Taking a selfie by holding your phone at arm’s length is usually fine if you’re only taking a snap of yourself or at most another person. But when you try to squeeze more people into the frame or want to see the background too, a camera at the end of your arm just won’t cut it. Neither will a 3-foot long selfie stick. Is there a better alternative? The folds at AirSelfie think so.
AirSelfie is a small smartphone-sized drone whose sole purpose is to take pictures of you as quickly and easily as possible.
This drone is made of lightweight anodized aluminum and features a flat design for easy launching and landing and a 5-megapixel camera with 4GB of storage for images.
It’s powered by a rechargeable battery that provides 3 minutes of flight time and it communicates with your phone via 2.4Ghz WiFi.
AirSelfi comes with a smartphone charging case that provides up to 20 charges in the field.
The AirSelfie drone will be shipping in July and is currently available for pre-order on airselfiecamera.com with a limited time special discount of $279.13 for the drone without the charging case and on Amazon for $329.00 with the charging case and free shipping.
The fine folks at AirSelfie will be sending me a drone to review, so stay tuned for some Gadgeteer selfies very soon!
Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.
We’ve reviewed a variety of drones over the years, from the high-end Chroma 4K drone to the teeny tiny Axis Vidius drone. But this is the Eachine E55 is the first folding pocket drone that we’ve had the opportunity to review. And after my experience with this one, it might be the last… Let’s take a look.
What is it?
The Eachine E55 is a folding pocket drone that can be controlled with an iOS or Android device or the included handheld remote control.
What’s in the box?
Eachine E55 drone
Remote control with phone bracket
Extra propellers
Screwdriver
USB charging stick
USB charging cable
Drone battery
User manual
Design and features
This drone doesn’t even look like a drone at first glance. I’m not sure what it looks like. Maybe a small backup battery, or something like that.
The Eachine E55 is made of plastic with a power button on the top.
On the bottom, you will find the battery compartment.
A thin fragile feeling door opens to allow access to the battery.
That battery has to be removed and charged using the included USB charging stick. Charging this way is inconvenient and the inconvenience gets worse when you find out that it takes about 40 minutes to fully charge the battery. That wouldn’t be a deal breaker if a charge allowed you a long fight time, but unfortunately, you will only get 6-8 minutes of flying time per charge.
Notice the glowing LED on the USB charging stick and notice that the stick isn’t plugged into anything… That LED is supposed to be a charging status LED. I found that the LED would sometimes turn off when I plugged the stick (and battery) into a USB power adapter. And sometimes it remained on – forever so that I never could tell when the battery was finished charging.
At only 2.56 x 2.56 x 0.98 inches, it is very pocket-friendly compared the majority of other drones on the market. But the real magic happens when you unfold the four legs (arms?) to reveal the propellers.
Nifty huh?
Let’s fly!
You can fly the Eachine E55 drone using your smartphone or the included handheld controller. I loaded the app and tried to pair my Nexus 6P with the drone but had no luck. So I decided to try the handheld controller because the instructions claimed that it had a one button take off and one button landing feature.
The controller looks and feels like an inexpensive video game controller. It has two thumb-style joysticks with a D-pad below each one.
The controller also comes with an attachment that will let you attach your smartphone to the controller. Since I was unable to pair the drone with my phone, I didn’t test using both together. I actually didn’t get much time at all to test the Eachine E55 as you will see in the video below.
See it in action (sorta)
As you can tell from the video, I didn’t have much luck or time flying the E55 drone before it flew off into my woods to be lost forever. It’s so small that I couldn’t find it.
Final thoughts
The instructions that come with the drone fail to provide the most important info on how to fly the drone. You have to turn on the drone, turn on the handheld controller. Press the left throttle up, press the left throttle down, and then press the take off button. Sounds easy right? It is IF you know that you’re supposed to do that. As you can tell from my video, I kept trying to fly just using the take off button. And after minutes of trying that, I started pressing combinations of buttons until the drone finally lifted into the air. To say it was frustrating is an understatement.
It’s a shame that I never got a chance to really get used to flying this little drone or to test the camera and other features.
The Eachine E55 could be fun but I can’t say one way or another. I will say that having to remove the battery from the drone to charge it is annoying and not knowing when the battery is fully charged is also annoying. You also have to supply your own batteries (3 AAAs) for the handheld remote control.
