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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Hover Camera VS Dobby: Who is the king of selife drone?

The foldable drone trend is getting hotter week by week. Zerotech initiated it back in May 2016 with the Dobby drone, a tiny ‘cute’ drone with foldable arms. More recently, we got introduced to the Hover Camera Passport; another little book-sized drone which folds like one as well. Thus let’s compare the two drones!

Both drones automatically hover and let go and they can automatically follow you or your pet around. I am pretty sure your get will be excited about the prospect of a drone following it around. The Dobby and the Hover Camera carry a 13MP camera capable of recording 4K video. Both stream video via Wi-Fi to a smartphone. A smartphone app is used to control the drones. The Dobby also reacts to voice commands and gestures.

The Zerotech Dobby has an advertised speed of 40km/h while the Hover Camera Passport can fly at up to 27km/h. Maximum speed in this case is very important if you want the drone to follow you during a bike ride or other kind of activities with fast movements. The Hover Camera Passport might not be able to catch up!

Another important feature for those who get into drones for the first time, is the presence of some sort of hovering assistance, as it may come hard to keep the drone in a determined position when there’s wind and you still aren’t fully trained. Because of that, the Zerotech Dobby packs a GPS as well as GLONASS dual satellite navigation system to guarantee accurate hovering both indoor and outdoor, with wind speeds up to 28km/h.

On the other side, the Hover Camera Passport doesn’t seem to feature GPS-supported hover modes.

The Zerotech Dobby does seem like a strong contender to the Hover Camera Passport, and it might just be a good idea to get one right now. On the other hand, the Hover Camera Passport seems much more suited for first time drone pilots and folks who wish to film indoors.

Below are two video reviews of Hover camera and Zerotech Dobby:

(From Tested)

(From Dustin Dunnill)

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Yuneec Breeze VS Phantom 3

Breeze is the first drone released by Yuneec targeting the mass market with the price $499. Yuneec cut down on costs by opting to use smartphones (iOS and Android) as the controllers instead of having a dedicated remote control.

So the Yuneec Breeze drone is completely controlled with the Breeze Cam mobile app, offering several flight modes – Selfie, Follow Me, Orbit, Journey and Pilot—that will work both indoors or outdoors with the help of GPS and optical sensors.

The Breeze Cam mobile app also allows users to instantly share aerial photos and videos on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and WhatsApp

With its connected Breeze Cam App, the Yuneec Breeze is able to work with a variety of automatic creative modes.

• Selfie Mode keeps the drone in a single place, facing the user.
• Pilot Mode allows full manual controls.
• Orbit Mode has the drone circle any object.
• Follow Me Mode makes the drone follow the user’s smartphone with GPS.
• Journey Mode uses camera pitch to allow the user to make and view a trajectory for the drone to fly, reach a designated spot, and fly back to the user.

Yuneec employs what they call their Indoor Positioning System (IPS) to hold the Breeze drone in place either indoors or out.

Compared to the Phantom 3 series, despite being introduced 20 months ago, has blossomed into a mature and reliable platform with many 3rd party accessories and apps. The prices have come down while the capabilities have increased (due to apps and some DJI improvements). This being the case – it’s hard to come up with a better value than the Phantom 3 series. The Standard is for the (relative) beginner who is on a budget and wants to get his or her feet wet in aerial photography – while the Advanced and Pro models have advanced features that still keep the competition on the ropes. Many experts claim DJI is 2+ years ago of most other camera drone makers – and the P3 line seems to prove that point.

Breeze is considered a selfie drone and is made for those who belong in the social media generation. This seems to fall in competition with the Phantom 3 Standard. Both are completely different designed. The Breeze’s camera is in the body of the aircraft. But the Phantom 3 Standard has a more traditional gimbal which can produce better image. And at the same time, Phantom 3 Standard has longer flight time and farther controlling distance.

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The GoPro Karma is coming back,will you buy it?

After a November recall last year caused by an insecure battery latch, the GoPro has started shipping its Karma drone back to stores. Buyers can opt for the Karma drone bundled with a GoPro Hero 5 for $1099 or $799 without a camera.

Unfortunately, say some analysts, GoPro may have missed its chance to claim a substantial share of the market, let alone be a serious challenger to China’s DJI, the undisputed industry leader. That’s particularly true since the initial release of the Karma was delayed for about a year, and because the recall came not long after DJI launched its Mavic Pro, which was seen as a direct Karma competitor offering more features.

“Yes, I think it is,” says Frost & Sullivan drone analyst Michael Blades when asked if it was too late for GoPro to make an impact with the Karma. “After they were already delayed, then they [lost] their opportunity to get into that market before it’s saturated.”

Blades says he thinks it was a “bold” move for GoPro to recall the Karma when there was no legal requirement for the company to do so, and that he appreciates that the company seemed to have wanted to show its customers good faith by refunding their money and fixing the problem.

“It was a pretty good PR move,” he adds, “but coming back and trying to relaunch now, I hope they do well with it, but I don’t think anybody’s expectations are that high.”

For its part, GoPro argued that the Karma—which comes with an image-stabilizing camera grip that can be held by hand or worn—and which it markets as “Hollywood in a backpack,” capable of shooting professional-caliber photos and video, will do just fine on re-launch.

“GoPro has a legacy in image capture and a passionate global user base,” a spokesperson tells Fast Company. “We are well positioned to compete in the drone market with Karma, which is a versatile and complete capture solution for aerial, handheld, and wearable image stabilization.”

