Hover Camera: See what they think

Speaking of Hover Camera, you may think of the bankrupt Zano and the Lily in the drones marketing, the three drones are similar, they are all the drones mainly coming with the Self-Timer function, including the following shot function.

Then Hover Camera will follow in their footsteps? How do you think about the Hover Camera?

Below are some comments from the Hover Camera forum.

“More realistic. Its primary selling point is the use of the bottom camera. The rest of the functions are common cellphone camera features. Its main purpose is to stay in place no matter what, the follow feature is probably just the yaw and camera tilt.”

“I saw Hover Camera in my news feed. Looks cool, but at the end of the day, it’s just another toy hitting the market. It might sell well, but I don’t think this is the kind of device that people NEED or that will be super widespread. I’m sure it’ll be fun to fly, though.”

“Just seems a bit pricey for a design that looks like it was 3D printed to hold crayons. Why enclose the props with all that plastic? You’re losing a lot of functionality (lift and aerodynamics) that way.”

“Video is pretty bad. Which is why they market it more for taking photos instead video. I still need to take it out for another ride on the Boosted Board and see how Beast Mode works and how the video quality it when it’s flying at a constant speed. I’m hoping it does a little better than when just floating. Overall, it’s still a fun little toy.”

“The Dobby and Yuneec Breeze look like good options as well. I’ve had Phantoms and actually lugged them along on some pretty long hikes to do exactly what one of these will do. And the fact is I’m not a videographer and while the capabilities of that platform are wonderful, I’ve just come to the realization that one of these types – or maybe a Bebop 2 – are much more my speed, being that all I ended up using the Phantom for is remote selfies anyway.”

“Just purchased Hover Camera because the concept seemed cool and I wanted to try it. Not worth the money really. But still a fun little guy to mess around with. May end up on eBay in a couple weeks.”

“I don’t think I need Hover Camera but and glad I found out about it through an entertaining and honest, robust instructional delivery well done. Imagine it above you while your cooking acting as a fan while filming.”

“If you are looking to use for photos only, this could be a good choice. If you want more video, I’d suggest something like the DJI Mavic. I did a review of that too. It may be more of what you are looking for.”

 

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Yuneec Breeze 4K Quadcopter drone review

Yuneec launched the Breeze 4K Quadcopter drone last year, an intelligent and rather small quadcopter.

The Yuneec Breeze 4K Quadcopter drone 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 Breeze 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 Yuneec 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 Breeze clearly wants to tout its 4K capabilities, they’re of limited usefulness without stabilization.

The bottom line for the Yuneec Breeze is that it flies well enough for light hobby and aerial photo use while being badly limited for any sort of serious airborne shooting of a professional sort. Its maximum flight speed of just over 10mph and maximum vertical ascent speed of a measly 2mph are both very slow but this itself doesn’t matter all that much since the Breeze can’t exceed a range of a little over 300 feet horizontally or vertically.

On the other hand, the manual flight controls that Yuneec gave the Breeze through the control app are remarkably flexible and user-friendly by the standards of a smartphone-operated drone. Furthermore, while the UAV’s selection of autonomous flight options is pretty basic, it’s more than enough for a drone that has to stay within 330 feet of its operator at all times. We should mention here that Yuneec has not included or even built a manual controller device for the Breeze. Since the focus here is on portability and compactness, this little drone can only be flown via smartphone/tablet app. Quite frankly, the app is good at what it delivers, so for the price the Breeze is selling at, our complaints are small on this front.

The overall flight experience of using the Yuneec Breeze is quite good in our view. Despite the range limitations imposed upon this little drone, it delivers some great highly localized aerial shooting and flight control experience. Furthermore, if you simply activate its automated Follow-Me, Orbit or Selfie options, the UAV will do a great job as an airborne photographer even if it’s not particularly useful as a manually flown exploration and aerial video survey drone.

In terms of drone security, we also love how well the Yuneec Breeze manages to keep itself safe during unforeseen losses of flight control. Thus, if the signal between drone and smartphone is lost, the Breeze will simply hover in place for about a minute before returning to the place it took off from and landing by itself. The hover and land mechanism also kicks in if your phone dies suddenly or if you happen to get a call whole you’re busy using the Breeze.

On the other hand, onboard obstacle avoidance is outside the price range of the Yuneec Breeze, so if you’re flying the little UAV, make sure to keep an eye on where it goes and more importantly, setting it to performs automated functions in a crowded bit of sky can easily cause the drone to hit something while it obeys its instructions. The absence of this last feature is a definite limitation if you’re thinking of having this little drone zip along behind you while you move through forested areas or urban environments with lots of vertical obstacles. In any case, thanks to the above-mentioned speed limitations of the Breeze drone, you’re definitely not going to use it to follow you as you move along quickly on a bike, skis or a snowboard.

Yuneec Breeze now sells for no more than $390 with two batteries, a carry case and a couple of rotor guards included.

 

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Yuneec Breeze teardown: A flying white chubby boy

It was known for being acquired by Intel, and amazed everyone at CES by performing a stunning obstacle avoidance show, which was revealed as a fake one. Its flagship, Typhoon H is seldom seen in Chinese market. But the reason behind it seems to be Yuneec’s focus abroad, nothing strange if the Typhoon H is little known in China. And today I’m going to give review to another Yuneec product, Yuneec Breeze.

Unboxing | Build Quality

The box is white, same as the aircraft itself, showing a sense of minimalism.

In the box: accessories as well as a storage box, which I personally like, for it makes the drone’s storage easier.

Aircraft X1, propeller protector X4, flight batteryX1, storage box X1, spared propeller set X1, charger X1, cable X1, user menu.

