5 Mistakes Most New Pilots Make

What’s the first thing to do when you finally have your DJI Mavic at hand?

No, not fly. It’s studying user manual.

User manual serves as the best teacher of all new pilots. Every question about the drone can be answered. For example, what should you do with these two little sticks?

But when you finally finish reading the user manual and hope for a thrilling flight, you probably are frustrated by the result of what you took.

You search the Internet and watch amazing aerial videos shot by well-known aerial photographer, but still can’t understand why such an easy move doesn’t work well in your videos.

Except those are not easy moves.

Below are the top 5 mistakes that beginners mostly make:

TOP5

Fail to fly consistently

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Mostly happen when: following moving objects

Consequence：Lose the target or make the entire video go waste

Reason： Don’t have a sense of how much force should be made to control the sticks

Solution:

1 Use your thumbs along with your pointing fingers to control the sticks, instead of using thumbs alone

2 Use ActiveTrack to follow your target

Using thumbs alone to control sticks can be difficult for beginners

Use two fingers for accurate control

With DJI ActiveTrack, why bother manual control?

TOP4

Fail to know the limit of gimbal pitch

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Mostly happens when： Flying over a target and adjust the camera from forwards to downwards

Consequence：Shaking footages

Reason:Not familiar enough to simultaneously control the flight and camera pitch

Solutions：

1 Use your thumbs and index fingers to control the joysticks, the middle fingers roll the dials gently.

2 Please pay attention to the roll instruction line on the left side of the video feedback or the shutter button, gradually stop rolling the dial when the movement of the roll axis is closed to the limit.

When camera pitch is about to reach the ceiling, the white dot above turns red.

TOP3

Fail to make a decent circling

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Mostly happens when：manually circles around a target

Consequence：footage is ruined by bumpy flight

Reason：Cannot coordinate the left stick with the right one

Solutions：

1 Practice makes perfect. And remember, never push the sticks too hard.

2 Use Circle mode in DJI Go.

That’s how bumpy videos are recorded

Push the left stick gently when turning the drone

DJI GO Circle Mode

TOP2

No entering & exiting frame

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Mostly happens when：Shooting moving target

Consequence：No entering and exiting frames in the video

Reason：Lack of awareness

A good video should have a beginning and ending to let viewers know where it begins and ends

Solutions：Be aware

Entering & exiting frame

TOP1

This is the TOP 1 mistake that almost every beginners will make, which is:

A sudden turning during flight

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Mostly happens when：Anytime could happen

Consequence：ruins the perfect long shot

Reason：unknown

Solutions：keep your hand away from the left stick during flight

Just flight forward. It doesn’t hurt.

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Will China Dominate UAV Technology?

Chinese consumer drone companies have been pace-setters in recent years, taking up more than 70% of global market share. Chinese military UAVs are also making significant progress. Swarm intelligence is the key to military artificial intelligence. In a recent flight experiment, the quantity of swarm fixed-wing UAV has reached 67, while the record was kept by US Navy at 50. This marks a significant breakthrough of China. It also means China has entered the first tier of UAV technology.

China has developed leading UAV technology, which is more advanced than that of US in a few fields. However, if China is to remain its juicy market share in consumer drones, the transition from functional drones to intelligent drones is necessary.

Portable drone Mavic is designed and produced by Chinese drone company DJI. When folded, it is the size of a water bottle. While the flight time of Mavic reached 27 minutes. GoPro released its Karma drone around the same time, which soon was recalled due to quality issues. Without intelligent features like obstacle sensing and automatic tracking, it is hardly a smart drone. Yang Jincai, President of Shenzhen UAV Industry Association said: “Everyday there is a new drone here in Shenzhen, the capital of drone.”

Shenzhen produces 70% consumer drones in the world. Giant like DJI and ZeroTech, or UAV start-ups, all rely on the mature electronic industry chain and government’s “Made in China 2025” strategy. The strategy is also beneficial to military drones. CH-5, China’s military UAV, has longer flight time and bigger bomb load than US Predator UAV.