It’s inarguable that GoPro has built a worldwide community of users of its many different action cameras, and it is known for masterful marketing. Those two facts formed the basis for initial optimism when word first emerged in late 2014 of the company’s plans to get into the drone market. After all, the thinking went, people had long been mounting GoPro cameras on other manufacturers’ drones, including early DJI models, before the two companies began to face off as competitors rather than continue to work together as partners.

Still, not even counting the initial launch delays, the Karma faces two major hurdles to wide customer adoption. First, it lost valuable ground over the last two months to the Mavic Pro, which DJI unveiled just a week after the September launch of the Karma. While DJI had its own problems fulfilling customers’ orders for the Mavic Pro, that drone, which is feature-rich and similarly priced to the Karma, has been a big hit.

Second, and perhaps more problematic, is that the Karma is well behind both the Mavic Pro and other DJI drones when it comes to features, as well as compared to other companies’ drones. The Mavic is smaller than the Karma, and has a rich suite of obstacle avoidance and follow-me features that the Karma can’t match.

“It’s a 2015 drone in 2017,” says drone analyst Colin Snow. “It’s an overpriced, too-big foldable drone that doesn’t have as many features. Just feature by feature, the Mavic blows everybody out of the water.”

(Via Fastcompany )

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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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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DJI GS PRO: THE NEW GROUND STATION THAT REVOLUTION YOUR WAY TO FLY

DJI has announced the release of GS PRO (also known as Ground Station Pro), the iPad app that allows you to control and schedule automatic flights for DJI drone.

Through a few simple touches on the screen, you can program complex and take pictures flights in points (waypoints) preset.

The Ground Station Pro is equipped with a new feature, the Virtual Fence, which gives greater security and ease of flight, as it allows you to lock the height and speed within a designated area. The Virtual Fence is very useful in scenarios where there are no-fly zone and can be of great help in the training of future pilots. Moreover, its size and shape are fully customizable. The Virtual Fence can be created both before and during the flight, using the position of the drone as a starting point.

But it does not end there. Other functionalities are 3D Map POI (soon) and 3D Map Area. We’ll analyze them in detail.

3D Map POI

With this feature you can create maps of structures of a certain height. You must simply choose the subject and set a distance between it and the aircraft. The GS Pro will then provide the relevant parameters, including speed and time, to turn around the structure. The images can then be exported into the 3D reconstruction software to produce accurate 3D models of the entire building.

3D Map Area

The GS PRO automatically generates the best routes, after the user has set the flight area and the parameters of the room, and the drone will follow the assigned trajectory. Later, the images will be included in the 3D reconstruction software to generate 3D maps and the mission can be saved for later use.

With the GS Pro you can adjust several parameters including: overlap, altitude, shooting angle, course angle and margins. You can also set up to 99 waypoints and adjust the speed, the pitch of the gimbal and the rotation of the drone (clockwise / anticlockwise).

Each waypoint can have up to 15 consecutive actions, including the rotation of the drone, the pitch of the gimbal, recording start / stop, capture photos and hover.
You can also set the actions End of Mission through the Return To Home, hover or landing.

Two flight modes are finally available: Inside Mode and Scan Mode. Inside mode with the drone will follow a trajectory generated automatically within the selected area and Scan Mode will be provided the fastest route to cover the designated area.

The Ground Station Pro is an excellent application that allow you to improve the performance of various sectors such as agriculture, security, search and rescue, electrical inspections and many others.

The GS PRO is compatible with the following DJI platforms : Phantom 4/ Pro , Phantom Standard 3 / 4K / Advanced / Professional, Mavic Pro, Inspire 2, Inspire 1, Matrix Pro 600, matrix 600, matrix 100, A3 / A3 Pro, N3.

Finally, it is compatible with all cameras of the series Phantom 3/4 and Zenmuse X3, X5, X5R, X4S, X5S and Z3.

 

 

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Does Hover Camera Sacrifice Performance for Size?

Zero Zero’s new Hover Camera is a unique offering – a tiny, foldable camera with wings. You can easily control it with your smartphone or even let it follow you around as it automatically tracks and captures you on camera. But while the concept is appealing, questions remain: is the technology ready for being rolled out to the market? Which such constraints put on engineers and components due to size, it’s a challenge to create a high-performing product.

Let’s take a look at how the Hover Camera performs in real life, in three important aspects.

Stability

This tiny drone by necessity comes with tiny motors and propellers powered by a tiny battery. This leads is to wonder how it performs outdoors, in moderate to strong winds. As we found in our hands-on tests and as confirmed by Tested in their review, the Hover Camera has trouble even with the slightest bit of wind, and is easily pushed away from its path. Together with the fact that it uses Electronic Image Stabilization instead of a mechanical gimbal, the Hover Camera is just not stable enough for reliable image-making.

Flight time

There’s no way around the fact that a tiny drone can only fit a tiny battery. The Hover Camera has a real-world flight time of about 7 minutes while filming, meaning that you have to carefully plan every shot so as not to run out of batteries. This means that while small, Zero Zero’s drone takes a lot of effort to use even though the product is supposed to be effortless.

Camera

The Hover Camera also packs a tiny camera sensor that performs on par with 2-3 year old smart phones, much below what an iPhone 7 or Samsung S7 can do. Because of the small sensor, both low light and bright light photography suffers as the dynamic range is simply too small. Night time photos are noisy and dark, while sunny photos exhibit blown out highlights and little detail.

The vision recognition feature also suffers in low-light conditions for the same reason.

Conclusion: Toy-like performance

Because of the compromises made in engineering the Hover Camera and the current state of technology, this flying camera really only performs as expected under ideal conditions. Any time it is moved outside of the lab, it becomes more like a toy than a product with a $600 price tag.

( Source )

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