IS THERE AN ALTERNATIVE TO HOVER CAMERA

There’s nothing more captivating to tech nerds these days than a cute indoor drone that you toss up into the air, have it take a picture of you and your friends, then drops into your hand, folds up and goes back in your pocket. That’s where the Hover Camera comes in.

The Hover Camera drone is equipped with a pretty decent little camera. It shoots video in 4K, stills at 13 megapixels, and even has a built-in flash.The Hover Camera Passport stands apart from other portable drones thanks to image recognition software, which allows the drone to recognize and follow a target. You could toss it up into the air and just let it go to capture photos. The Hover Camera is a practical and appealing device drone enthusiasts will enjoy using though the battery life is fairly short at 8-10 minutes.

Hover Camera Passport does not come cheap. It is priced at $599 so you’ll have to decide if its features are worth the money, or if you might be better off with other cheaper foldable drones.

The Zerotech Dobby is one of the most popular foldable drones due to the fact that it’s readily available, and relatively good hardware & software. It can shoot 1080p video with EIS (Electronic Image Stabilization) and packs different features such as Face Tracking, Follow Snap and gesture based motion controls.

This foldable drone is fueled by a 970mAh battery and can fly for about 9 minutes on one charge. At the current time the Zerotech Dobby can be found on sale for $349, which includes the drone, its battery, a charger and 4 blades; there are no prop guards or any other accessories. You can discover more about the Hover Camera vs Dobby by visiting our Learn More page.

If you’re looking for a more powerful foldable drone, the Mavic Pro could definitely be for you.

It can shoot high quality 4k @30fps with 3-axis IS, it packs tons of features from ActiveTrack to precision hover, obstacle avoidance, OcuSync video transmission and more. The big 2970mAh capacity battery gives it the amazing flight time of around 27 minutes.

The Mavic Pro comes with the following features:

1 Light, small and foldable design;

2 Powerful camera for shooting stable and clear videos and photos;

3 Competitive flight time and long-range control;

4 Creative camera features including Obstacle Avoidance, Gesture Mode and ActiveTrack;

The “small size” only makes sense when the drone have these features. For Hover Camera vs Mavic Pro comparison please visit here.

Will you buy Hover Camera or not?

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Mavic Pro advice for beginners-Part II

Here we’ll continue to talk about the Mavic Pro first flight.Below are some beginner advice which may help you.

As was said at the last post, but also wait for very calm weather. It’s one thing to get used to the controls, its another to get used to the controls and fight the wind.

Use the beginner mode for your first flight. It will limit the Mavic Pro to 30 meters distance, which isn’t a lot. Just get used to the controls and how the drone responds. 10 minutes might be enough in that mode. But don’t just then jump to a long distance flight, do incremental flights.  A little higher, further, longer each flight as you get used to it. I have managed 5 flights so far (newborn eating all my time) and just went over 750m distance this past weekend for the first time.

I will say the controls for the Phantom 4 and the stability of the drone is excellent. The Mavic Pro should be just as good. Being a newbie to drone flight as well I was worried about crashing and damaging a rather large monetary investment. As a result I researched drone crashes on youtube to see what caused most people to crash.

From what I saw the Return to Home function causes many crashes. That seems counter intuitive, but it’s true. When you set your return to home function in the controller you need to set it to a height above the tallest object you will fly over relative to the elevation the home point is set. This is what trips most people up.

I live on the side of a hill. The line of trees behind my house are about 20-30 meter high. If I set my RTH height to 40m I will clear the trees behind my house. But since I live on a hill the trees on the top of the hill are 30m + the elevation difference from the RTH point and the top of the hill. The top of the hill is another 30m above me + the height of those trees. If I set RTH at 40m I could still hit the trees at the top of the hill.

The next most common crash is caused by flying backwards and only looking at the camera view. You should always fly line of sight and be aware of what is around the Mavic Pro drone in 360 degrees as well as above and below it. Don’t get locked in to the camera view.

