Hover Camera Review: Just a flying camera?

My first drone flight experience was with the DJI Phantom 3 Professional, and as much as I appreciated its advanced capabilities at the time, I longed for something more compact — a device so small that I wouldn’t need to carry a separate bag or case for it. Eventually, a Chinese startup called Zero Zero Robotics released the $599 Hover Camera Passport, which comes in the unique form of a foldable cage while packing cool features like body tracking, face tracking and orbiting. I got to spend some time with the Passport over the past few weeks, I find time to take it for a quick spin and the Hover Camera review.

The Hover is Zero Zero Robotics’ first product and is designed to be safe, portable and savvy solution to allow let anyone to “effortlessly capture exciting moments indoors and out, from creative new perspectives.” Using Embedded AI to intelligently navigate its environment and the Qualcomm Snapdragon Flight drone platform, Hover Camera captures personal moments, but is not viable for tracking sports beyond the family Thanksgiving football game.

As the Hover Camera review, we should first focus on the camera specs, the core function of drones. Equipped with 13-megapixel camera, it’s capable of shooting 4K video at 30fps and at the same time offers live 720p HD video. Furthermore, it uses electronic image stabilization (EIS) for anti-shake. But EIS and No-GPS means shaky video in strong wind and outdoors.

Some of the issues with the Passport might get fixed in the future, since the drone gets software updates fairly regularly. My first gripe, and one that may be fixed, is with the auto-follow modes. It’s actually a little difficult to get the camera to follow you if you aren’t moving extremely slowly and staying in its field of vision at all times. So, it’ll follow you on a run in a straight line, but it tends to cut out or “lose” you if you turn — even if you go slowly. That’s just for the body-based follow mode. The face-based mode should follow you based on facial recognition, and I only got that one to work once.

Keep in mind that the auto-follow modes are one of the Passport’s biggest selling points, so this is kind of a big con. However, like I said, the drone gets software updates, so this issue could be resolved. The company even said they might add auto-follow for animals or objects (which isn’t available yet).

Compared to Mavic Pro 7KM controlling distance, Hover Camera’s 20M Wi-Fi distance may be not that satisfied. So does the 10mins flight time, if you want to shoot something great, you need to prepare more batteries.

That’s the simple review of Hover Camera, that’s not to say the Hover Camera doesn’t have some cool features. It does. And if you’re looking for a simple way to snap a selfie and video quality isn’t that important to you – go for it.

But $599 puts you very close to the Mavic Pro. Spend the extra $150…and you’re not just hovering. You’re flying.

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What if Mavic Pro lacked Obstacle Avoidance?

The secret of Mavic Pro’s obstacle avoidance lies in FlightAutonomy, a dual-camera stereo vision system. Speaking of avoidance technology, most drones in the market still use ultrasonic + single camera to calculate the distance between an obstacle and the camera (depth of field). However, ultrasonic, due to its own limitation, can only provide the distance of the obstacle that is most closed to the drone, thus has poor performance in complicated environment.

While Mavic Pro has a dual-camera system, which creates a stereo vision and does 3D scanning to the flight environment in real time. In this way, Mavic always knows where an obstacle is and how far it is. In this system, VO (Visual Odometry) and VSLAM (Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) are the vital parts.

VO serves as a dash board of a car. It calculates current speed, location and flight course of a drone, so as to measure speed and location during flight, two factors determining the drone’s hovering precision and stability.

While VSLAM empowers a drone the ability to sense environment around it, basing on which features like obstacle sensing, tap flying and tracking become a reality. Apart from extracting 3D information from 2D images, VSLAM is also able to build a 3D map and plan a reasonable flight path to avoid obstacles.

Mavic Pro’s vision system is also redundant: both front and bottom two cameras can help the drone hover, and be able to shift to single camera + ultrasonic mode when it’s necessary, always ensuring the system’s stability.