Just in Aviation Industry Corporation of China, there are five crucial UAV lines including Long, Ying, Yiing, Bing and unmanned helicopter. In the 2016 Zhuhai Airshow, this company displayed their latest MagLev aircraft, which took an appearance of UFO in Sci-fi movies.

President Yang JIncai commented: “The manufacture of hardware and other industries are faced with the fourth industrial revolution.” Chinese corporations should make best of their advantages in software engineering and manufacture of intelligent hardware.

UAVs are the phosphor of “Made in China 2025”, requiring integration of more technologies including AI, VR and AR. Multiple cooperation is also needed to further the industry development.

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DJI Merge Power and Smart Features to Give the Gift of Flight to All

If you’ve never experienced flying a drone then taking the first steps to selecting which drone to purchase and flying for the very first time may seem a little daunting.  There are several different manufacturers out there offering different types of drones for different uses. These uses include racing, video and photography or simply for the fun of flying and it’s important to select the drone that best matches your needs.

One of the world’s largest drone manufacturers, with seven out of every ten consumer drones in the sky, is DJI.  DJI have a range of drones in their line-up ranging from the easy-to-fly straight of the box Phantom range to the more prosumer interchangeable lens Inspire series and onto the professional Matrice series used for films and industrial inspections.

The latest addition to the Phantom series, the Phantom 4 Advanced Credit:DJI

The latest addition to the Inspire series, the Inspire 2 Credit: DJI

The latest addition to the Matrice series, the M210 Credit:DJI

DJI also shook up the market with the Mavic Pro, a drone that folds up to just the size of a small water bottle and weighs less than 750g.  You may think that in order to achieve a drone of this size some of the smart features included in other DJI drones needed to be discarded but this is not the case.  The DJI Mavic Pro not only includes the same intelligent features as other DJI drones but goes even further and enhances them. Its compact size hides a high degree of complexity that makes it one of DJI’s most sophisticated flying cameras ever.

“We merged power and smart features making it easy for everyone to fly and create beautiful images,” explained a DJI spokesperson.  “The toughest challenge for us was finding the sweet spots between form and function.”

With 24 high-performance computing cores, five vision sensors to help avoid bumps and scrapes, and a 4K camera stabilized by a 3-axis mechanical gimbal, the Mavic Pro helps to turn the sky into your very own canvas ready for you to create your own masterpiece easily and without worry.

The DJI Mavic Pro fits in the palm of your hand Credit: The Verge

The DJI Mavic Pro is the perfect example of what the DJI CEO Frank Wang strived for when first setting up the company just over ten years ago. His aim was to make it easy for anyone to pick-up a radio control and fly without the frustrations and difficulty associated with keeping radio controlled helicopters in the air.

They say that a picture tells a thousand words and thanks to DJI innovations simplifying flight and aerial imaging for all, there are an almost infinite number of words to be told.

 

 

 

 

 

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DJI Leads the Way in New Report About Lifesaving Drones

DJI reported Lives Saved: A Survey of Drones in Action, DJI compiled a number of reported cases of lives being saved by drones. DJI, the largest consumer drone manufacturer, has maintained a consistent record of working against needless and complicated restrictions over airspace and flight regulations. Recently we’ve seen them up against a recent threat level classification by the FAA which would place many toys and consumer drones in a higher threat category than necessary. As part of the Drone Manufacturer’s Alliance, they are also up against a recent change to Canada’s drone airspace regulations that makes flying more restrictive for hobbyists.

After even a cursory glance at DJI’s report, it’s apparent that DJI aircrafts are the stars in over half of the cases (at least 10/18, though in some cases the drone used was not mentioned). So why are DJI aircrafts featured in the majority? Of course one can say DJI is keen on focusing on their own aircraft, but as described above, their motivation isn’t entirely selfish as any case where a drone was essential to someone’s safety was included in this report.

Here are a few practical reasons why DJI aircrafts across the board are used for public safety:

1) Presumably main reason of course is availability. DJI has captured so much of the market (about 70%) with their aircrafts that nearly anywhere a disaster or emergency occurs there is a DJI aircraft within a few miles.

