Image: Xiaomi
Xiaomi, one of China’s largest consumer electronics brands, just unveiled it’s first foray into the drone market, a consumer quadcopter dubbed Mi Drone. It’s your standard consumer quadcopter that looks a lot like what is already on the market, and according to the launch event that live streamed on the company’s website today, Mi Drone boasts quite a bang for your buck.
The quadcopter’s design is quite familiar; there’s landing gear resting underneath, four arms that splay outwards, and a camera and gimbal located in the center of drone. About the only thing different with this drone is the insanely cheap price tag and lack of features. The entry-level Mi Drone costs $380 and records standard 1080p 60 fps video, and a slightly more expensive $460 version records 4K video. That’s significantly cheaper than DJI’s $650 Phantom 4K
Image: Xiaomi
The included controller is sleek, white, and sort of resembles a bunny. There’s a button for beginners to press and the drone will take off or land. A dial on the left controls the camera’s tilt and a button on the right controls the shudder, and a micro-USB charging port is on the bottom. Two antennae provide a max range of one mile or half a mile for the $380 version of the drone. Pilots can fold the antennae down and clip their phone to the controller for viewing live drone footage in 720p.
Powered by a phone app, Mi Drone can fly towards a point of interest, follow a route, and orbit a point of interest while filming it. There was a rumored follow-me feature using Xiaomi’s Mi Band, but it’s not happening. Nonetheless, the current feature set is definitely worth the $380 minimum price.
Some extra specs worth mentioning are the battery and flight time. Xiaomi is shipping Mi Drone with one battery pack, but a single battery can power the Mi Drone for a non-stop flight of twenty seven minutes.
What Xiaomi does best with its products is provide unprecedented price tags to their comparable products. The Mi Drone is no exception. Xiaomi will start an open beta for the $460 Mi Drone this July and will launch the cheaper $380 version on their own crowdfunding platform tomorrow. No word on whether the Mi Drone will be sold outside of China, but since Xiaomi is now competing with DJI, I’m sure the company will make Mi Drone available worldwide.
Source: Mi
The post Xiaomi Launches Its First Drone To Rival DJI appeared first on Simplebotics.