Compare Mavic Pro with many other drones in the market to better see the difference between them. Many drones still stick with the primitive ultrasonic + single camera system, which simply commands drones to stop when obstacles are detected in front, or, at best, turn the drones around to look for obstacles in other directions, having no ability to plan.

We flied Mavic Pro at full speed towards different obstacles, such as walls, football net, cars, trees and bushes, but every time Mavic was able to give fast response, brake and hover 3m away from them.

Just can’t image how many times Mavic would have crashed if it didn’t have obstacle avoidance like this.

Enabling obstacle avoidance before flight is highly recommended. Mavic Pro’s front vision system can sense obstacles as far as 30m away, and 15m away with high precision. It starts to slow down 6-2.5m away from obstacles, and hovers in front of them. If you push the sticks again to continue flying forward, Mavic will not response to your command and gives you a warning.

However, just like human eyes, what Mavic Pro can see is also limited. A 60°angle of view and insufficient light will also possibly lead to failure of recognizing  obstacles like transparent glass, twigs and power lines. So be careful when flying Mavic in such a situation

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Intelligent Flight features of Phantom 4 pro

Today we are focusing on new intelligent flight functions of Phantom 4 Pro:

 TapFly Backward

Now you can choose TapFly Forward, TapFly Backward and TapFly Free on Phantom 4 Pro. TapFly Forward is the same as Phantom 4’s TapFly; while in TapFly Free, the forward direction of the aircraft is locked without locking the camera direction.

With TapFly Backward, you can shoot stunning videos to amaze your friends. Make the camera points at you, just tap ‘GO’ in green circle, Phantom 4 Pro will elevate itself while flying backward. You can adjust how fast it goes.

Green arrow is a new feature, AR Route. It indicates the aircraft’s intended direction. Pilot will find it easier to focus on photography with AR Route.

Phantom 4 also has rear vision that detects as far as 30m. It will bypass the obstacle or hover for next order.

 Active Track

Just like Mavic Pro, Phantom 4 Pro has Trace, Profile and spotlight mode in Active Track.

1.Profile

Suitable for shooting person or slow object.

2.Spotlight

Keep the camera trained on a subject while the aircraft flies almost anywhere. Perfect for fluently shooting people walking toward camera or vehicle at low speeds.

3.Trace

In Trace Mode, you can make Phantom 4 Pro following object while orbiting it.

For now only Phantom 4 Pro has Draw feature. You can choose Forward or Free under this function.

Free: The aircraft only moves along the route when instructed. In this mode, the camera can face in any direction during a flight.

Forward: The aircraft follows the route at a constant speed with the camera facing in the direction of flight. So pilot can concentrate on shooting videos.

Gesture Mode

Similar to that of Mavic Pro. It takes three steps to get a selfie: 1. Make it recognize you by lifting arms; 2. When you are ready, hold out arms to signal it; 3. It start a countdown to take shot, while you can make a pose.

 Return to Home

In its upgraded Return to Home mode, the Phantom 4 Pro can automatically choose the best route to return home depending on environmental conditions. It records its route as it flies, allowing it to return along the same route avoiding obstacles if the control signal is disconnected.

Phantom 4 Pro can establish real-time 3D map around when returning to home, thus the obstacles will be located more precisely.

Tips:

1.Intelligent functions are available when the aircraft is 2 meters above the ground. Please control the aircraft carefully.

2.Tap ‘Stop’ on your screen or press ‘stop’ button on the right side of controller to exit intelligent flight mode you are using;

3.The aircraft cannot avoid obstacles under Spotlight Mode and Profile Mode. Please pay attention to obstacles around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Can an Inspire 2 fly stably when all vision sensor are covered?

The newly released Inspire 2 is equipped with many sensors, the front vision sensors, vision positioning system, infrared sensors, dual GPS and more. Advanced hardware combining with intelligent software empower the Inspire 2 to fly and hover stably.

We want to see how these sensors work with each other, do they work well independently?

