it as an upgrade of P2V+ in terms of size, weight, portability and open architecture SDK. A local early adopter claimed it lifting 4600mAh battery without problem. Can't wait to get the drone with Skycontroller.
Risk is our business:PVFlyer said:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toG6aSQFF7Y[/youtube]
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I wouldn't buy that thing for half of that price. I expected to see a 200-300 price tag when I clicked through the pre-order. 500 for tablet control? :lol:
Now I am seriously considering Bebop. Maybe a bit of an downgrade with certain things but incredibly smooth image and horizon always visible without props at full speed ahead...
The Solid State Gimbal adds value. A LOT less chance breaking the camera sub-system; important for a mass-marketed item.
More human-like rolling an eye ball than turning a head; may appear less intrusive.
Parrots knows new battery technologies are not far from the market.
When so, that should increase the flight time to acceptable levels.
One Thing for Sure; its video recording quality is less than the P2V or GoPro mounted options.
So, that puts it in a different market niche: smaller, less intrusive, etc.
More human-like rolling an eye ball than turning a head; may appear less intrusive.
Parrots knows new battery technologies are not far from the market.
When so, that should increase the flight time to acceptable levels.
One Thing for Sure; its video recording quality is less than the P2V or GoPro mounted options.
So, that puts it in a different market niche: smaller, less intrusive, etc.
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freefall101 said:
Sadly, a number of reports already confirm the BeBop has the flyaway disease! This is almost a perfect record...I myself had my Rolling Spider and AR Drone fly away.....as have many many others.
We're not talking "exception to the rule" here. Check the Amazon and apple store reviews on the Rolling Spider and even the first BeBop reviews.
To talk about this as being competition to DJI is a bit premature! If history is any guide, a new BeBop 2.0 will come out at CES in about 2 years which claims to fix all of the problems.
I really have to scratch my head and wonder if basic programming is THAT HARD that they can't make these things not fly away???
For those who want to hack it and come up with stuff that makes it work....well, that's one thing. But to talk about it as any kind of competition for DJI is like saying a $100 Android tablet has Tim Cook shaking in his boots. Actually, to be fair, the $100 Android tablet actually works.
I am very impressed with the basic innovations in the BeBop. But they all mean nothing if the integrated system does not work. And, for now, it appears it does not. We (I run the droneflyers.com site) bought one for review but it will be a couple weeks before we get too far along with it (if it doesn't fly away).
I'll leave you with just one of many...already...BeBop reviews:
" I was flying the drone outdoors in a big field, with the maximum flight height set to 3 meters. Everything was going great and I was hovering it and flying it around. When I pressed the "Return Home" button, I expected the drone to return across the field to me. Instead, the drone shot straight up into the sky like a rocket, until it was a tiny speck and disappeared completely. This is completely unacceptable! If I press Return Home or if the drone loses signal, it should return to its takeoff point, not fly straight into the sky! I demand a full refund!"
cdronefly said:
It's not. In fact there are so many ways to validate what the drone is doing (sonar, 2 independent GPS units, inertial unit), and subsequently mitigate the observed (abnormal) behavior, it defies any reasonable explanation other than the fact that when something flies away, they may get a new sale to replace it. I mean, they could even just shut the damned motors down and it would be less adverse than a flyaway. It's totally unacceptable, and I wouldn't buy one of those over-priced toys for half the price.
This could be a post from this forum! I've read dozens of such stories involving Phantoms.
I don't believe every drone fly-away story any more than I believe every commercial-pilot-sees-a-drone story.
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HailStorm said:
There is a big difference here. First, I have seen two of my Parrot's fly away early and often...continually....and my Phantom has been around for a year and never misbehaved.
Secondly - and most importantly - it's a matter of statistics. Very few BeBops have been sold. Even fewer have actually flown them. I can already find you 1/2 dozen or more flyaways.....AND, these are not stories of the thing being far away and then flying away. They are stories of a 3 meter ceiling being set and the thing taking off like a rocket, etc.
The BeBop doesn't have lots of switches on the TX and other user-operated stuff which may be set wrong, etc.
It's a matter of stats. So far it's not looking good but we can wait until more come in. Either way the OP idea - that is, that somehow this would eat into the current DJI market (which is mostly in $1100+ quads now) seems like a moot point (IMHO).
