Yuneec Breeze price point a controversy

Take your pick of the extras you’ll need for the Yuneec Breeze and the advertised price of below US$500 suddenly starts heading toward the higher end of prices from other UAV drone manufacturers.

For example, as offerings of OEM (original equipment manufacturer) parts, a list of two dozen add-ons to get more out of the beetle-shaped “selfie” drone can be priced from US$4.55 to US$227.50, and these don’t even include a carrier case, which the Yuneec drone lacks.

For example, a Yuneec Breeze replacement battery is priced at $46.80—probably a necessity if you buy the drone because it only comes with one battery that lasts for a mere 12 minutes.

But wait, there’s more! You’ll need a Yuneec Breeze power cable for that battery charger, at US$5.45. And while you’re at it, get a set of Yuneec Breeze propeller protectors for US$7.80, as the unit does not include them and the R&D for the propellers has led to a design that makes hitting one with a hand entirely possible.

However, if you do break a propeller in the RC quadcopter, you can buy two from Yuneec for US$10.15, so a whole new set is $20.30. But probably the four most interesting add-ons are the Yuneec Breeze lens, compass module, rubber dampeners and optical flow components that would total US$139.58—and again would be necessary for a drone that has an 80-meter range at best and is operated using a smartphone. A mere gust of wind could cause a loss of connection and send the Yuneec Breeze crashing or flying out of sight.

Be aware, a lot of these accessories are on the waiting list or exclusively for higher-end items, such as the Yuneec Breeze Accu LiPo battery. Good luck.

The need to kit out the supposedly low-cost starter Yuneec Breeze has not escaped reviewers who compare the model to offerings from start-up drone makers who combine components for functional, if short-lived, camera drones priced at as little as $99.

And it’s the 4K camera claim of the Yuneec Breeze that is really at the heart of many decisions on whether to splash out quite a bit more for a drone that other companies sell for one-fifth of the price. Reports are already rolling in that it may be hard to get 4K video out of the Yuneec Breeze and that in most cases, users will want to use the 1080P video for stability.

In fact, the question was raised by Burmansound, who wondered how control of the drone’s line-of-sight camera impacts use.

“I wonder how much of the 4K resolution is lost by the image stabilization?” Burmansound asked.

“You’d need a lot of pixels outside the frame to accommodate the tilting and rolling of the drone as it moves. I’d imagine it would only work if the drone were stationary with not much wind, or maybe moving, but at a slow, constant speed. But I guess even if it gives you HD resolution without a gimbal that would still be pretty good. But there’s still the problem of framing the shot. I’m guessing you can manually tilt the camera down before takeoff in order to get shots like the ‘wish you were here’ shot on the beach.”

 

 

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