2) DJI drones are also almost always immediately ready to fly. The batteries charge in about an hour and most pilots have charged batteries on hand. It takes most DJI aircraft less than 2 minutes to get up in the air whereas some others have significantly longer setup times.

Joshua (TX) Fire Department.

3) Range and flight time. DJI aircrafts like the Mavic Pro and Phantom 4 Pro have the longest range and flight times of any consumer or enterprise drone on the market, by far. With and off the shelf range of 5 miles and flight times pushing 30 minutes per battery, even amateur pilots can survey huge areas for maximum coverage.

4) The quality of the video feeds coming from DJI aircrafts is high enough quality for previously invisible details to be seen from afar. 1080p video is pretty much necessary when you are flying up to 400 feet in the air. The videos themselves when grabbed from the onboard SD cards are full 4k, so even tiny details can be seen.

Photo: Midway Fire Rescue

5) Thermal and zoom cameras. DJI crafts like the Matrice and Inspire lines can carry an array of cameras. The 2 most commonly featured in Search and Rescue and public safety cases are the Zenmuse XT (thermal) and Z30 (zoom). The XT offers stabilized and glitch free video whereas other aircrafts with thermal cameras send a jerky and static ridden video back to the pilot – making the already low resolution thermal image even harder to view. The Z30 is one of the only affordable high-zoom cameras available for commercial drones and can only be mounted to DJI drones.

Overall, it’s fantastic to see a company as large as DJI working for pilots. If it were left up to regulatory agencies, restrictions may be even tougher on using drones for safety. We need a major manufacturer to be a voice of reason and show how powerful a tool for public health drones can be.

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Car License for Drones?

On March 22, 2017, global leader in consumer drone manufacturing DJI published a white paper that brings innovative thought-leadership to industry regulation. With the occasional media stories of privacy intrusion or drones being used for nefarious purposes, there is an increasing call for more robust governance.

Currently the US has a registration process, so if for any reason a drone gets into the hands of authorities following an infraction, the registration number can be verified against a database and the owner identified. However, in the case of a real-time incident where the aircraft is aloft, still hovering high in the sky so no registration number or identifier is visible, it would be difficult for authorities on the ground to be able to act.  For example, if a drone flies over a National Park, which is largely prohibited in the USA, and then the aircraft disappears from sight, how is an observing Police Officer or Park Ranger able to determine the culprit?

For this reason, DJI has suggested a unique, real-time solution to identification. Every drone would transmit, by radio, its location as well as a registration or other unique code.

DJI’s idea is that each drone has an inexpensive system on board that broadcasts its location and an identification number so that a person on the ground with the correct equipment can receive the broadcast. The name and address of the owner would not be revealed at that point, hence maintaining the owner’s privacy. Only law enforcement or FAA authorities would have that capability.

Brendan Schulman, DJI Vice President of Policy and Legal Affairs commented, “DJI understands that accountability is a key part of responsible drone use, and we have outlined a proposal that balances the privacy of drone operators with the legitimate concerns authorities have about some drone operations,” he continues, “this is another example of how the UAS industry is innovating solutions to emerging concerns, and we look forward to working with other stakeholders on how to implement the best possible system.”

The FAA was instructed by Congress to develop ways to identify pilots of drones and was given a 2-year deadline to do so. DJI’s white paper is suggesting a workable solution. The system has been likened to cars having a license plate; anyone can see the plate but only authorities can identify the name and address of the owner.

The technology that DJI is suggesting could easily be integrated into drones. For example, DJI’s most recent releases, primarily the DJI Mavic Pro, Phantom 4 Professional, M200 and Inspire 2 (with X5S camera) would all be suitable candidates as could all other aircraft in the DJI fleet.

The technical solution that has been suggested by DJI is relatively simple to implement and if widely adopted by all drone industry manufacturers, could go one step closer to making these flying miracles safer for the whole community.

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DJI Phantom 4 Pro-A Spring Trip to Dapeng (Shooting Equipment)

Did everyone watch the spring trip video? If not, click the link and watch.

This video was shot by two gadgets.

Aerial footages were captured by DJI Phantom 4 Pro, and the ground footages by SONY a7s M2.

Here we will introduce you the powerful equipment we used.