Fly with the front vision sensors only

We first covered Inspire 2’s GPS modules, vision positioning system and the infrared sensors, only flew with the help of front vision sensors.

Then we began to take off. A small reminder for every pilot, only after the landing gears retract do the front vision sensors start to work, so never rush forward as soon as the aircraft takes off.

When the front vision sensors start to work normally, it will sense the surrounding environment by building a 3D map.

Test result:  The aircraft could hover stably using the front vision sensors only. But it failed to do so when it was too far away from obstacles (estimated 7 to 8 meters away from obstacles)

Fly with vision positioning system only

Next we covered the GPS, infrared sensors and front vision sensors, only flew with the vision positioning system.

The vision positioning system includes two cameras and two ultrasonic modules, the aircraft uses the photos captured by the two cameras to analyze the current position for precise hovering, while the ultrasonic modules are used to measure flight altitude, they help the aircraft hover stably by emitting and receiving ultrasonic.

Test result:  The Inspire 2 could hover stably only with the help of vision positioning system, but when the flight altitude is over 10 meters, the aircraft began to drift.

Fly with GPS modules only

Last we covered all vision sensors and only flew with the dual GPS modules.

When flying in open areas with good GPS signals, the Inspire 2 could positioned and hovered in place by using dual GPS modules only.

But we were not going to stop there, we wanted to see what would happen if we cover all sensors.

After all these tests, we can see the Inspire 2 can still position and hover in place when using front vision sensors, vision positioning system and GPS respectively. So we can draw a conclusion that all these sensors and modules are powerful on themselves, they work together to empower the Inspire 2 amazing flight performance. However, we DO NOT suggest everyone to fly the aircraft if any of the modules are damaged, safety is always the top priority.

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Hover Camera Test: How’s the EIS work

When we talk about drone camera gimbals, there are a number of different classifications possible. Here, we will look into some of these different types.

Drones usually are available in 2-axis and 3-axis brushless gimbals for the camera. Each of these types has its own set of pros and cons. The one you opt for between the two, depends on the purpose of utilization.

But with the drone getting smaller and smaller, how to make 3-axis gimbal as small as the aircraft becomes the most important issue. So they come out a solution to use 1-axis gimbal combined with EIS, the Electronic Image Stabilization, this technique shifts the electronic image from frame to frame of video, enough to counteract the motion. It uses pixels outside the border of the visible frame to provide a buffer for the motion. This technique reduces distracting vibrations from videos by smoothing the transition from one frame to another. This technique does not affect the noise level of the image, except in the extreme borders when the image is extrapolated. It cannot do anything about existing motion blur, which may result in an image seemingly losing focus as motion is compensated.

The pitch axis can remove some shakes from aircraft, but EIS covers the most job. What the EIS do is so limited. So we can see, when in strong wind, the video quality of Hover Camera is shaky. Before you can see the detailed Hover Camera Test from Tested in Youtube:

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Buy Hover Camera? You need to see this first

Zero Zero Robotics released their newest selfie drone the Hover Camera on October 17 with a starting price of $599. Many people want to buy a Hover Camera. At first glance, the Hover Camera is pretty cool. When folded up, the quadcopter is about the size of a videocassette. So… so there’s no time to delay. Let’s get stuck into some of its key features!

The Hover Camera is controlled by an iOS or Android app, so anyone with a smartphone can connect via Wi-Fi and easily learn to control this quad (though the Wi-Fi range is limited to a maximum of 20 meters, according to the company’s specifications).

What’s cool, is that the company has built in a few smart features.

The Hover Cam can follow you, or orbit. It has face tracking and body tracking – and can even spin in one spot to capture a panorama shot.

People buy Hover Camera not just for the function or distance, camera is the core feature. As for the image? It’s captured in 13 megapixels via a 1/3.06” CMOS sensor. The maximum image size is 4208×3120 pixels with a field-of-view of 28mm. What’s more, it’s capable of recording 4k, 1080p, and 720p – all at 30 fps. You can control the pitch of the camera angle from -90 degrees to +30 degrees.