There are screws for the spared propellers, but no screwdriver is included. The capacity of the battery is 1150mAh, a little higher than Dobby’s 970mAh.

The plastic storage box is quite soft but with a very tight “Push” button, creating a lot of trouble when trying to open it.

Yuneec Breeze has soft lines, which makes it look chubby and cute, despite an obvious bump on top of the aircraft for GPS antennas. The white color is also appealing, though might be a bit hard to keep it clean, I guess.

Like many drones in the market, Yuneec Breeze is plastic, too. But its shell is thinner, with a poor texture and even some cracks on it. The build quality is not impressive in general.

Sensors at the bottom of the drone: the large one is IRS, and small one is OFM, for hovering and positioning respectively.

Landing gears at the bottom need to be unfolded manually, otherwise the glass of the sensors will directly touch the ground and get scratched, affecting the precision of hovering and positioning.

When the landing gears are unfolded, the Yuneec Breeze is lifted to about 1cm above the ground, giving effective protection to its bottom. But folding the gears back is a tough job, because the springback is very strong. With no cushion on the gears, the frame arms are hurt due to the strong impact force when folding the gears back.

And the openings on aircraft body is rough too. You can see the cables connecting the main board and motors straightly from the back of the battery compartment. Thermovents are set on the top of the arms, left no cover or protection from the rain which can directly get to the battery and main board, and you can say goodbye to your drone.

Rain can get into the aircraft body from the thermovents on top, risking short-circuited problems.

Cables can be seen from the gap between a motor and the frame arm.

Probably because Breeze is not properly sealed, I found something inside the IRS (on the other side of the glass).
There is no way to remove it, driving an OCD like me crazy.

A huge interface exposes the USB connection as well as the main board inside the aircraft, something so rough that I’ve never seen in other drones…

The camera of the OFM is not at the center, again, driving me crazy.

Though the build quality is not impressive at all, still there is highlights. The camera, for example, is 1-axis and can be adjusted with the dedicated app, instead of doing it manually like Dobby.

Mounting propeller protectors to Yuneec Breeze is very easy, because they are simply fixed by snaps. It brings convenience for setting, but also risk of falling off by a slight impact.

Though Dobby’s body is thick, thanks for its foldable design, it’s still narrower than an iPhone 7 Plus. Apparently Breeze is less portable than Dobby. Its size reaches 196x196x65mm, larger than iPhone 7 Plus even when it’s folded up, impossible to fit in your pocket.

Put Breeze in the storage box and it has nothing to do with portability anymore. The box is a bit larger than an 8-inch cake box, which can only be put in a backpack instead of a chest bag.

Flight | Control

Because the controller and the aircraft is connected with Wi-Fi, the maximum controllable range of Yuneec Breeze is only 80m (at height) and 100m (at distance), typical spec of mini drones emerged since last year. Selfie is the main application scenario.

Yuneec Breeze uses app— the most common way for control. There are two ways of control, joystick and slider. The former serves just like a controller, with the right stick for horizontal moves, and left for ascend/descend and heading. But still, the virtual sticks are not sensitive enough to peer the real ones.

Also when you are flying Yuneec Breeze in joystick mode, you can press a button and the drone will mimic your smart phone’s motion. Latency for this mode is not bad, but still not sensitive enough to get the drone back when accidents happen. So my suggestion is to fly in a wide open space.

The setting of Slider mode, on the other hand, is disastrous. Pushing up for controlling the done back and forth, down for heading, right for ascending/descending and left for pitch. The design is unreasonable and every difficult to predict the attitude of the drone if you don’t look at it.
But the most complicated thing is you can’t control the flight and camera simultaneously.

There are six flight modes:

Pilot Mode：Joystick control, ordinary flight mode

Selfie Mode：Slider control, with the drone facing to the pilot

Orbit Mode：Slider control, using GPS to circle around a certain point

Journey Mode：Slider control, by using camera pitch to calculate the trajectory of the aircraft, Breeze will fly away from you and then back to you.

VisionTrack Mode: Joystick control. In Follow Me, Yuneec Breeze uses GPS to track your movement.

*FPV Mode: Not released yet.

Orbit: In Orbit mode, you need to manually choose a point, and Breeze will circle around it basing on the GPS information of this point. Besides, the camera gimbal also needs manual adjustment, too. But due to GPS error, Breeze is often astray when circling.

Journey: By using camera pitch to calculate the trajectory of the aircraft, Breeze will fly away from you and then back to you. Because Breeze doesn’t have any obstacle avoidance on board, always watch out for obstacles when using this mode.

VisionTrack: In VisionTrack mode, use two fingers to frame a target on the screen, and Yuneec Breeze will adjust its heading and automatically follow the target. You can switch between Watch and Track modes manually.

In our test, the Watch mode is very unstable, with a lot of shakings during recording, because the gimbal keeps tilting up and down. While the Track mode often goes off course when following a target. Can’t figure out why.

Yuneec Breeze is equipped with a 13 megapixel camera, capable of recording 4K/30fps without electronic stabilization, common among small-size drones.

Remember Dobby’s image quality? Due to the lack of built-in damping balls and stabilization gimbal, the edges of images that Dobby shoots will blur out, and videos shows severe jello effect like the screenshot above.

Equipped with built-in damping balls, Yuneec Breeze does a much better job in shooting and recording, compared to Dobby. No sign of jello effect basically. However, limited by its flight stability and camera quality, the overall camera performance is just so-so.

Resolution of the above image reaches 4160X3120, but image quality is not impressive. Color reproduction isn’t precise; details are not clear; ISO and shutter cannot be adjusted either.