DJI Phantom 4 Pro

The camera on the Phantom 4 Pro

Sensor size comparison. A CMOS sensor is imbedded in the Phantom 4 Pro camera which is the same with the SONY RX100‘s, leaving more room for photography. It collects more lights and brings stunning images like never before.

You can find a lot of backlight footages in the video, compared to the Phantom 4, the Phantom 4 Pro preserves more details of the shades.

A Photo

The resolution of this photo is 5472 × 3078, the size is 7.5MB. You can even see the details of the remote controller when enlarging it. It’s obvious that the photo shot by Phantom 4 Pro is in high quality and ready for printing.

Maneuver / Control

I have flown Inspire 2 and Mavic Pro for a very long time, however, I was still amazed by the powerful propulsion and quick response of the Phantom 4 Pro.

In this task, we had to shoot from the west gate to the east gate, the Phantom 4 Pro was able to be in the camera set very quickly, saving us a large amount of time and work.

I have to say DJI engineers really worked hard on building the Phantom 4 Pro – it is the best out of Phantom series with abilities to response and move instantly.

Narrow streets and messy power lines make the old town a less ideal flying area. But with its ability to sense in five directions and avoid obstacles in four directions, the Phantom 4 Pro made its flight worry-free.

What’s worth mentioning here is that the video transmission didn’t get interrupted when the aircraft passing through the gate and flying over the roofs. It is a proof of the enhanced anti-interference ability of the Phantom 4 Pro.

However, I disenabled the obstacle avoidance when getting this one-take shot, it was not safe actually, please don’t try imitate my operation, or else your drone may end up with a crash.

Integrated Remote Controller

This integrated remote controller makes an awkward answering a friend’s call during flight a long gone history.

This time we’d brought five batteries.

I applaud for the flight time. Five batteries are enough for a long day shooting with a surprise of the remote controller still showing two LED lights on.

SONY a7s M2 full-frame compact camera with anti-shake functionality in five axis.

It’s capable of shooting video at 1080p, 120 fps, and it’s quite heavy when mounted with a FE24-70 2.8 GM lens. Thanks to the Phantom 4 Pro’s stable hovering capability, when capturing the drone’s flight altitude, I can just put the remote controller aside and use the Sony a7s M2 to shoot the drone. As for footages of flying drones, I can control the drone by one hand, and use the other hand to control the Sony a7s M2.

However, if you don’t have a professional camera at hand, you can also use an iPhone to shoot slow motion videos, the image quality is good as well.

Summary

To me, the greatest improvement of Phantom 4 Pro is its camera, I believe most photography enthusiasts will agree with me on this point. The image quality achieved by the Phantom 4 Pro can fulfill most people’s need, can even compete with the Inspire 2.

The CMOS sensor that also used in SONY RX100 makes the Phantom 4 Pro’s camera a top aerial camera in the market, I believe the 1 inch sensor is a perfect balance of the size and performance.

SONY RX100 was once selected to be the best backup camera for professional photographers, and the Phantom 4 Pro is also absolutely the best back up aerial camera for professional aerial photographers, for example, in the first phase of a big aerial photography project, you can use the Phantom 4 Pro to check around the shooting site and help with composition, make preparation for formal aerial shooting, what’s more, the footages taken by the Phantom 4 Pro can also be used as backups.

A little supplement here, for general non-professional users, the Mavic Pro is still the best choice.

Whether a new product is worth buying or not depends on your specific needs, it will be your best companion when it fulfills your needs.

Today’s drone market is a segmented market, which is good news to us.

If you are a drone beginner, and have high requirements for the portability, then you should not look for anything besides Mavic Pro.

If you have high requirements for image quality and relatively lower requirements for portability (Compared to the Inspire series), then then Phantom 4 Pro is quite a nice choice.

However, if you are a professional photographer, then don’t hesitate to get an Inspire 2 or a M600 PRO.

 

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Yearly review on drone and VR/AR: which industry is heavily bubbled?

