I returned the DJI because you had to make an account and register your drone before you could fly with the controller. Additionally after I returned it, a friend showed me the appalling snooping they do on their customers and flights.
Seems like it could be an attempt to understand and police some of that activity rather than "appalling snooping".
https://medium.com/skydio/skydio-2-drone-industry-34b5634d48...
Any user (or AI!) sharing the airspace should carefully read and follow FAA rules https://www.faa.gov/uas/recreational_fliers/ or the local laws, a point that is seldom mentioned by some sellers.
Is this something that modern drones can handle now, or something that requires careful flying?
Pics: https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/1/20892377/skydio-2-drone-a...
That said, there is always a skill ladder to climb if you want jaw-dropping professional footage, where understanding lighting, composition, editing, etc. benefit the quality of what you can make. The drone is pretty good at autonomously picking good shots, but there's also a lot of manual control possible, especially with the controller.
Compared to those, flying drones like those from DJI require almost no skill. These drones do some form of obstacle avoidance on their own. You basically have to tell them where to fly and they will go there. Some are smarter than others in how they execute the manoeuvres, but some common sense will get you a long way with those.
Can you provide a discount coupon for us nice folks on HN? simone dot brunozzi at gmail
Thanks!
The parts come from all over the world, I don't know the exact breakdown of country of origin. Assembly, testing, and shipping all happens from Redwood City. Eventually, it might become necessary to move some of that work overseas, but we really enjoy the rapid development and iteration speed that comes from having the assembly line across the street from the engineers.
Also, make sure you can get back to land when the battery runs out, or that you're really comfortable hand-catching it.
Edit: I have been informed that you can manually set a "home point" on land to return to when the battery gets low. Also, apparently the surfing footage we captured was done with a pilot on shore with the joysticks as a range extender, and the subject being tracked purely visually (no beacon involved)
Want to send me one so we can find out? ;-)
It's incredibly rare that a company is on the cutting edge of both software and hardware. There are hardly any other companies in this category. I'd say:
- SpaceX (the control software for landing is outstanding)
- Apple (although their software isn't the best, i.e. Siri, or how late to the game they were with night sight)
- Not Tesla (hardware is incredible, auto pilot is struggling)
- Not Amazon (Kindle is great, but not a remarkable engineering achievement)
edit: I work at Skydio -- all the footage you are seeing is real and filmed entirely on Skydio 2. In our launch video each clip is labeled with "Flying Itself - No Pilot" where it is totally autonomous and "Piloted with AI Assist" when a pilot is using Skydio Controller combined with on-board obstacle avoidance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imt2qZ7uw1s
Looking for something similar to Matterport, but flyable.
This could either be first-person flying, or the generation of stereo-correct video (using offset cameras) for later viewing.
This has eyes mounted everywhere, but I presume it dedicates its visual cortex (to stretch the analogy a bit) to the ones facing in the directions that matter.
i was going to give a smack down about how there is no information about legal and safety issues around drones, and while it isn't on the front page it was very, very easy to find.
https://support.skydio.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000586653-Sk...
cc dang