In terms of recording, the footage at 1080p shows visible shakings even when Breeze is hovering and with stabilization. It seems the single axis can only control the camera’s pitch, instead of reducing shakes.

Although Yuneec Breeze manages to satisfy the most basic shooting needs, consider its price is as high as 3000RMB (3299RMB originally), its price/performance ratio is low.

Duration | Summary

After several landings and taking-offs, the real flight time of Breeze is a little longer than 10min, still a gap with the announced 12min. Given the wind speed and operation during the test, such a gap is acceptable, anyway.

Still, 10min flight time is too short for a mini drones with portability and such a high price, meaning it’s not suitable for daily use. Few people will spend this amount of money and effort just for a 10min flight.

But on the other hand, it’s encouraging to see drones like Breeze launched to the market. Small and smart drones are the future of drone industry. In whichever industry, it’s good to have someone dare to give it a go.

Yuneec Breeze

Good points:

1. Adorable appearance, fresh color, appealing to female consumers
2. Storage box to protect the aircraft from collision and scratches
3. Built-in damping balls reduces shakes and increase camera performance
4. Single axis gimbal to control camera movement

Weak points:

1. Poor build quality and material texture. Exposed connector and unreasonable design
2. Not foldable. Poor portability.
3. Mushy control. Slider design is a nightmare
4. Flight and camera cannot be control at the same time
5. The quality of images and videos is not satisfactory
6. Flight time is too short
7. The price is too high.

Tear apart | Notes


From top to bottom: cooling fin, IRS and OFM. Processor and ISP should be behind the fin. Modules are properly set on the main board, cables are well organized and neat.

The camera in Yuneec Breeze can be tilted by a steering gear, and the camera is directly connected to the main board. Damping balls serve as cushions between main board, frame arms and motors, effectively reducing vertical high frequency shakes, the best way to solve jello effect problems.

The build quality inside Breeze is better than that of Typhoon H. however, Yuneec should really improve Breeze’s shell…

 

 

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I returned the Yuneec Breeze finally

I’ve been thinking of dipping my little toe into drone photography. I want to start out with baby steps and considering the Yuneec Breeze, mainly because it’s small and portable, reasonably priced, and unobtrusive. I don’t like calling attention to myself when out taking photos, even with a DSLR, so a big noisy drone is out.

I’m not really concerned with range, battery life, just want something simple to start with and not too expensive! I realize that quality vs. cost are generally mutually exclusive, but I don’t think I could handle crashing a $1000 drone.

I am more interested in photos that video, so I was wondering if anyone has any full-size images taken with the Yuneec Breeze.

Then someone told me that “the camera aboard the Yuneec Breeze may be like that of the Zerotech Dobby. Without a gimbal, the still photo quality of any drone shots will be compromised by rotor micro-vibrations, on the one hand, and “jello” or banding caused by the digital stabilization, on the other.”

(Via Dobby)

(Via Dobby)

I checked out the Dobby photos, it looks decent enough to maybe print as 8×10’s which would be acceptable to me. I am not looking to use this for anything more than what I would use my iPhone for.  As I said, I am mainly interested in photos and not so much on taking video.

I went ahead the pulled the trigger on getting the Yuneec Breeze, as B&H Photo has a sale going on right now. I am thinking it will be a good starter kit, then go from there. At least with the Breeze I will get my foot in the door.  I still haven’t’ decided on getting the optional remote w/goggles…they are currently on backorder anyway so there is no rush.

Well, I received my new Yuneec Breeze and had no success with connecting to my iphone 6s Plus wifi. I was able to sporadically connect with an older Apple ipad mini enough to apply the latest firmware upgrade and then test it briefly indoors. Given the wifi issues I was experiencing, I was all set to return it and had it boxed up and ready to ship.

This morning, I hesitantly decided I would give it one more try with my iphone and lo and behold, the Yuneec Breeze appeared in my wifi connections with no issues. Took it over to the local park where I thought maybe the artificial turf would protect it in the event of a crash. It flew perfectly and I was able to snap a few photos.

Here’s sample taken this morning. I edited it slightly using Photoshop CC with mainly some minor smart sharpening and a graduated filter to bring back some of the color in the sky.

(Via Yuneec Breeze)

I must admit there’re lots of jpeg blurring. I think it might be okay for smaller prints. I’m guessing the “fuzziness” of the artificial turf might exacerbate the problem, but I see it clearly in other images as well. The Breeze was really designed and marketed for the selfie crowd, used to using smartphones and tablets. I think it would probably also work well for simple shots for as well.

I plan to continue testing for a few days and if the wifi connection remains stable and reliable, then I think it might work out for my purposes after all.

Now I’m returning the Yuneec Breeze after all for other issues. Think I might relinquish myself to shooting from terra firma, at least for the time being. Besides there’s a Nikon 70-200 f4 out there somewhere with my name on it!

 

 

 

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Major causes of Yuneec Breeze indoor crashes…

Scan the Yuneec Breeze forums to discover Breeze drone crashed every now and then, especially indoors. What’s the major causes of indoor crashes?Let’s see the two stories firstly.

“I had several crashes indoor, I would say out of 8 flights the Yuneec Breeze went drifting and ignoring my command 6 times. I could catch her a few times then shutting off, but I got my piano and some probs damaged.

It is certainly an issue with the optical flow sensor or some similar sensor. When the drone flies over a carpet, my black or my grey couch I noticed slow response to my commands. The Breeze drone starts drifting. In two cases, after a short side drift, it went crazily fast to one direction until it crashed (the motors are switched off then).

Please be very careful indoors. At the moment I cannot recommend the Yuneec Breeze indoors. Even an experienced pilot can’t do anything as the drone ignores all commands from my phone in these cases (except emergency shutdown). Low light conditions seem to have a big impact on the sensor.