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Mavic Pro advice for beginners-Part I

Scan Mavic forums to discover thread like “I have been waiting for the right time to get into drone photography and video. I pulled the trigger on the Mavic Pro with the extra batteries and stuff. It will arrive soon. Needless to say I am excited and a little nervous.

I wanted to reach out and ask for beginner advice. Anything a total noob might benefit from. I have exactly zero experience flying these thing.”

With so many new pilots coming in, we wanted to offer you some beginner advice that we collected from a wide array of sources to get started the Mavic Pro.

#”Learning on an expensive drone could be costly. Best advice that I can give you is to find a deserted wide open field with no obstacles. The reason I say deserted is because if there are people around they will come and check out your drone and want to talk. That’s fine and dany, but not when you’re learning. First few flights should be on calm days and don’t bother taking pics or filming. Just learn the basics of flying first. ”

#“Make sure you keep a long way from anything. If I learned anything from flying RC planes and helis (now drones) for years is that given 60 yards of clear air and six inches of tree the RC will try to occupy the same space as the tree EVERY DAMN TIME.

Be VERY aware of orientation if you are flying by looking at the Mavic Pro, if its facing you and you push the right stick away from you it will fly towards you (in most modes) also left and right will be reversed. It is surprisingly difficult to get your head around this at first.”

#”RTFM at least 3 times

Review all the sUAS (drone) info at the US FAA website: www.faa.gov/uas. That’s assuming you are in the USA.

Take it slow and easy. Do not get close to anything but the ground for Takeoff and Landing.”

#“RTH is the cause of a lot of crashes but mostly with drones that don’t have obstacle avoidance. The pilot hits RTH and the building in the way takes it out. The Mavic Pro should be good that way. Trees are still tricky though, especially bare ones. You can help it a lot by setting the RTH altitude higher than anything around.

I just got a Phantom 3 Standard which does not have avoidance so I’ve been pretty cautious. First couple of flights were up, a little distance and then back down/home.  I’ve got about 15 flights (er, 15 flight sessions) now and I am a lot more confident but still pretty cautious. Just take it slow. You sound thoughtful – I think that’s about 75% of a good pilot right there.”

For more beginner advice please stay tuned to us and we will update soon.

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Back to the future with Yuneec Breeze 4k

Yuneec China 12-minute flying selfie stick not what the world needs.

Good ideas catch on and are quickly imitated, as the selfie stick shows. But it is unlikely that UAV drone manufacturers will look to copy a drone “selfie” like the Yuneec Breeze 4k that gets easily buffeted by the wind with a battery life counted optimistically at 12 minutes.

Indeed, unlike the Yuneec Breeze 4k, if a selfie stick is damaged or lost it can be easily replaced. But the beetle-shaped 1-pound Yuneec drone at US$500 makes the prospect of damage or flyaways a bit costlier.

On damages, the Yuneec Breeze 4K does come with fold-in propellers, but not a dedicated carrier offering foam or other protection. The landing gear in the Breeze is made of plastic that can easily chip or break if carried in a backpack unprotected and hand guards for the propellers are missing-in-action.

Just that R&D effort alone raises question about the commitment of Yuneec to quality and reliable usage as it targets first-time drone buyers in a push that UAV drone manufacturers just starting out appear to have already won with prices as low as $99 for versatile models that can add 4K cameras from other manufacturers.

In fact, even the 4K in the Yuneec Breeze 4K name should be taken with a grain of salt as many early reviewers suggest using 1080P to get a more stable and ready-to-use video because of the patchy connection via an APP to smartphone WiFi and limited range of 80 meters–and then hopefully post it to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube Instagram or WhatsApp.

At that price and for far better camera features at a 2.7K video feed and a 3-axis gimbal and reliability the DJI Phantom 3 Standard is true value for money, especially for first-time drone buyers, and time tested for GPS reliability and under $500. There is really no comparison that the Yuneec Breeze 4K can stand up to.