What the BeBop could and would do....IF IT WORKED...is open up huge new markets and sell millions of copies as we'd all want one too!
I purchased a bebop from bestbuy as soon as I saw they had them. So did one of my coworkers. We took them to a nearby field and neither would stay connected to wifi on our iPhones. His lost connection and drifted into a tree. I was able to regain connection to mine and immediately returned it. Imo the bebop isn't even in the same category as the phantom. It is utter rubbish.
HailStorm said:
A common pattern to most fly-aways appears to be mostly new drone owners with few flights under their belt.
Heck, I call a bit of panic on my part when I first forced an RTH. I had a brain fart and forgot to toggle back the S2 switch to regain control. My second flight I did not confirm a GPS lock and took off. So, I am a one person data point out of many. Surely others are paying attention even less on their first flights.
Phantom is a professionel toy lookalike drone.
The only sad thing is the 4 and not 6 propellers for the improved safety.
You cant add extra weight on a drone and expect it to run for 25 minutes. 13 minutes are a long time.
You cant use the footage from bepop profesionally. Ya for hobbyist phantom might not be so great, but they made a drone that costs almost nothing compared to the abilities.
The only sad thing is the 4 and not 6 propellers for the improved safety.
You cant add extra weight on a drone and expect it to run for 25 minutes. 13 minutes are a long time.
You cant use the footage from bepop profesionally. Ya for hobbyist phantom might not be so great, but they made a drone that costs almost nothing compared to the abilities.
HailStorm said:
Is there even a "return home" button? Not on the phantom 1 that is. The phantom 1 have the ability to fly home if loosing connection or battery gets low. If loosing connection to the controller, it will shoot up in the air and try and turn home.
It is froundupon to turn off the controller to make it fly home, if somebody does that.
I never had a flyaway, but I have had lost my connection one time. I was in between two trees, 10 meters from the drone myself, very close to water, 5 meters up the air. It landed slowly with me heart pounding. There was power on the controller.
The reason why DJI might not give back refunds, is the coding. If the phantom is well programmed and even more in the never models, weird flyaways shouldnt be happening. They should only happen if GPS signals are giving wrong coordinations, which is probably not happening. I cant say for sure if they do happen, but yea as as someone allready states in here, it "happens" for the new pilots.
I have had many more shitsucker problems with bad suck batteries, and the P2 batteries are a good idea from DJI. I have 5 minutes of fly time only, full setup 1,4kg with stock batteries. Never use sucky cheap brands for batteries.
I have had my phantom dive into water because of bad battery. Nothing was damaged but the camera.
But the phantom doesnt fly away. Stories say so but they are lies.varmint said:
Funny how they allways fly away, and not just crash into closest building. But the fly away story is a great story.
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richiewrt said:
Looks like Parrot is running a big PR campaign. Amazon had some negative reviews...and then I noticed the product was removed from there yesterday - and today it's back with LOTS of 5 star reviews.
The strange part is that most of those reviews have foreign sounding names (this is Amazon USA) and are the first review the person ever placed. They are also "too good to be true" types of reviews.
I'll let y'all be the judge of that...
I am very familiar with Amazon (do a LOT of biz there as customer, affiliate, run their ads, etc.) and it takes a LOT to get reviews like that......pretty much impossible that all of them would show up instantly like that.....UNLESS. Well, I'll let y'all guess.
As I said, I hope they get the bugs worked out. If the promise to replace every flyaway and crashed model due to their poor software of QC, I'll start recommending it.
They are trying hard to plug the PR hole - the real long term question is whether they plugged the QC holes.
richiewrt said:
Question: What model iPhone are you using?
Many versions of iOS devices do not have a good WiFi radio inside of them. I hear most of the newest iOS stuff does.
(made all the difference using the AR Drone; the Nexus 7 Android tablet kicks arse with WiFi control distance.)
Same thing happens with the AR Drone. More of the iOS device's fault than the AR Drone.
The AR Drone gets 1KM (3280 feet) with a few simple mods. Look closer into the AR Drone issues to perhaps find answers for the BeBop.
garrock said:
I always had far greater range flying my AR Drone with my Ipad as opposed to my Iphone.
