Hover Camera Falters in Wake of Phantom 3 Standard

Norm Chan is a vlogger from San Francisco who reviews the latest technology. Chan took a look at the Hover Camera from Zero Zero Robotics.

The Hover Camera is a portable drone that is small enough to fit in a handbag. Priced at $599, it’s an entry-level aircraft that may attract an audience that is new to flying drones.

The Hover Camera has a unique and easily identifiable design. Out of the box, it is shaped like an average-sized book but unfolds to reveal propellers that are elegantly protected. The Hover has a downward sonar sensor to know how far it is from the ground. Theoretically, the Hover Camera should be able to hold its position. Unfortunately, it does not use GPS for positioning like the Phantom 3 Standard, which is renowned for its accuracy in the air.

The Hover Camera is controlled with an mobile device app and has a range of 20 meters. The Phantom 3 Standard uses the fully-featured GO app and the range is 1000 meters, fifty times that of the Hover.

The Hover Camera’s 13 megapixel camera can take 4K video but the camera can only be pitched up 30 degrees or down 90 degrees. It does not have the full-range camera movement options of the Phantom 3 Standard. The Phantom has a 3-axis gimbal, which makes video capture very stable. Any effect of wind or vibrations are cancelled out by the motorized gimbal.

Chan discovered several issues with the Hover including its stability outside, the tracking capabilities, and quality of the camera. Specifically, the Hover Camera does not have enough processing power on-board to provide high quality video and the aircraft struggles to remain stable in wind. “Not very impressive,” Chan comments.

The Hover battery lasts for about 10 minutes, whereas the battery flight time of the Phantom 3 Standard is an impressive 25 minutes.

The Phantom 3 can record in 2.7K and 1080p and the aircraft gives you proven multiple intelligent flight options. With the Phantom you can live stream in 720p to your smartphone from the camera and you can broadcast your stream to social media. This capability is unavailable on the Hover.

The wealth of features of the Phantom 3 priced at only $499, $100 less than the Hover Camera, makes it a challenge for many consumers to justify opting for the latter.

Chan found that the flight features referred to as Face Tracking and Body Tracking did not perform in all conditions. “Where the Hover does fail is in the promise of subject tracking and delivering good quality video,” Chad said. It remains ironic, then, that those very features are often touted as the main selling points of the Hover aircraft.

In conclusion, while the Hover Camera Passport has some interesting features, it can’t match up to a trustworthy drone like the Phantom 3 Standard.

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