2016 was a hard year for many drone companies: Zano and Lily failed to bring out products, GoPro is having problem re-launch its Karma. 3D Robotics decided to quit the competition of consumer drones and turn to industrial drones. Other companies, including Zerotech, Yuneec and Parrot, reduced their work force. Media begin to hold doubts on the industry—is it heavily bubbled? It’s already March of 2017, what will drone companies do this year? How will the industry perform?

Influence of capital

VR and AR industry had very similar experience like drone industry from 2015 to 2016. Once so promising, VR/AR suddenly entered winter in later half of 2016. HTC Vive has got really good sales numbers, but HTC’s financial quarter report shows the income fell by 64% year on year. Facebook shut down over 200 experience stores. Just like Recode once pointed out, VR age is still far away.

The reshuffle of drone market could be a result of globally decreased investment. According to KPMG, venture investment has plummeted compared to 2015.  Hot money were thrown into drone, VR and AR in 2015, stirring intense completions.

According to Market Watch, the investment for drone market has dropped drastically in late 2016. VR and AR are having shrinking investment. Large proportion of these companies are start-ups. When investment stops pumping in, the supply chain, would be endangered. Drone start-ups will fall into deep financial crisis.

Facing similar difficulties, the environment of drone market is quite different from that of VR/AR.

Is drone market heavily bubbled?

What kind of AR/VR products do we want? In what scenario do we need them for? These are questions we are still trying to figure out. But drones are quite different, they have simple appearance and clear features: they are convenient, reliable and intelligent aircrafts.

In my point of view, VR /AR industry is based ‘future demands’, which are not very urgent today. But Intelligent aircrafts are already improving efficiency of various industries: military, agriculture, security control, search and rescue, television and filming etc. The demand for UAVs has been expanding steadily since 2013. IDC Report of 2016 pointed out that DJI’s market share in China dropped for a while. This aroused doubt that drone industry has peaked. In fact, the reasons behind could be much more complex.

Foldable Mavic Pro was a blast to drone industry. It has sparked unexpected enthusiasm, even DJI was surprised by flooding orders of Mavic Pro, so it has been out of stock for quite a while. Fool.com estimates that DJI’s revenue in 2016 may hit $10 billion, increasing ten times of what was anticipated. For now it’s hard to tell how big drone industry is, but Mavic Pro at least proved that consumer drones are truly needed.

So drone market didn’t reach saturation. 2016 witnessed a very unique drone market influenced by capital.

Supply chain

UAV and AR/VR products are very different in terms of production. When a drone company is short of fund, it might be faced with huge pressures from its supply chain.

There are various VR/AR products on market now, many of which are low-end products. These products do not need highly advanced technologies and cost little. Even high-end product like panorama camera is not very difficult to handle—at least not dangerous. So short of fund is not that precarious for VR/AR companies.

Drones are quite different. If a drone crashes during flight, it could lead to serious consequence. Thus, consumers are expecting high-quality drones. Which means the process of R&D and production must be highly strict.

With lower costs, VR/AR products are sold at lower prices than UAVs, which means mass production is easier. The price of drones is less flexible with high costs. When the comments of a drone are not positive, it’s really hard to sell. This in return puts lots of pressure on supply chain.

The threshold for drone market is actually really high. Only mature companies are able to control supply chain and manage their products. In 2015, DJI sold its Phantom 3 Professional at $1259, while 3D Robotics sold its solo drone at $1700. Chris Anderson, CEO of 3D Robotics commented that ‘no one but DJI won this brutal price war’. By early 2016, the stock of solo drone has reached 60,000, draining up the cash of 3D Robotics. Soon 3DR quit consumer drone market silently.

Will DJI remain the unicorn?

Drone technologies are more mature than that of AR/VR, and have been used for quite a few years. As the profit rate decreases, it would be harder and harder for others to keep up with DJI. With inferior technologies, these drones are less attractive to consumers, which in return affect R&D input. The gap between DJI and new drone companies will be widened.

Taking Xiaomi Drone for example. As a smartphone giant, Xiaomi has huge advantages on supply chain. So many were very optimistic about it entering drone industry. However, the result was not satisfying. It turned out that Xiaomi Drone has similar features and functions of Phantom 3, which was released in 2015. Public started to realize Xiaomi is lagged far behind of DJI in terms of technology.