Yuneec should provide a manual control mode to fly the drone without the optical sensors or just let the pilot override the automatic reactions. Until then I’ll stay outside.”

“Indoor light can be insufficient for the infrared sensors to gauge height. I cannot use the Yuneec Breeze in my studio indoors as I have a dark floor and it cannot map a thing. I have to place a piece of paper under it to get the flow sensor working to take off. Once in the air, it was not good and did do things on its own. This time I was prepared and managed to not crash like the first time I tried this same scenario. My house there is no problem during the day because I get natural light from windows.

I purchased the controller. It’s good and gets you back to being the pilot not a swiping fiddling fool.

The headset is useless for flying as the latency is too nutty for me. I may try it again in a more open space but my FPV needs to be real time. The larger phones are great for the controller and I’m very happy with touch controls for camera being separate from sticks. The tilt has a trim on the dpad that makes it actually work smoothly. It is now a very reliable quick pop up and grab a shot tool. 8 mins is about right for the battery. Battery times are always over stated by everyone in this biz.”

I think the major causes of indoor crashes are:

1. Flying over counters, couches, chairs will throw off the ground distance sensor.
2. Flying with GPS “on” indoors
3. Lots of wifi signals in the area, condos especially
4. Poor piloting

 

 

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Yuneec Breeze indoor and outdoor flight test

Just got my Yuneec Breeze not long ago, decided to test it out inside because weather outside was crap. Followed all the instructions on how to fly in doors, checked the firmware it was up to date and turned GPS off. Everything went accordingly, it hovered at three feet, the wind from the blades caused it to move side to side which was expected. I raised it to about five feet and it became more staple in the air as it hovered. I toggled the camera, I took a picture and viewed it while it hovered. Then it beeped, flew straight up to the ceiling, popped two guards off and vigorously circled the ceiling while bouncing. I tried throttle down but it wasn’t communicating, then it beeped again and just dropped nine feet to the floor. The phone display IPS failure which I assume shut off the drone. I examined the Yuneec Breeze no cracks, three blades are ruined, the GPS cover popped off. I pulled the battery out for awhile and put it back together and powered it up. GPS was showing 15, the drone lights was showing green on the wing and full blue at the back but the IPS was orange on the phone and the camera is working fine. I checked the flight log and it show 3 minutes and 30 seconds, changed the blades but I’m scared to test it again. When I tested inside there is lots of room, good lighting, pine floors and only a couch for an obstacle.

I replaced the damage blades and took my Yuneec Breeze outside the other day. I kept it at a safe flying height, just to test if everything is in good working order. I ran the first battery that was originally used and just hovered at five feet to see if it would reproduce warnings. The second battery. I played with it, moved foward/back and side to side no issues. I’m thinking because indoors, with Wi-Fi on all the devices and three cell phones. I’m wondering if by chance there was some communication disruption. It still doesn’t explain while hovering it beeped and had a radical behavior of its own. I’m just happy it fly’s and not happy looking for replacement blades because no one carries them and I have to order them.

Alright. Took the Breeze drone to work yesterday, large indoor space (warehouse) empty and the only obstacles are four pillars. I haven’t been able to try any other features with the app because I’m always in no GPS mode and the images it took looked great because of the no wind environment. Again I set all the settings of the app to their lowest, recalibrated the Yuneec Breeze at five feet and gave it a whirl. I figured nothing could possibly go wrong, I tested its limitations stop height at 9.8 feet.. it didn’t stop, distance 30 feet… it stopped and became uncontrollable just hovered. So I walked towards it to gain control again, no response.. question is 30 feet my wifi limit or was it doing what it’s suppose to do without GPS landed and shut off. I did however charged both batteries, noticed the actual flight time wasn’t what I expected and it seemed I only got about eight minutes per battery. I am defiantly ordering the controller, I find using the cell phone my fingers are too big, I noticed the Yuneec Breeze drone simulate two motions when controlling it and the response time was almost precise to the action of my movement on the phone. I guess you can say I’m very cautious with this drone, I’ve seen a few videos of Breeze’s acting on its own or maybe issues of inexperience pilots smashing into objects, who can’t blame themselves and I will be honest when I say my first crash was not human error it was just hovering. I guess i have a few more months to properly learn how to control this drone in a safe environment until winter is over and the fun really begins.

 

 

 

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Bulky, problem-prone Yuneec Typhoon quadcopter ready for a phase out?

DJI’s Phantom 3 and Phantom 4 have clearly won the RC quadcopter war with the Yuneec Typhoon quadcopter to the point that it may be time to wonder if newer model launches are an attempt by the company to move on.

The basic Yuneec Q500 model has been adapted a few times from a pre-4K camera variant to one that can hold a GoPro, but Yuneec has faced a lot of blowback over flaws in the overall model.

The top complaints on the Yuneec Typhoon quadcopter center on communications between the controller and the drone on two fronts – poor GPS fix and lock in many cases and access to fewer satellites overall in a DJI vs Yuneec comparison. The other communication aspect is the weak internal WiFi card of the Yuneec drone and the badly soldered antenna that needs a trip back to the factory to fix.

Reviewers of the Yuneec Typhoon quadcopter had initially expressed hopes that these issues were production line bugs that could be fixed in subsequent sales, but the talk is that there is such a repair backlog for the RC quadcopter from Yuneec that a logjam has been created in a rush to get new models of the Yuneec Typhoon quadcopter into the market and deal with units sent back at the same time.