When it’s all said and done, the Eachine E55 Mini WiFi FPV Foldable Pocket Drone annoyed me and for that reason, I can’t recommend buying one.
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Eachine. Please visit their site for more info and Amazon to order.
Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.
This week, drone industry leader DJI announced their latest market offering, the $499 Spark. The Spark is a stylish “lifestyle accessory” drone that has a 16 minute flight time, obstacle avoidance and the unique ability to be controlled via hand gestures alone.
By design, the Spark is meant to be taken with you and used. It weighs less than a can of soda and can be folded up small enough to fit into a backpack or purse. The Spark can be “quick launched” from your palm and without a remote or mobile device, you can use simple hand gestures to position it to take a selfie. Or, you can use one of the preset flight modes to have it follow you, circle the action or automatically create a 10-second shareable video from shot footage.
And, if the Spark gets too far from you or you’ve navigated it out of sight by accident, it can return to you safely thanks to built-in obstacle avoidance similar to the DJI Mavic and Phantom 4 drones.
Aside from hand gestures, the Spark can be operated by an optional remote controller or with the DJI app on a mobile device. In “Sport Mode” the Spark can attain speeds of up to 31 mph and allows you to view the action from a first-person view using the optional DJI Goggles.
The Spark houses a front-facing camera set on a 2-axis gimbal that captures 12-megapixel photos and shoots stabilized 1080p videos. It is powered by a LiPo battery and has a maximum flight time of up to 16 minutes.
The Spark will be available in five different colors; Alpine White, Sky Blue, Meadow Green, Lava Red, and Sunrise Yellow.
For $499 you’ll get a DJI Spark, a battery, a USB charger and three pairs of propellers. For $699 you can get the “Spark Fly More Combo” which includes a Spark, two batteries, four pairs of propellers, a remote controller, propeller guards, a charging hub, a shoulder bag and all necessary cables.
The Spark is up for preorder today with a ship date of June 15. Go to dji.com for more info.
Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.
Imagine this… you’re racing your RC car along the ground when an unexpected obstacle suddenly blocks your path. Instead of crashing, the car zooms into the air where you continue controlling it in flight. If that sounds like more fun than Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, then you have to check out this RC flying car from Hammacher Schlemmer.
With a scaled ground speed of 67 mph, this race car shaped drone can be maneuvered like other RC cars from up to 130 feet away using the included 2.4 GHz radio remote control.
Take sharp fast and furious left and right turns while driving on the ground and then in the air enjoy 360° movement that includes spins, loops, and rolls.
The flying car’s built-in rechargeable battery provides up to five-minute flight times from a full charge using the included USB charger.
The RC Flying Car can be purchased for $59.95 at Hammacher Schlemmer. You can also find a wide selection of similar flying cars on Amazon too.
Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.
Remote controlled planes, helicopters, and drones can be a lot of fun if they are easy to fly and don’t shatter into a million pieces when you crash them, which you know will happen. The newest drone to fly the skies near my house is the Parrot Swing minidrone. Let’s see how fun it is to fly and if it can survive a crash.
What is it?
The Parrot Swing minidrone is a remote-controlled flying toy with a built in camera.
What’s in the box?
Parrot Swing drone
2 Batteries
Flypad remote control
4 replacement propellers
micro USB charging cable
Manuals for the Swing and Flypad
Design and features
The Parrot Swing drone is an X-shaped drone with lightweight foam wings.
The front of the Swing has 2 LEDs that give it a bug-eyed appearance, but they are really only there to provide status on the drone as far as battery life, connection to the Flypad, etc.
The rear of the Swing has a battery slot, micro USB charging port and a tiny camera which is located to the left of the micro USB connector. Before you get too excited, the camera will NOT capture video. It can only capture snapshots.
The Parrot Swing comes with 2 batteries. In the image above, one battery is installed in the drone. Charging is done with the included micro USB cable which can be connected to an existing USB power adapter or a port on your computer.
The power switch is located on the bottom/belly of the drone.
Also included with the drone is a very nice handheld controller called the Flypad. This controller pairs with an Android or iOS smartphone which attaches to the Flypad using the spring loaded holder.
The Flypad has joystick controls and shoulder buttons. It feels like a premium gaming controller.
In the image above, I have an LG G6 connected to the Flypad. The Flypad has built in rechargeable batteries which charge through a micro USB port in the center bottom edge of the controllers.