In fact, unlike the Yuneec drone, the DJI Phantom 3 returns to the user at the press of a button and does the same if the control signal is ever lost and the stability of the drone in flight and hover brings back razor-sharp images.

However, the Yuneec Breeze 4k camera is not mechanically stabilized when filming in 4K, though images are electronically stabilized at 1080p–showing that 4K is not always 4K.

All of this has caught the attention of initial reviews of the Breeze with comparisons not at the nimbler and reliable models like the DJI series, but at newer drones that have flying times more than double the Yuneec Breeze 4K.

And the inevitable comparison of the Yuneec Breeze 4K is to the Yuneec Q500 4K, which has struggled as a bulky product beset by internal WiFi card issues and GPS reliability. Yuneec has attempted to move on from the Q500 4K with the Typhoon H class-but the legacy problems have reportedly impacted production and engineering fixes for the hexacopter.

In fact, some drone pilots suggest Yuneec risks getting lost in the crowd of low-end drone manufacturers that for now are not in the long-term game of innovation to gain customer loyalty like DJI.

 

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The typical Yuneec drone:Yuneec Typhoon H

Yuneec is the Chinese aircraft manufacturer that’s giving DJI a run for its money. Yuneec has launched a series of typhoon Yuneec drone models Typhoon H,Typhoon G and Typhoon Q500. As the Typhoon H is the advanced Yuneec drone model,finally it came to my choice.

In this article, I’d like to share some information of Yuneec drone model Typhoon H to you.

The first thing you notice about this monster is its size. The six arms can fold down for easy storage, but it’s a lot more fun to have this sitting around like a giant flying face-hugger waiting to unleash havoc. Once you get over the initial shock of the drone’s size you’re surprised by its simplicity. Except for a fiddly gimbal under the legs, it is about as elegant a piece of consumer electronics as I’ve seen in a long time.

This six-rotor flying machine is actually a camera platform. The webcam-like ball camera on the rotating gimbal records video in 4K UHD 30fps or 1080p 120fps. It can also take 12-megapixel photos.

Charging the battery takes a few hours and it lasts for about 15 minutes of hard flying. There are multiple warnings when you’re about to run out of juice, and the drone will lower itself toward the ground if it’s about to hit empty. You can lift the landing pads up and out of the way with the flip of a switch and you have full 360-control of the camera.

There is also a little “wizard” controller that lets you point the drone in different directions like a Wii controller, allowing for one person to control the flight pattern and another to record images and video.

The drone also has obstacle avoidance and a fairly robust landing system. When it gets too close to a tree or building, the drone will tend to move away from the obstacle. And when you bring it down it will, for the most part, slow itself down. In many cases, however, I noticed that the drone experienced a bumpy landing on almost every surface including cement. Unless you slam down the power button as quickly as possible, the thing will tip and you’ll be out a few propellers.

The best things of the Typhoon H is that it’s amazingly easy to fly even for the beginners. The obvious worst thing about this drone is the price. At $1,200 you could get a few DJI drones. I’d also worry a bit about the camera and gimbal. The entire enclosure is made of plastic and it cannot survive a direct hit with the ground unscathed. Luckily the big landing gear bears most of the weight when the drone comes down too fast but a direct hit on the camera with a tree branch or overhang can cause some major damage. It’s easy enough to replace the pieces but it’s a bit frustrating.

Despite not being a true “game changer”, the Yuneec drone will likely sell well and satisfy many users, especially those who desire a simpler out-of-the-box experience.

 

 

 

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Yuneec 4K Typhoon – the drone sold at a premium price point

An upstart among Chinese UAV drone manufacturers, Yuneec marketed its high-end 4K Typhoon model as the best-value 4k system available in the market. For the Yuneec drone, it’s a big and bold claim – one that needs to be backed by first-hand reviews from experienced users. DroneCompares and other online reviews– including feedback from real users who tried the Yuneec drone – are far less impressive than what the manufacturer would have hoped for.