This flawed R&D approach to testing products rigorously in the design phase and in beta is evident in the Yuneec Typhoon quadcopter and has flowed through to newer models such as the Yuneec Breeze “selfie” drone aimed at a potential large market that wants some fun for under $500 – a penny under, in this case.

But these new buyers then have to deal with a drone that has less than a dozen minutes of battery life, less than 80 meters of range, poor connections to a smartphone or tablet and that can be easily blown around by even mild gusts of wind.

On top of that, Yuneec has tried to go high-end with a massive hexacopter – the Yuneec Typhoon H – and compete with a far superior Phantom 4 model from DJI that regularly receives rave reviews. The Yuneec Typhoon has been faulted for cheap plastic in key parts such as the joints holding together the folding arms – and for the landing gear that is nominally retractable, but regularly seizes up in flight.

But maybe if Yuneec looks to streamline offerings it can at least cut the backlog of repairs enough to concentrate on the newer entries into the market. As it is, the Yuneec Typhoon quadcopter just keeps logging complaints over flight hours with issues such as a burning smell during batter recharges and flight times less than 20 minutes, far below the 25 minutes advertised.

Of course DJI is coming out with some new models too, the Mavic Pro, which runs off an APP on a smartphone or controller and flies for up to 27 minutes at just a few hundred dollars above the Yuneec Breeze, and which has the ability to live-stream full HD video to Facebook Live, Periscope and YouTube.

 

 

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Is Yuneec Breeze so simple as Yuneec says

There’s a drone in drone industry, and the company that makes it, Yuneec, says it’s a total breeze to fly.

No flight experience or even a flight controller is needed–you operate it all on your smart phone, with an app.

Yuneec doesn’t even call the Yuneec Breeze a drone, but instead a “flying camera,” one which the company suggests should be used for group shots and selfies.

The Breeze sells for around $400, which is a pretty low price for a drone. A comparable device from no. 1 drone manufacturer DJI also sells for $499–but DJI’s Phantom 3 Standard comes with a flight controller that must be mastered before the drone can take off–and videos are recorded at 2.7k resolution.

The Phantom weighs 2.6 pounds, while the teeny Yuneec Breeze is under a pound, and promises heftier 4K video resolution. The Breeze has internal memory, offering only 12 minutes of flight time before re-charging.

I spent some time with Yuneec recently checking out the Yuneec Breeze, flying it by a seaside cliff here in the South Bay area of Los Angeles with product manager Trent Siggard.

In Siggard’s hands, the Yuneec drone took off as a flying camera swiftly. The app offers choices like “Selfie” mode, where the camera flies in place at eye level, to snap shots of you and your friends, and “Follow Me,” mode–where the Yuneec Breeze camera senses your presence and moves with you as you change locations.

We played back the footage on my phone pretty easily, and I later transferred the files to the computer, where they looked decent–about what you’d expect for a $400 drone. (That day we also looked at Yuneec’s top of the line Typhoon H, which blew the Yuneec Breeze, as you would expect out of the water. The images were steadier, richer in color and looked outright amazing.)

After our cliffside drone sessions, Siggard and I went into town and sat at an outdoor cafe, where we both got the Yuneec Breeze to fly at eye level, for some selfies. All worked well.

But then, when I went home–remember this is a first impression–I tried again and user error came in.

I clicked the Yuneec Breeze “launch” button on the app, the Yuneec drone took off a walloping 40-50 feet above my backyard deck. This was way, way higher than expected, or desired.

I kept clicking on the app it to bring it back down to earth, and there was initially no response. After a few agonizing minutes, it finally did what it was supposed to do and landed atop an outside plant.

At my first glance, the Yuneec Breeze wasn’t a total breeze for me– but with time to master it, hopefully it will be as simple for me as Yuneec says it should be.

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4 key questions to find out Hover Camera

Instead of being a jack-of-all-trades, this Hover Camera from Zero Zero Robotics is built specifically for taking selfies and follow footage — We asked four key questions to find out whether it’ll be worth the price of admission in the dawn of a burgeoning drone industry.

So what’s it all about?

There are three main features that give Hover Camera its distinctiveness (if we can call it that). To start with it’s aiming at a very specific market. It’s not really a high-performance aerial imaging machine. So where does it fit in? Well, it’s a low flying one take selfie drone at best and probably for reasons we’ll go into later. Another distinctive feature is its enclosed or ‘housed’ propellers that are electric fanlike in execution but evidently safe to handle. The Hover Camera is light (242g) with a foldable design that can fold into the size of a hardback book.

Does it perform well?

The quick answer would be a resounding no. It does’t perform well at all. But the easiest thing to do would be to break down the Hover Camera’s performance in the following ways.

Camera and image sensor – with a 1/3.06 inch CMOS sensor and 13 million effective pixels the Hover Camera’s camera is simply too small to capture decent images. It’s likely outdated too with a small sensor today’s mobile phone manufacturers wouldn’t even use.

GPS – the Hover Camera only has a paltry 20m wireless video transmission range, which is much shorter than Dobby’s at 100m and absolutely nothing compared to DJI’s Mavic Pro with 7km! However, since the Hover Camera uses optical flow and a front camera SDK to hover, it’s a lot small and ‘floaty’ than the Dobby or Mavic Pro and is therefore susceptible to catch drift in the wind.

Flight Time – a total flying time of just eight minutes and before you know how to even use it, you’ll be recharging or putting new batteries in for another quick round. In practical terms, eight minutes is simply not enough for any kind of photo-shoot without this small inconvenience. Zero Zero have countered this by claiming that they will be giving users spare batteries for orders but for the price, we’re not so sure.