Other portable drones like Dobby and Breeze have unsatisfying features: short video transmission range, short flight time and low-quality footage. By the end of 2016, both companies had to lay off. But Mavic Pro showed the market how DJI managed to miniaturize a drone without compromising its performance. Media around world gave it positive reviews, TIME magazine even named Mavic Pro as one of the ‘Best Inventions of 2016’. Its success once again proved DJI has far advanced technologies than the rest.

With lower profit rate, drone companies are more vulnerable than AR/VR companies are. When the investors are throwing in less money, the R&D and production of new drones will be severely influenced, which would eventually lay bad influence the sales of new products.

What will drone market like in 2017?

In conclusion, 2016 marked the reshuffle of drone market. The market remain stable, but has changed a lot since two years ago. In 2014, DJI was only slightly ahead than others. When it came to 2016, other companies were left way behind.

As many companies have been driven out of drone market, those who have survived mainly choose to develop industrial drones (just like 3D Robotics did). Can they find their places in the market of industrial applications? Is industrial drone market an ‘asylum’ for these companies? We will have to wait and see.

When the investment slows down, companies that are weak in R&D and supply chain would be ruled out. The reshuffle of drone market is not necessarily bad: it makes room for strong competitors in terms of market share, talent and capital.

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The Mavic Pro will mean different things to different people

I have been very impressed with the DJI Mavic Pro and as a first time drone owner I’ll try and break down its features based on how they impacted my decision. I purchased the bundle which came with the additional accessories and the shoulder bag. My overall rating is based on the quality of the drone because the accessories, in my opinion, will mean different things to different people.

The Drone:
So my primary qualification for getting a drone was portability. I wanted something I could take with me camping and on family vacations which would give some interesting options beyond a handheld camera. The DJI Mavic Pro certainly fits that bill. When folded it’s surprising how compact it is. The Mavic Pro also feels very sturdy and not cheaply made at all. I have put about an hour of total flight time onto the drone with no issues. It is very easy to setup and fly. Each of the 3 modes (standard, sport, & tripod) work exactly as advertised and fit different purposes. In standard mode I can hit about 24 mph, sport will do a little above 40mph, and tripod mode offers a nice slow, stable flight experience. On a fully charged battery, depending on use, I can fly for about 25 minutes before I get too worried about hitting the critical battery status.

Controller & App:
The DJI Mavic Pro’s controller is much more compact than a Inspire or Phantom controller. In addition to the DJI GO 4 app makes it very easy to change settings on the fly. It displays a lot of flight data and can even play it back later. It also does a great job of tracking flight information.

Accessories:
1. Car Charger – This accessory will come in super handy for trips. Being able to charge as you go is a big plus.
2. Charging Hub – If you have more than one battery, which I would suggest and since the bundle comes with 3 batteries, this is a great accessory. It doesn’t charge all the batteries at once, but does allow you to connect them all so you don’t have to worry about monitoring your batteries and swamping them out.
3. Charging Adapter – This is a neat little accessory which allows you to turn your drone’s batteries into mobile chargers. Not necessary for the drone experience, but very cool and I can see it coming in handy traveling.
4. Shoulder Bag – It has good quality construction, but doesn’t offer a lot of protection. Also, because it’s very compact you can really only fit the drone with a battery in it, the controller, and two additional batteries in the outside mesh pouches. Fitting additional blades or a fourth battery will be a challenge.

Suggested Items:
1.DJI Mavic Phantom 2 3 4 Inspire 1 protective Accessories Mini landing pad – Having a landing pad helps with the drone’s return to home feature. In addition to GPS the drone also takes a picture of where it took off from. Having a high contrast object like a landing pad improves this feature. It also protects the drone from dust/dirt and moisture. When using my landing pad the drone returns to home within inches of where it took off from.

2. Waterproof Hard Case with Foam Insert for DJI Mavic – Having a hard case, in my opinion, is a must for travel. The shoulder bag is great for going out and about, but I’d never use it for air travel or when I’m loading up the car for a camping trip. I’m not a fan of the “pluck and pick” cases so these laser cut ones are more attractive to me.