These features sound quite familiar don’t they? In fact, they’re pretty similar to other drones of the same ilk like, Zerotech’s Dobby and Yuneec’s Breeze as well as others. But these drones are priced cheaper than the Hover Camera and they outperform most of its features. So why the sky high pricing? What’s so good or so bad about the Hover Camera? Before you buy Hover Camera, you should attention some features.

To start with, its propellers are fully enclosed by a strong carbon fiber frame, making it the safest drone we’ve ever played with. Using optical and sonar sensors to position instead of GPS, Hover Camera is easily affected by lights and can’t really hover precisely. There’s no return-to-home function and without GPS it struggles to outdoors.

Last but not least: the battery. I love that Hover Camera sends you two batteries, along with a charger that can charge both at once, with the Passport. It’s especially useful because the battery life is only 8-10 minutes. Officially, the battery life is 10 minutes, but in practice I usually found it to be a bit shorter.

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Yuneec Breeze 4K review

Yuneec‘s first selfies drone Yuneec Breeze 4K is the drone equivalent of a cellphone camera, complete with an over-emphasis on selfies.

Would I bring it to a high-end real estate photo shoot? No, but it’s good at what it does: it’s loads of fun to fly and it produces the kind of images that will look good shared on small screens via Instagram and YouTube.

The Yuneec Breeze 4K is lightweight and designed to fit in a backpack, though at 13 ounces, it still needs to be registered with the FAA. The plastic body feels a little more fragile than that of the GDU Byrd, which I happened to be testing at the same time. The good news is that pretty much every part you’re liable to break is for sale individually, making it easy, if perhaps costly, to get your drone back in the air should you crash or otherwise break it. Also, it comes in a little suitcase that keeps it protected from drops while you’re carrying it.

The Yuneec Breeze 4K comes with a 4K-capable camera (30fps) on board, though there are several important caveats to bear in mind. First, there is no stabilizing gimbal, so the steadiness of your video is directly proportional to your skills as a pilot. Recognizing that the newcomer won’t have those piloting skills yet, the Breeze includes a host of preprogrammed auto-flying modes that go a long way toward improving stability and therefore video quality. There’s also some built in digital stabilization, but, and here’s the second caveat: digital stabilization only works with 1080p video, not 4K footage. While the Yuneec Breeze 4K clearly wants to tout its 4K capabilities, they’re of limited usefulness without stabilization.

Back to the controller, or rather lack of controller. Yes, the Yuneec Breeze 4K controller is a smartphone app. The controller consists of virtual joysticks that behave just like the real thing, minus all the tactile feedback that can help with your reaction times. But again, the manual controls are almost an afterthought here, the real selling point is the plethora of automated flight modes. You get the usual flight modes that every current drone has (follow me, orbit mode) plus a few others (selfie mode, journey mode, manual pilot mode).Follow me and orbit modes work like they do in Yuneec’s larger, more expensive drones. Selfie mode ditches the control interface entirely and instead offers a slider for controlling the camera. Journey mode was the most impressive—it starts with a fly-away shot and then comes zooming back in. The resulting video is nice and smooth.

In terms of the image quality, video can be a little soft at times, and stills probably won’t look good as 16×20 prints. For online sharing, it’s more than good enough most of the time. The one place I found it just didn’t work well was in follow me mode where too tight of a shot made for jerky camera movements as the drone tried to keep up.

Backing it up a bit in altitude fixed the problem, but highlighted the other big shortcoming: the Yuneec Breeze 4K really only stays aloft for about 10 minutes. Yuneec includes two batteries in the box, which doubles the flight time to 20 minutes if you switch batteries. That should be enough time to get all the selfies you need.

Yuneec Breeze 4K is a nice choice for newcomers, for more selfies drones, please refer here.

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