Make the Coolest Drone selfies with Lily

Are you a fan of all those beautiful drone videos? Soon it will be a child’s play to make a drone movie with Lily Camera. Lily is not a normal drone that you must control remotely, but one that follows you based on a GPS tracker and facial recognition. You throw the device just in the air, after which it begins to follow you. The camera is in high definition and slow motion recording and is waterproof. Lily will come on the market next year at a cost of around 800 dollars.

Lily: An ambitious project

It is an ambitious project from Antoine Balaresque and Henry Bradlow, two classmates in the training computer science at the University of Berkeley. Lily has a battery life of approximately 20 minutes and follows his ‘boss’ via a GPS tracker you put in your pocket or wear around your wrist. The camera in the drone automatically focuses on the person who is holding the handset and uses algorithms and advanced technology to center it. Lily also records audio from the tracker and automatically synchronizes the audio with the video.

Tech website The Verge could test a prototype of the camera in New York and was pretty impressed with the results. As the promo video promises, the drone stabilizes itself even after turning around a few times, and it automatically begins to fly. Lily does this even in wet conditions. The drone is fully waterproof and floats. It can also land on your hand through sensors and a downward facing camera.

Lily Drone

“Cameras are now mostly limited by how well the user can shoot,” says creator Bradlow. “But with a flying camera, you get great pictures from all angles, which it also operates.” Everything works extremely easy, says Bradlow. It is an amazing gadget, its all about the practice, and it is useful for different areas of work, I actually noticed my roof was messed up thanks to the drone, so I had to call the Bell Roofing Company, it was funny, never would have realize this without this awesome drone.

Simply throw the drone up and you’re off. Sensors in the camera and the GPS Tracker can recognize, for example, when you make a jump and then automatically switch over to slow motion mode. Through the GPS tracker, you can also give manual instructions and choose whether the drone must fly around you, or should exchange position in front or behind you. In addition to the HD picture quality of 1080p, Lily can also take 12-megapixel photos.

Lily the camera is still under development and costs through pre-order now $499. The final price will be twice as high. And a minus tentative: the drone can’t currently dodge obstacles, and requires an open space.

3D Robotics X8+ Review and Price

3D Robotics X8+ drone is a powerful octocopter with a high payload. The 3DR X8+ is, due to its high load capacity, suitable to attach various devices to the drone. Due to the possibility to carry out autonomous flights, the X8+ 3DR is also suitable to deliver small goods. 3D Robotics X8+ Features Professional octocopter … Read more

UDI-U818a Quadcopter Drone

UDI-U818a is a quadcopter of almost 35cm with a 720p HD camera. Super suitable for both indoor and outdoor usage.

The frame is, by the materials used, easy to wrap around your finger. If you let it go, it will shoot it right back to its original shape. You have to do your best to break something on this drone.

Under the UDI U818a there is a standard camera that is good for images of 1,280 x 720 pixels (video at 30 FPS). A 4GB mini SD card is included.

udi u818a quadcopter drone
The U818a in action.

The quadcopter has 4 channels which gives you many fly options (even sideways). You have a flight time of approximately 10 minutes (depending on your flight behavior). The controller has a dedicated buttons for creating 360 flips and taking pictures/videos. The quadcopter can be quickly recharged via the included AC adapter. This generally takes about 30 minutes. The battery is very easy to replace.

The drone uses a 6-axis technique. This means your quadcopter is much more stable in the air compared to others.

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Parrot Rolling Spider MiniDrone Review

Rolling Spider Mini Drone from Parrot is a fun toy drone which is suitable to fly indoor. With the removable plastic wheels the Rolling Spider can roll over walls and ceilings and the propellers won’t touch the walls. Rolling Spider is easy to control and from any platform via the Free Flight app 3.
parrot rolling spider mini drone

Features Parrot Rolling Spider

  • Frame of sturdy, robust plastic
  • Up to 20 meter range
  • 0.3 megapixel camera
  • Control via smartphone, tablet or computer
  • Bluetooth Smart technology, V4.0 BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy)
  • Interchangeable LiPo battery
  • Flight time 8 minutes (6-minute wheels)

Acrobatics

parrot rolling spider mini drone acrobatics
Rolling Spider is a light and small drone. When you equip the Rolling Spider with the wheels, you can roll it up against walls or on your ceiling. The propeller blades are equipped with a special system allowing the drone to stop when it hits something. You will not quickly destroy things in the house.

Steering
The control of the Parrot Rolling Spider works through the Free Flight app 3. The app can be downloaded on Android, iOS and Windows. The app connects via Bluetooth 4.0 signal with the drone. The app makes flying very easy by the customizable interface. Making pictures can also be done with one push of a button in the app.

Stable
The Parrot Rolling Spider is equipped with a 3-axis gyroscope and 3-axis accelerometers allowing the drone to fly stable on autopilot. Rolling Spider has also two sensors for flying at high altitude or for precise control when flying close to the ground.

Camera
The Parrot Rolling Spider has a camera that is located on the underside of the drone. The 0.3 megapixel camera takes portrait photos. The photos are stored in the memory of the Rolling Spider and can then be downloaded from the Free Flight app 3.

Different colors
parrot rolling spider mini drone colors
The Parrot Rolling Spider is available in white, blue and red. In addition, there are 12 different mouth stickers in the box which you can use to give your drone a face.

In the box

  • Parrot Rolling Spider Mini Drone
  • USB to micro-USB cable
  • LiPo battery
  • Wheels
  • 12 unique mouth stickers
  • Manual
  • Conclusion

The Parrot Rolling Spider is a fun and easy to drive drone. The colors and the face of the drone make it more playful and is already for sale at various toy stores. We see the Parrot Rolling Spider as an ideal gift for the holidays.

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Review: Yuneec Typhoon Q500+

The Q500 + Typhoon is a quadcopter from the Chinese manufacturer Yuneec. The drone has a 3-axis gimbal camera and a controller that features the Android operating system. You can watch directly on the controller via the camera of Yuneec Q500 in order to make the perfect shots. Features Yuneec Q500 Ready-to-Fly Follow me function … Read more

Drones Plague in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is plagued by drones. The world famous bridge is very popular with filmmakers and therefore drones are regularly reported in the nearby airspace. Reducing number of drones The company responsible for the management of the Golden Gate Bridge asked senator Dianne Feinstein to reduce the number of flying … Read more

Drones and wind: How much do you know?

If you’re flying with your drone then you obviously take into account the weather conditions. An important part of the weather where you as a drone pilot always deal with is the wind. What is wind? Wind is a natural movement of air from the atmosphere. Wind is created by horizontal differences in air pressure, … Read more

Researchers are working on controlling drones with thoughts

Four organizations have developed a method to control drones with thoughts. An EEG scan is used to do this. The pilots are controlling a virtual joystick with their brains. The method was developed by the Portuguese company Tekever. The organizations now conduct live tests with the technology when they sustained earlier successfully planes in the … Read more

NASA develops ‘Air Traffic Control’ for unmanned aircraft

NASA is working on software to realize air traffic control for unmanned aircraft. The space agency hopes to eventually be able to guide drones safely through habited zones. The software that NASA is working on is intended for unmanned aircraft flying high up to about 150 meters, writes The New York Times. The system would, … Read more