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Should Xiaomi be worth more than DJI?

Sales of consumer and commercial flying drones picked up speed in 2016. Drone makers DJI and Parrot are one and two in market share, selling high-end devices with an average selling price of $550. Just this month, one of China’s fastest-growing tech companies, cellphone manufacturer Xiaomi, unveiled a more affordable sub-$500 drone with a claimed range of four kilometres and a video camera capable of 4K resolution.

The 4K version can fly for 26 minutes and has a range of almost 4 miles. DJI drones fly for 23-28 minutes depending on the model. The Mi Drone includes a 360-degree camera that can shoot 4K video, and handheld remote which has the option of attaching a smartphone for a streaming view from the drone.

DJI is frequently called the “Apple of drones.” It reportedly owns 70% of the consumer drone market and appeals to high-end tech shoppers. Apple even agreed to display DJI’s new Mavic Pro drones in big “feature bay” displays at over 400 of its brick-and-mortar stores, serving as DJI’s exclusive retailer during the drone’s initial launch in March. DJI employees also visited select Apple Stores to provide training sessions to customers.

In response to DJI’s rapid growth, Xiaomi recently launched the Mi Drone, a 4K drone which only costs $460, its entry into drones. That’s less than half the price of most DJI drones, which cost over $1,000. The Mi Drone represents another way for Xiaomi to diversify beyond its core smartphone business, which has been ceding market share to low-cost rivals like Oppo and Huawei.

Xiaomi’s main strategy is to sell devices with high-end hardware at low-end prices via an online model that eliminates brick-and-mortar markups. That causes it to run on paper-thin margins — its last known operating margin was 1.8% in 2013, and that figure has likely declined due to rising competition in smartphones.

DJI profits might decline if it has to match Xiaomi’s aggressive prices. However, Xiaomi’s Mi Drone still lacks HDR, burst shot, time lapse photos, and obstacle detection — all features which are included in DJI’s Mavic Pro.

Similar to other Xiaomi products, the company didn’t actually create the Mi Drone itself. Instead, it is working with a China-based startup, Flymi, which designed and developed the UAV. Xiaomi is arranging the manufacturing and branding and selling it via its channels.

Should Xiaomi be worth more than DJI? It remains to be seen.

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Will the Karma drone sales be enough to revive the GoPro?

According Recode’ source, GoPro will cut approximately 270 more jobs, or about 17 percent of its workforce based on its headcount at the end of last year. That’s on top of the 200 positions the company said it would eliminate in November. The recent job cuts were made mostly in the company’s virtual reality and broadcasting wings, claiming that “no one is left” to supervise the departments. Those cuts would certainly reflect Woodman’s CES assertions that GoPro is looking to shift its focus to a core set of products.

Just in case you didn’t know, GoPro cut 100 jobs in January 2016 and 200 more after the Mavic launch in November 2016. So the company’s workforce has shrunk by almost 25% since the beginning of last year.

GoPro primarily sells action-oriented cameras, but it recently made a foray into drones. The company’s foldable Karma drone is back for sale after an embarrassing recall. Some customers complained of a power failure that caused the aircraft to fall from the sky, leading to the recall.

Now the hyped Karma drone is back,how about the updated one?

Theverge has got another review unit.

As reviewed by Theverge, the Karma can’t autonomously follow you around. Its battery life is on the low end, and its range is much shorter than its main competitors. It doesn’t have fancy sensors to help it stabilize indoors or avoid obstacles. It’s akin to releasing a flagship smartphone in 2016 that didn’t have a fingerprint sensor or front-facing camera.

It concluded that the GoPro Karma is not a great drone by today’s standards. It’s basic, kind of like a mid-tier Android smartphone that checks all the boxes that more trailblazing units have established over the last few years. It may be a nice starter kit if you own a GoPro. If you don’t need a handheld stabilizer or don’t own a GoPro, there is no reason to settle for a drone with a spotty track record and a total lack of cutting-edge features.

Will the drone sales be enough to revive the floundering company? It seems that though the Karma drone is back on sale, existence of the DJI Mavic has completely blocked their way into the drone market.

Thank you for reading!

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