The Yuneec 4K Typhoon comes with an android-based touch-screen controller, which is supposed to be an all-purpose unit. The reality is, it slows down the entire setting up process for the Yuneec drone. To make it worse, this Yuneec drone is not supported by any smartphone app like DJI Go. The biggest problem arises when its connection with the Q500 is lost due to poor GPS connectivity.

The Yuneec 4K Typhoon has experienced recurrent GPS connectivity problems ever since it was launched – an issue that has caused tens of hundreds of UAV drones from the Chinese manufacturer to either crash, or to make fatally hard landing. Large numbers of the first buyers have had to send their Yuneec drone units back to the manufacturer for repair. And many of these damages and malfunctions were not covered under the Yuneec drone warranty agreement. Yuneec China warranty, unfortunately, does not cover crashing.

The Yuneec drone’s internal WiFi card has had its problems too.

Among a large of pilots who have submitted angry and frustrated reviews of this Yuneec drone, one particular user how her second flight with the Yuneec 4K Typhoon saw the camera losing connection and never recovering it back. Her Yuneec drone started rolling around out of control, switched to the ‘return home’ mode, and made a very hard landing that almost took away her fingernails.

The Yuneec 4K Typhoon version of the Yuneec drone has a QHD camera which captures 1080p slow motion video at 120 frames per second. But experienced videographers have already declared the camera to be sub-par and not up to the level of its DJI counterparts.

In an open area the range of the Yuneec drone is closer to about 1,200 feet. The Phantom 4 is clearly the better drone – it flies longer, higher and farther. As far as range goes, in the suburbs there should no real problem for this Yuneec drone when controlling the aircraft at distances of up to around 900 feet before the pilot starts getting intermittent ‘RC Control lost’ messages.

The Yuneec 4K Typhoon is a good UAV if you’re not a long-range flyer. When being flown in the Smart Mode, this Yuneec drone is severely restricted in its flying ability – no further than 295 feet from the remote. On the contrary, DJI Phantom 4 reviews confirm that the DJI drone has a much larger operating range and altitude ceiling.

 

 

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Learn to fly Mavic Pro without using RTH

When learning to fly Mavic Pro I would learn to fly your drone back to the home point WITHOUT using RTH. I think RTH should be viewed as a very handy “oh crap” failsafe. Not as your only means of getting your drone back. Too much could go wrong in the process that may not be an issue if you know how to flyback on your own. With that I will say DJI’s RTH is very trustable but if GPS is ever lost then so is your drone.

Learn to fly home without the RTH and use it in an emergency.  If you get used to RTH, you never acquire the skill of flying the darn thing and manual is way more fun!

For further flights. Be extremely cautious of RTH. I’ve seen it be more trouble than it’s worth, especially when using a battery life indicator as a method of when to activate that RTH function.

Example. “Oh Geez, 50% left on my battery. Time to come home”  Drone hits a head wind on the way back, lands a half mile short of “Home” due to increased power consumption and not enough power to get “home”.nA lot of times it’s even shorter than that as many of these batteries won’t let you run it down to 0%. Most times it’s 20%.

Most importantly. I’ve learned really quick not to fly over people. I never hit anyone, but witnessed the force of a 3 pound quad hitting the ground from 100 feet after losing binding during a flight.  It will seriously hurt someone and it will do significant damage to property such as vehicles if it falls from these heights.

Lastly. Have fun. You are taking a big step going right into a Phantom which is no big deal, but it’s going to sting a little bit more when you tumble it or have mishaps. As a quick side recommendation some people suggest buying a cheap “toy” quad to fly and practice with also. I did this and it will help you develop your skills on something less expensive and more resilient to crashing. I am having fun learning on my Syma X8G which is basically a low end beginners quad.  I’ve beat the hell out of it learning and it’s never really bothered me since I only payed $150 for it.  I will eventually be upgrading to a DJI Mavic Pro but for right now. I’m having a good time with it.

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