On Board Intelligence – let’s just say that the Hover Camera doesn’t have much in terms of intelligent features ad certainly DJI’s Mavic Pro is the big daddy in that department. When we tested it the active track function lost track of it’s subject several times. A big no no. 

What’s that you say? More than $600!?

For a starting price of $599 and for the features you get and cost and low battery power time, we honestly think you’re better of with a $5 selfie stick and saving your money for a DJI Mavic Pro. Even if you do fork out for a Hover Camera you’ll soon be pining for something more sophisticated and with better overall performance. Mavic Pro is still even cheaper than that.

Verdict

If we had to rate this, it would be 2/10. Zero Zero Robotics have potential but this first generation of Hover Camera really blows. Its natural competitors would be the Dobby, Yuneec Breeze or even Parrot’s AR drones but we would go for any of them first before forking out for a Hover Camera.

( Source )

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Yuneec Breeze Review: Everything you should know-Part II

The post is the part II of the Yuneec Breeze In-Depth Review.

Emergency landing with hard exit

The individual flight modes are explained in detail at the last post. If there are still questions during the flight, there is a help button in the upper right corner. This again displays information on the control elements. In the worst case, the drone can be landed – where “land” is the wrong word: if we touch the upper bar of the operating display twice, we can switch off the Yuneec Breeze immediately. It simply falls from the sky, which is why this possibility should only be used in case of emergency.

The partly automated modes require a position determination by GPS; The Yuneec Breeze 4K does not find any satellites, for example in indoor rooms, it can only be flown with the full-man pilot mode. Then the assisted modes would simply not be accurate enough, too dangerous. Even with a GPS connection, however, the user must ensure that he does not fly against obstacles; Sensors for a collision warning does not have the drone as mentioned.

Stable position thanks to GPS and IPS

In addition to GPS positioning, the Yuneec Breeze 4K also offers an Indoor Positioning System (IPS), which is designed to help the drone in interior spaces while holding the position. On the other hand, the drone has installed additional cameras on the underside, which recognize textures on the ground and give the device orientation.

An infrared sensor at the bottom also measures the heights of the copter. This is particularly important when we activate the automatic return function: Here, the user can set before the start, at what height the Yuneec Breeze should fly back. When a connection is lost, the drone will return automatically if no connection can be restored for one minute. Even in the automatic return function, the drone can not detect any obstacles.

13-megapixel camera points to the pilot

By default, the camera is aimed at the pilot, so it does not show forward as usual with copters. This also underlines the purpose of the device as a “self-drive”. If we do not want us, but the landscape filming and photographing and therefore the camera prefer to use forward, the control can be inverted. Then the drone can simply be turned over and flown without having to use it with an inverted control.

The camera of the Yuneec Breeze has 13 megapixels and optionally takes videos in 3,840 x 2,160 pixels at 30 fps, in 1,920 x 1,080 pixels at 30 fps and in 1,280 x 720 pixels at 60 fps. Photos are recorded at 4,160 x 3,120 pixels. The field of view of the camera is 117 degrees, the angle can be set vertically between 0 and 90 degrees. Stabilized recordings are only available in full HD and HD, the 4K videos are correspondingly more blurred. The stabilizer works electronically, there is no optical stabilization or even a gimbal.

Electronic stabilization only with Full-HD

The electronic stabilization works quite reliably, but in some situations it is clearly visible. If the movement of the cop in the air is particularly violent, this can be seen in a kind of flirting in the picture. The image margins and the overall image remain stable, but individual parts of the video image, for example, very high contrast. However, we are still finding this acceptable against the backdrop of the price of the drone.

The 4K recordings we feel only in very calm flight situation as usable – thus with almost wind still. If you are familiar with video editing, however, you can still use a software stabilization.

The quality of the photos is equivalent to a mediocre smartphone camera with 13 megapixels. Details look very thick and blurred, but the quality is sufficient for sharing in social networks. However, large-format prints should not be looked at too closely.

Good video quality

The video quality is good for us, especially from the 4K mode, we were also surprised by the weather conditions in which we recorded. Although very fine structures result in compression artifacts, on the whole the quality is good. Also in full-HD recorded videos – preferred by us because of the stabilization – are qualitatively sufficiently good.

With the camera of a Mavic Pro or an even more expensive drone, the Yuneec Breeze can not keep up, but the drone costs less. Take care, however, of the pilot, but with the backlight: Then it can easily come to blue fringing, as we have seen in trees in a bright, white sky.

The Yuneec Breeze has an internal memory of 16 GB, a slot for a Micro SD card does not exist. Recorded videos and photos can either be loaded onto a smartphone or tablet via the app or played on a PC by cable. In the Breeze cam app, the recorded videos can be cut and split into small movies after the download. This lets you upload photos and movies directly to Facebook, Instagram, or other social networks. The cutting function provides the necessary tools to perform simple machining operations.

The flight time is too short

The Yuneec Breeze 4K uses replaceable batteries with a nominal charge of 1,150 mAh. According to Yuneec, they should allow a flight time of twelve minutes, but with video recordings, we have not gone beyond ten minutes in our tests. Compared to other manufacturers’ drones, this is an under-average value that is too short in everyday life.

The battery takes an hour to fully recharge. In our opinion, pilots need at least three batteries to use the Yuneec Breeze effectively. Luckily, the batteries with currently $50-60 are not too expensive, but buyers must pay attention to these additional costs.

Conclusion

The Yuneec Breeze 4K costs around $500. It includes spare rotors, four plastic rotor protectors, a battery, a charger, a USB cable and a plastic box for the drone.

We like the concept of the Yuneec Breeze 4K very well: The idea to launch a drone on the market, which explicitly addresses even inexperienced users who simply want to make videos and photos, we think it makes sense.