Let’s fly the Parrot Swing drone!
Before you can take the Parrot Swing on its first flight, you will need to charge it using the included micro USB cable. It takes about 30 minutes to charge the battery. My suggestion is to charge one battery, remove it, insert the second battery and charge it too. This way you can swap batteries for double the flight time. It’s too bad that Parrot doesn’t include an external charger that will charge both batteries at the same time.
The next step is to install the free FreeFlight Mini app on your iOS or Android device. You can use your phone as the controller, but it’s a lot more fun and easy to fly if you charge up the Flypad.
When the Swing’s battery is fully charged, the app is installed on your mobile device and the Flypad is charged, it’s time to head outdoors.
You press the power button on the Swing power it up and then place it on the ground with the propellers facing upwards.
When the 2 “eyes” on the drone are solid green, you can launch the FreeFlight mini app on your mobile device and make sure Bluetooth is enabled. The app will see the drone and connect to it. You can then turn on the Flypad controller and the app will detect and connect to it.
Pressing the dedicated take off and landing button on the Flypad will cause the Swing’s propellers to start rotating and will raise the drone a few feet in the air. Moving the left joystick on the Flypad up and down will raise and lower the drone, and using the right joystick will make the drone fly side to side.
When you first start flying the Swing, it’s in quad mode (image above) which means it can fly up, down, left, and right like a typical drone. But if you press the right shoulder button on the Flypad controller, it will switch to plane mode which flips the Swing over so it looks like a flying dragonfly (other images in this review) instead of a flying X if that makes sense. The joysticks and buttons on the Flypad react differently depending on the mode you’re in.
There are also dedicated buttons that will do a U-turn and a loop in the air. The U-turn is very useful if you happen to be flying straight towards a building or tree!
If you don’t want to use the Flypad, you can fly the Swing just using the onscreen buttons in the FlightTime Mini app. But I think the Flypad provides a much better experience.
The app does give you details about each flight and allows you to see and share the images that you took with the Swing’s built-in camera to Facebook or download them. But trust me when I say that you probably will not be sharing any of the images.
I kept trying to get a picture of myself and as you can see from the samples above, it wasn’t an easy task. Even if I would have been able to get a good picture, the resolution is really low.
See it in action!
I thought it was difficult to control the Parrot Swing the first time I flew it. But it only took a few minutes to get the hang of it. Unfortunately, the flight time per battery charge is just that, only a few minutes. That’s why I suggested that you charge both batteries before you head outside to fly it. Thirty minutes of charging will allow you to fly for about 10 minutes give or take. The app will start beeping when the battery power is down to 7% and the Parrot Swing minidrone will go into quad mode and land by itself when battery power goes to 2-3%.
Can it survive a crash?
Yes, it can and yes it did. Multiple times. But there was some “damage”. After one crash I noticed that one of the propellers was missing. Trying to find a small black or white object in piles of leaf clutter was impossible. The propellers really should be a brighter, more noticeable color.
I didn’t freak out though because I remembered that an extra set of propellers are included in the package. So I went back to the house and installed one of the black propellers. I then went back outside to resume flying. But each time I tried to fly, the Parrot Swing would flop over. I double checked all the propellers and the wings to make sure there wasn’t some additional damage that I had missed, but everything looked and felt fine. I continued to try to fly it, but each time the propellers spun up, the drone will flop over on its side.
I returned to the house, flipped through the manual to see if there were any instructions for replacing the propellers and found none. So I searched around on Parrot’s website and found a user forum where another person was asking about the same problem. Long story short, there are clockwise propellers and counter-clockwise propellers. But the weird thing is that the color doesn’t designate which way they should turn or be installed. I had to install a white propeller in place of the missing black propeller.
Once I had the right propeller installed, flying fun commenced.
Final thoughts
The Parrot Swing minidrone is a LOT of fun to fly either in quad or plane mode (I like the plane mode the best). It’s not hard to get the hang of it and once you do, crashes don’t happen that often unless you’re flying near a lot of trees like I am. But if you do crash, the Swing seems to be tough enough to handle it. Just make sure that you have extra propellers handy and know which one goes where.
At about $99, the Parrot Swing isn’t too expensive. I just wish the built-in camera was better and the flight times were longer. But even with those minor complaints, it’s still a really fun flying toy.
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Parrot. Please visit their site for more info and Amazon to order.
Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.