This is “Your Flying Camera” rather than a competitor to the Mavic Pro which is ultraportable and powerful yet, or other entry to mid-level drones.

The post Yuneec Breeze Review: Everything you should know-Part II appeared first on Drone Inner.

Yuneec Breeze Review: Everything you should know-Part I

The Chinese company Yuneec calls its small quad-copter “Selfie drone” or “flying camera”. It is called Breeze 4K and is to be particularly suitable for simple video recordings and photos, which the pilot himself can make.

The Yuneec Breeze 4K is compact, it fits into a plastic case, which is only 215 x 205 x 73 mm. The drone itself measures 196 x 196 x 65 mm, with attached propeller protection 327 x 327 x 65 mm. The propellers themselves are not rigid, which is why they can be folded inwards to save space. At 385 grams, the copter is relatively light.

Yuneec Breeze 4K is easy to carry

Due to the compact packaging, the Yuneec Breeze can be carried along very easily and comfortably on the road, which is not only practical when traveling: in many large cities in America it is not permissible to fly a drone in the city center. This is far more convenient with such a small drone, especially if you are not driving.

The Yuneec Breeze is ready for use: We just have to fold out the four feet, insert the battery and press the power button. The copter then waits to connect to a smartphone that acts as a remote control.

We need to install the free Breeze cam app, which is available for both Android and iOS. Using this application, we can not only control the drone, but also make settings, view, edit, and edit the captured video, and track the live image of the camera during the flight. The connection between drone and smartphone or tablet is via WLAN, so the range is limited to a few hundred meters.

Speed limits for quiet shots

The maximum flying height is set to 80 meters from home – this restriction makes sense in the sense that users are supposed to film themselves with the drone. Its maximum flight speed is at 18 km/h and the maximum ascent rate is even at 3.6 km / h. This makes the Yuneec Breeze much slower than many competitors, such as Parrot Bebop or DJI Mavic. However, it is also possible to record extremely quiet camshafts and camera movements.

The Breeze Cam app is designed to allow users with little flying experience to get the drone up and take good pictures with it. In addition to the so-called pilot mode, in which we control the drone completely manually via two virtual control buttons on the screen of our smartphone or tablet, there are different flight modes, in which the user is able to release a part of the control and automate it.

The drone as a self-contained stick

The Selfie mode is used to photograph and film yourself without having to pay too much attention to the control of the drone. Correspondingly, this mode should be executed in a range where interference in the trajectory can not occur. The Yuneec Breeze camera will show the user in this mode. The Selfie mode focuses more on the camera image and sets the control of the drone into the background. Accordingly, we do not control the copter with virtual control sticks on the screen as in pilot mode.

These are also as documented as with other copters: The left stick regulates the yaw and the ascent or the speed of the drone, the right is responsible for the direction. This division can also be reversed in the settings. Alternatively, a tilt control is also available: the yaw and the height / speed are still controlled by the virtual stick, while the direction is controlled by the smartphone. To do this, press and hold a corresponding button on the display with our thumb.

Simplified operation

In the Selfie mode, however, we adjust the distance and height simply by means of sliders in the standard setting, also the camera is adjusted in this way in height. This control makes it much easier to focus on the image, but it is also more difficult to react to suddenly appearing objects in the trajectory. Before activating the mode, the user is explicitly advised to pay attention to surrounding structures. The Yuneec Breeze does not have built-in sensors that warn of collisions or even objects.

After a brief familiarization, the selfie mode allows us to take good photos and videos, especially when we are shooting in Full HD. Then, the image is electronically stabilized, as opposed to images in 4K. These are better from the resolution and the details, but by the constant corrections, which the Yuneec Breeze in the flight independently makes, noticeably more jerky.

In orbit mode, the copter circle flies

Beware of surrounding objects, especially in orbit mode where the Yuneec Breeze flies in circles. Again, the control is reduced, we adjust the altitude and the distance by means of the slider. At the push of a button, the drone begins to cir- culate with or counter-clockwise at the set distance. This can take place around the user himself or around an object. The circuit is interrupted at the touch of a button.

In our tests, we found that the chosen circle should not be too tight, because the camera of the drone then has problems to really fly around a center point – this is not determined by tracking. Correspondingly, we were sometimes on the edge of the video recording rather than in the middle. If the circle is big enough, the centering will work better. But then users have to pay attention to other buildings, trees, and especially people.

In Journey mode, the Yuneec Breeze flies away from us and then returns to us. There is no way to determine the coordinates that are being flown here – the Breeze 4K simply flies away and returns. Accordingly, we found the mode of all least useful.

In the follow-me mode the copter follows only conditionally

This is different with the follow-me mode: As the name suggests, the copter follows us in this mode – or the mobile device connected to it. Yuneec does not use a high-resolution object recognition, but follows us exclusively via the smartphone or tablet, with which we control the drone. This means that other objects such as vehicles, other humans or animals can not be tracked.

The tracking works fine in our attempts, sometimes less good. The drone loses sight of us, but the result is satisfactory at normal walking speed. For the Yuneec Breeze to fly us, we have to switch a switch in the preview screen of our smartphone.

We’ll continue to review in the next post,please stay tuned to us.

 

The post Yuneec Breeze Review: Everything you should know-Part I appeared first on Drone Inner.

Could the Hover Camera crush DJI?

Unfamiliar to most costumers, the Zero Zero Robotics company has stirred the drone industry with the Hover Camera, a drone with a compact and unusual design. At launch, it was widely covered in traditional media and went viral on social media for a number of reasons: being the first selfie drone on the market, a charismatic CEO, exposure on talk shows, etc.

Could the Hover Camera crush DJI? Let’s take a closer look at the drone.

Zero Zero Robotics’s original idea was a selfie drone but what it actually came out with it more like a “tracking drone.” It’s a rather abrupt shift from one concept to another and possibly dangers as consumers prefer to stick with what they know.

Launched with first-class advertising and web design, the company even advertised on TV, which is an even more powerful platform. Yet, the moments following the launch weren’t in as high of a spirit.

DJI’s impressive Mavic Pro may not have had the impactful launch of the Hover Camera. But while Zero Zero Robotics has $25M in venture capital from investor, it seemingly has little more than this following their lackluster launch.

1. Market

This year has seen a number of portable drones being launched, including Dobby, Yuneec’s Breeze, GoPro’s Karma, DJI’s Mavic Pro, Tencent’s Ying, etc. Looking at how it’s positioned in its market, the Hover Camera competes directly with Dobby and not so much with DJI.

2. Timing

A successful launch needs more than a good concept; marketing, distribution, manufacturing capacity, and especially timing is crucial for success.

Based on this, the Hover Camera looks weak as a competitor. Dobby beat it to their launch, while the Mavic Pro performs significantly better for serious aerial photography.

3. Product

The Hover Camera has a unique design and unique functionality. But uniqueness doesn’t guarantee the survival of Zero Zero Robotics, and it doesn’t mean they can challenge their giant competitors.

4. Pricing

The Hover Camera’s pricepoint is seemingly far too high. Its launch price of $599 meant competing with the Mavic Pro and Phantom 3. It’s also significantly more expensive than the Dobby at $399. This is something that could have and should have been controlled during the design process.

Mavic Pro	$999	Yuneec Breeze	$599	Dobby	$399
Mavic w/o RC	$749	Phantom 3 Standard	$499	AR Drone	$299

5. Performance

While DJI’s Phantom and Inspire series set standards for aerial photography, but we’re yet to see a clear standard setting product in the selfie drone market. Hover Camera has traded performance for “100% safety” as they call it and that’s possibly something they regret. Like DJI did with the Mavic Pro, both performance and safety needs to be taken into consideration.

Conclusion

Unlike other companies in the selfie drone market, Zero Zero Robotics did not crowd fund the launch of the Hover Camera. Still, it faces intense competition from players like DJI and Xiaomi and the company has a tough road ahead. To say the least.

( Source )

 

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Because this I did not try Yuneec Breeze outdoor flight

Yuneec Breeze markets itself as a drone that is easy to fly without any experience and is pretty hard to crash.

However, scan Amazon.com for feedback from Yuneec Breeze buyers to discover reviews like “Not ready. Flawed indoor flight.” and “Please be very careful indoors. At the moment I cannot recommend the Yuneec Breeze indoors. ” Reviews like these should cause any potential Yuneec Breeze buyer to reconsider their impending drone purchase.

Below story comes from a buyer on Amazon.

The build quality of Yuneec Breeze is pretty good, and having two batteries and an easy to carry device were definitely bonuses. That being said, once it became flight time the fun flew away. I quickly found that it does not like flying over the vast majority of indoor setups. Had I first had the user manual I would have not bought this product.

Here are the indoor flight limits: No flying over- sparse surfaces, surfaces with patterns/textures, reflective surfaces, water, moving surfaces, or moving objects like blowing grass or animals, areas with lighting changes, dark or bright surfaces, surfaces with repeating textures or patterns… When I managed to find a surface capable of taking off from, the Yuneec Breeze drone had a tendency to wander the room rather than hover in place. I have darker carpet in my house. When I take off from the bed, which is the only surface I’ve found that does not throw a warning preventing takeoff, if the Breeze drone drifts over my carpet rather than reacting like the FAQ says and maintaining altitude, it goes up altitude and tries to power through the ceiling. To make matters worse, it would not land or react to the emergency button when this happened. I had to resort to the risky grab it out of the air and hit the power button the stop the props. On my tests where I manged to keep it from trying to scrape the ceiling, the constant warnings from the “Optical Flow Module” made the already sluggish tablet/phone based controls neigh unusable. The tablet/phone controls, while seeming nice at first as you have less gear to manage actually turns out to be a negative. The lack of a controller and joysticks that go with it means you have no fine control. What control you do have is very limited. When your OFM is freaking out, and you are trying to steer the Yuneec Breeze to keep it from wrecking, not having fine motor controls is a huge limiting factor. All in all I felt like I could not trust this Yuneec Breeze to either hover in place or follow me and capture video. Because the initial indoor tests went so poorly I did not try outdoor flight for fear a repeat of the ceiling scraping issue would cause the breeze to fly off never to be seen again. This product is not yet ready, in my opinions, and might be on the verge of being unsafe.

In Yuneec forums,many pilots noted the indoor crash. “I had several crashes indoor, I would say out of 8 flights the Yuneec Breeze went drifting and ignoring my command 6 times. I could catch her a few times then shutting off, but I got my piano and some probs damaged.

It is certainly an issue with the optical flow sensor or some similar sensor. When the drone flies over a carpet, my black or my grey couch I noticed slow response to my commands. The drone starts drifting. In two cases, after a short side drift, it went crazily fast to one direction until it crashed (the motors are switched off then).

Please be very careful indoors. At the moment I cannot recommend the Yuneec Breeze indoors. Even an experienced pilot can’t do anything as the drone ignores all commands from my phone in these cases (except emergency shutdown). Low light conditions seem to have a big impact on the sensor.

Yuneec should provide a manual control mode to fly the drone without the optical sensors or just let the pilot override the automatic reactions. Until then I’ll stay outside.”

What’s your story with Yuneec Breeze?

 

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